"I chose not to have children to help the planet" | Nature

"I come from Prince Edward Island, Canada, we have had very violent storms that affect our harbors considerably," said the ecologist.

"Hurricanes are stronger because of the warmer current approaching the Gulf," he says.

Your island is particularly vulnerable to coastal erosion resulting from the rise in sea level. With this he decided to contribute, to give up being a father.

"It's very sad and frustrating to see the impact of climate change on my place of residence," he laments.

"So I decided not to have children to help fight climate change."

According to MacGregor, who describes himself as a citizen of the world, "the difficulty of fighting climate change is that less, it's more." You need to use fewer resources, have fewer children , eat less meat, drive less, travel less ".

"This is not a light thing for us, and we are still afraid of having to deal with climate change," he says. "

" But if I can do my part in not having children, it is a good thing that I can do for the environment. "

MacGregor is part of a growing group of people who, in different parts of the world, have decided not to procreate to help the planet.

For example, for Audrey García, a 39-year-old Spanish woman years, "it is not ethical to have biological children."

"Not in an overpopulated world where lack of water and food for many, where we destroy the l" " environment and where we do not stop consuming more and more resources, "she told BBC World in March 2018.

" No when he can be adopted, "he insists.

Anna, from the UK, told the BBC in April 2018 that she will not have children because she wants to "save the planet". [19659015] The idea of ​​having children never seemed to her very attractive, but she also realized that "the best she can do for the environment is to do not have "

" Today, I consider myself an ecologist and I live in the most sustainable way possible, "said the 35-year-old, vegan girl, who only goes up to bike and do not comb yourself until once a month.

"It's obvious that having children makes you a resource consumer, I do not mean that no one should have them, but that's a fact and if I got pregnant I would have an abortion, "he said emphatically.

Leilani Munter, a professional racecar driver, has also become an activist and wants to draw attention to the problem of overpopulation around the world.

"We need to normalize not having children to save the planet," he told the BBC.

Munter decided not to have them at the age of 20 years.

These arguments are based on studies such as the one published in 2017 on the Environmental Research Letters website.

In this paper, Seth Wynes and Kimberly A. Nicholas say that "current anthropogenic climate change results from the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, which is the sum of millions of decisions individual ".

After examining various lifestyle options, researchers at the University of British Columbia in Canada and Lund University in Sweden made four recommendations to significantly reduce individual emissions. .

One of them is not to have children, which, in the case of developed countries, would mean a reduction of 58.6 tons of CO2 per year on average, say -they.