Tom Woodman

Thursday

Tom Woodman

Baby doomers: why are couples putting the planet ahead of parenthood?

From our UK edition

38 min listen

In this week’s episode: Why are a growing number of people putting the planet before parenthood? Madeleine Kearns writes about this phenomenon in this week’s issue and thinks that some of these fears might be unfounded. Tom Woodman author of Future is one of these people that Madeleine’s piece talks about. Tom has very real worries about bringing a child into the world. It's not only the least green thing he could do but also that the standard of living for that child could be severely limited due to a climate catastrophe. (00:47)Also this week: Has Boris Johnson brought Conservatism full circle? That’s the argument Tim Stanley makes in this week’s Spectator. He joins Lara on the podcast along with one of the MPs mentioned in the piece, Steve Baker.

Tom Woodman

Having a child is the grandest act of climate destruction

From our UK edition

About four years ago, my wife and I, who are both in our thirties, briefly thought we were having a baby. For the next few nights my dreams were of nuclear flashes lighting up the sky, of the earth cracking open and of waves lapping at the front door. Humans are swiftly making the planet uninhabitable. Why would we want to bring another human being into the world? I’ll admit that my climate anxiety is as melodramatic as it is severe. But polls show that I’m not alone and the figures of declining birth rates speak for themselves. For a population to sustain itself, the average woman has to have 2.1 children in her lifetime. In 2017 that figure was just 1.74 in the UK, and — thanks in part to fears about the future of the planet — it’s now around 1.6.