Is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez right to ask if the climate means we should have fewer children?

| February 27, 2019 | Leave a Comment

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Date of Publication: February 27, 2019

Author(s): Matthew Taylor

Newspaper: The Guardian

On Instagram, the congresswoman said millennials are choosing to be childless because of the climate crisis. But that approach risks overlooking systematic factors.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, freshman congresswoman and social media sensation, has taken time out from baiting Donald Trump and establishment members of her own party to raise a profound moral question for us all: in light of the escalating climate emergency, should we still be having children?

During a recent Q&A live-streamed on Instagram, apparently shot while she was pottering in her kitchen, the rising star of the Democratic party – and one of the few frontline politicians to get the scale of the environmental emergency – pulled no punches in telling viewers that unless we take urgent, radical action on emissions, there is no hope for the future. “It is basically a scientific consensus that the lives of our children are going to be very difficult, and it does lead young people to have a legitimate question: is it OK to still have children?”

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