Hello, fellow earthly citizen. I don’t know your offline identity, but I stumbled across your Reddit post late one night after a vivid debate with my pregnant friend. Even through the cold computer screen, I could feel your worry and anger. As I was scrolling through your deliberation on whether remaining childfree was “the best way to fight climate change”, your final sentence echoed in my head: “No more kids to feed this destructive system until humans agree to a sustainable future.”
You are not alone with your despair. If you are a millennial woman like me, discussions about (not) having children are as common for you as confusions about Gen Z slang. There is your work colleague, soberly enumerating how not having kids reduces your carbon footprint. There is your new father friend, gloomily wondering what dystopic future his child will face in a world altered by the double crisis of extinction and climate change.
In case you do not wish to have children, you can stop reading. I am neither a zealous pro-natalist nor aiming to invade your life plans.
However, if you lie awake at night because you have always dreamt of a family, or if you are holding back because you fear that your offspring might destroy the planet, or what world your unborn children might inherit, listen to me: Suppressing an existing wish to have children is a misguided contribution to saving planet earth from environmental destruction.
Why so? Here’s an unpopular fact: As humans, we are known to discriminate against others based on features that have no real moral importance, such as sex, race, religion, or species. While this attitude has been denounced and there is evidence we are not born with it, a preference for humans is still unquestionably predominant, to the point where we value one human life above the survival of an entire species.
With this so-called “speciesism” comes the inconvenient truth that many fellow citizens will not be driven to protect the environment for the sake of non-human species alone.
Human children, on the other hand, are perfect motivators: Babies activate our brains in ways that incite us to care for them, even for those among us who are not parents.
That is to say, our chances to get people to care about sustaining livable conditions here on earth might greatly increase if they are encouraged to fight for a better future for our cute, vulnerable, human offspring. Your children could be a most powerful inspiration for change.
Hold on, you might now argue: Are you saying the only purpose for human children is that they are of instrumental value, i.e., great marketing tools for enlisting people in fighting the climate and extinction crisis?
Do not fear: There is another argument to be made, suggesting that human life – and thereby, human procreation – has intrinsic value, meaning value in itself that does not derive from its usefulness.
In a pertinent astroethics article, Ted Peters argues that “life is better than non-life” because “(…) life can experience the good when it survives and thrives, even life at its simplest single cell level.” In other words, who could appreciate the flourishing of life if not living things?
If we accept this baseline assumption (“life is inherently valuable”), it should apply to all earthly species until we find good reasons for it not to. One extreme view challenging this notion is anthropocentrism – humans count before everything else. As mentioned above, it is morally problematic.
But here’s the twist: The opposite view, suggesting that human life is less worthy of existence and procreation than the life of other species, is just as hard to defend as the other extreme. We need to ask: Are there good reasons why a future without humans is preferable to one where all species thrive?
A frequent answer given here is that humans endanger other species, replicating too fast, using too many resources, and polluting our shared home. An often-cited 2017 study admonishes that one fewer child could prevent the emission of 58.6 tonnes CO2-equivalent per year.
But this calculation, as many others, omits the fact that any prediction for the future is just that – a prediction. In reality, we don’t know whether tomorrow’s humans will cause as many emissions as the average adult in 2025. Even worse: without children, we significantly reduce our chances that great, yet unborn, minds will drive current scientific knowledge and ethical considerations forward. We should also acknowledge that resource consumption varies globally, and fewer people are no guarantee for a sustainable use of fossil fuels.
Giving up on reproduction essentially means we only see one pathway towards a healthier planet: a future without us. Some very human part inside of me rejects this fatalist lack of creativity. I can’t think of a duller solution for the crises we face than collectively burying our heads in the sand and preparing for human extinction. This planet is our home, and therefore, our responsibility as well.
So to you, dear unknown earthly citizen, dreaming of seeing their children grow, I say: Do not suppress your wish to love, nurture, and pass on your morals and knowledge.
Giving up procreation is an overly simplified attempt at saving our planet, might rob us of important psychological incentives to make the earth a sustainable home for all, and reduce the chances for groundbreaking future innovations.
On Earth Day 2025, Manuela Ripa, a member of the European parliament, reminded us that we are protecting Earth not from us, but “for us and future generations”. If I may build on that, I’d like to add, and with us.
Eva Lechleitner-Reinelt, MD, MSc works in family medicine, palliative care, and harm reduction.