Here’s a (not)fun fact: The environmental toll of having even one child is equivalent to 58.6 tonnes of carbon each year. So, would you give up your dream of having children to help save the earth? An article on The Guardian says, “The UK-based organization Population Matters wouldn’t call for human extinction – even in jest – but it does campaign against population growth which, it says, contributes to environmental degradation, resource depletion, poverty and inequality.”
Gwynn Mackellen, a recycling consultant, was 26 when she decided to get sterilized. “I always knew I didn’t want kids, for environmental reasons… It’s not people being bad; it’s just the effects of people. The trees are being cut down on our behalf. Plastic waste is being dumped and minerals are being mined not because of bad people, but because of people. Having fewer of us, there will be less of those effects.”
We can embrace all the electric cars, renewable energy sources and plant-based foods we like, but, she believes, this can’t make up for overpopulation.
Source:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jun/20/give-up-having-children-couples-save-planet-climate-crisis