Is Climate Change Making You Rethink Having Children?

When a 39-year old scientist released a study about how having children impacts climate change, she found herself under the microscope, with everyone asking: so, are you having kids?

- Kristina Johnson

Is climate change making you rethink having children? You’re not alone. A study from the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) found 78 per cent of women aged under 30, or their friends and family, have experienced worry or anxiety about climate change and the future. When US congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who’s 29, questioned whether we should still be having children in the face of it, Australian women felt similarly – 33.4 per cent of those surveyed by the ACF are having second thoughts about having children because they will face an “unsafe future from climate change”.

Kimberly Nicholas, who grew up in Northern California, is one of these women, too. But her story caused an outcry that revealed a lot about social expectations of women. She remembers in the 1990s listening to the conservative talk-show host Rush Limbaugh (the American Alan Jones) complain about tax breaks and flag burnings on her mum’s car radio. Since then, she’s left her parents’ politics far behind, becoming a climate scientist and decamping to Sweden, where she’s an associate professor at Lund University. But it still felt surreal when she got a message from a friend informing her that the conservative talkshow host had been railing on-air – about Nicholas herself.

“She’s trying to decide whether to have children because of climate change!” Limbaugh said into his mic. “Why even get married? What’s her name here? Kimberly. Kimberly, why get married? What is the point if you’re not gonna have kids?”