Should We Have Children in a Climate Emergency?

Climate One

News, Earth Sciences, Social Sciences, Science, News Commentary

4.7 • 585 Ratings

🗓️ 27 August 2021

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | Apple Podcasts | RSS

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Summary

Listener Advisory: This episode contains some content related to a suicide. If you or someone you love is thinking about suicide, the National 24-hour Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. This summer, the climate crisis seems to be unfolding faster than ever before — with catastrophic floods, huge wildfires, and killer heat. It’s becoming increasingly hard to mentally set climate aside as a future problem — it is here, real in our present moment. How do we grapple with the weight of these changes, and process our fear for what is coming for us, and for the next generation? And how do those emotions affect our decisions about whether or not to have children, who in many ways represent an embodied version of our hope for the future? Guests: Daniel Sherrell, Author, Warmth, Coming of Age at the End of Our World Seb Gould, physics teacher Irène Mathieu, pediatrician and poet Virginie Le Masson, co-director of the Centre for Gender and Disaster at University College London Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	AI is incredible. They can teach you how to fry an egg and even write a poem, pirate style.
0:07.0	But it knows nothing about your work. Slackbot is different. It doesn't just know the facts.
0:14.0	It knows your schedule. It can turn a brainstorm into a brief and it doesn't need to be taught.
0:20.0	Because Slackbot isn't just another
0:22.4	AI. It's AI that knows your work as well as you do. Visit Slack.com forward slash meet Slackbot to
0:29.0	learn more. Hey, this is Greg. As you've heard me say, talking about climate can be really hard and dark.
0:35.8	And I want to warn you that the first part of
0:37.5	our show discusses a suicide. If you or anyone you know is contemplating suicide, there are 24-hour
0:43.3	resources at the National Suicide Prevention Hotline. That's 1-800-273-8255.
0:53.5	This is Climate One. I'm Greg Dalton.
0:56.6	Climate disruption is in the headlines nearly every day, penetrating deeper into our personal lives.
1:03.2	How do we process the meaning of that?
1:05.4	I actually think what the climate crisis demands of us is holding to each other tighter and gripping faster in solidarity and love
1:12.9	rather than saying goodbye to each other in death or in emotional isolation.
1:18.3	And in these uncertain times, how are we weighing the decision of whether or not to bring
1:22.9	more children into the world?
1:25.2	On the emotional side, I know I want to have children. I always want it,
1:28.9	but on the rational side, I don't know. You know, maybe there's no answer, right answer to this
1:36.3	ethical debate, but maybe just your certainty and your deep feeling that you are meant to mother
1:40.8	in this way is enough to answer the question. How do we plan for the next generation to inherit a society destabilized by our addiction
1:49.2	to fossil fuels?
1:51.3	Climate One's empowering conversations connect all aspects of the climate emergency.
	...

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