The Climate Crisis Anti Baby Movement – Watts Up With That?

Essay by Eric Worrall

The Aussie ABC thinks Zoomers are staging a baby strike until their elders fix the climate crisis.

The case against babies

Elon Musk believes the collapsing birth rate is humanity’s biggest danger. But antinatalists argue having kids is little more than a procreational Ponzi scheme, and the risks are real. This is the case against babies.

By Bri Lee for ABC’s Long Read

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Kids and the climate change link

As I was reading about the different branches of antinatalism, it struck me that the climate emergency represents a convergence of the philanthropic and misanthropic camps. …

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The most effective way to reduce carbon emissions was to have one fewer child, followed by not having a car at all. And thirdly, avoiding one long distance flight.

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The difficulty with that argument is the ongoing lack of accountability. Millennials blame boomers for the heat of the planet they inherited, but millennials have been adults for about two decades now, and have proven they’re either unwilling or unable to make the fundamental changes to personal or corporate accountability required to make a real difference.

In fact, Australian Zoomers like climate activist Anjali Sharma are begging their elders to acknowledge that the government owes them a duty of care not to exacerbate the climate emergency. … In 2021 Sharma and seven other teenagers tried to sue the government, arguing it had a legal duty not to cause harm to young people by exacerbating climate change when approving coal mining projects. The government fought them and won.

In the face of a lack of policy action young people are taking control in other ways. 

Is it any wonder that young people are increasingly citing “climate concerns” as a reason not to have children of their own? 

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‘I want to stop you becoming parents’

When David Benatar, the antinatalist, visited Sydney last year for the Festival of Dangerous Ideas he opened his presentation having to correct a somewhat misleading headline written about him in the Sydney Morning Herald. The article opened with the sentence “David Benatar wants to stop you from becoming a parent”.

As he clarified to the chuckling audience of men and women, he did not want to stop anyone from doing anything. He did not want to control anyone. He wanted to convince. He said “I don’t want to stop you from becoming a parent, I want you to stop becoming parents.”

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Read more: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-09-21/antinatalism-child-free-climate-change-human-suffering-baby/105695328

Sometimes these confused young people wake up in time to pop out a few kids. But there are no guarantees in human fertility, sometimes the realisation that climate alarmism is overblown nonsense comes too late.

I’ll never forget an old couple who used to live next door to my grandparents. They liked kids – once or twice I visited and they fussed over me and gave me cookies. But they never had any kids of their own. They decided not to have kids because they were worried about the bomb.

One day I noticed there was no noise coming from their house. My grandpa never explained why they were suddenly missing, when I asked he looked sad and said “they aren’t there anymore”.

If there is one thing which truly makes me sad, it is these vile anti-natalists confusing people with their alarmism, talking people out of their most basic human urges, and realising the fulfilment and joy of bringing a new person into the world.

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