“Don’t Start Having Children Due to Climate Concerns: Op1 Discusses with Activists”

Dedicating yourself to the climate to ensure a better future: through actions by groups such as Extinction Rebellion, attention is drawn to it. But what is it like to deliberately not want to bring children into the world because of climate concerns? In Op1 talks about this with climate activists Akelei de Lange, Daan van Meurs and Marlisa Hommel.

Today another blockade of the A12 motorway is expected by Extinction Rebellion, but “for some, the protests do not go far enough,” said one of the presenters of Op1, Natasha Gibbs. “They doubt whether they still want to start having children and are consciously childless.”

‘We have to be vulnerable’

De Lange says about this: “Let me first say that I really really want children. I work with children myself and when I see them walking I want one of my own – whom I can then influence with my left-wing ideals”, the table laughs at the comment. “But I cannot confidently bring a child into this world knowing how much anger and sadness I have about what is happening now.” What De Lange is afraid of that her child will experience? “The world is collapsing a bit somewhere and there is just a lot going wrong. It has to be radically different, but that is not going to happen so quickly and so a lot of people will suffer.”

De Lange says that he finds it vulnerable to meet the Op1table together with Van Meurs and Hommel to talk about their desire to have children, ‘while the government can do what it wants to do and does nothing. So we have to be vulnerable about our desire to have children when it should just be about the climate, about subsidies that go to the fossil industry in a retarded way. People work hard for the money and it is given to tearing down our future.”

Desire for children with climate concerns

Hommel already has a child, but does not want a second one because of the reasons De Lange already gave. “I was always aware of the climate and how serious it is, but when I was pregnant corona broke out and I started to see what we were all doing together and we will continue to do so. I don’t see it getting better, but rather getting worse.” It’s a bit different with Van Meurs: at first he didn’t want children because of the climate, but now he does. “I am a bit more positive about it, but let’s say first that the outlook is depressed. Last year I joined Extinction Rebellion and I see that more and more people realize that we have to stand up for our future.”

Let it be that former politicians Klaas Dijkhoff and Gert-Jan Segers are present in Op1. How do they view the government being referred to in this sense and also when it comes to having children around climate concerns? Both politicians have children, 2 and 3. “Should I like this choice?” Dijkhoff wonders. “I don’t like that, it’s an individual choice. There are all sorts of considerations about whether or not to have a child – if you are privileged to have one. If people take the climate into account, that is their right.”

Klaas Dijkhoff and Gert-Jan Segers

De Lange joins in. “I was invited here to talk about my desire to have children, so that I can say that it should be about the climate.” “I think you want to talk about the climate, and now it’s about whether I like your decision,” said Dijkhoff. But what the presenters care about is the point of view that Dijkhoff was ever elected as a representative of the people. “I understand that, but it is also not the case that worries about the future were not there in the past.” The difference, according to De Lange, is that Dijkhoff had the opportunity to “do things radically differently”. “It’s not all bad news. And I think there are a lot of developments going on to live life without devastating effects on the planet.”

Segers joins in after Van Meurs has to laugh. “I have three daughters who are about your age and they have the same voice. I think it is right that you have these questions and these concerns and that you feel that what we did was not good enough. But we did manage to sign the Paris climate policy and from my perspective I see that we have to act in very difficult political and social circumstances. Because if we turn off the subsidy taps, that also means something for electricity prices, petrol prices and the social cohesion of society.” Why are those steps so small, Van Meurs wonders, but the discussion at the table is rounded off by the presenters.

The climate group expects this weekend during the blockade of the A12 “twice as many people as last time, and then four times as many people. The water cannons are ready, but we are prepared.”

You can watch the entire broadcast of Op1 via NPO Start.

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