Parenting at the End of the World (as we know it)

Having children, despite Climate Change

I had a great time taking Brighid to the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., the weather was Fall perfect for our father-daughter outing. She was not yet one, but she squealed with delight watching otters tussle under water, pressing her face right up against the glass. Giggling when an otter swam up to her. She did the same thing watching penguins at the London Aquarium this past Christmas.

There was this exhibit at the aquarium which said we were fishing too many fish from the Ocean and we should consider eating fewer prawns, perhaps trying mussels instead.

I felt deeply sad that this exhibit was in the aquarium at all. I am not saying we should censor such truths from our children’s experience, or teach them to turn a blind eye to the over-fishing of the Oceans, it’s just tragic that we have to educate our children about it at all. No other generation of humans on Earth ever had to consider that the life-giving Oceans might not continue to provide for their children, and their children’s children, long into the future.

I think about explaining to a teen-age Brighid, that, once, the Oceans were vibrantly teeming cradles of life. Here is where all life started its journey, and yet we turned them to ruin.

It is hard work being a parent; as a new parent, I am just learning about how much work it takes. My daughter’s laughter and squeals of excitement as she discovers the world make it all worthwhile.

In no particular order, she is in love with dog dogs, our cats Puck and Muffin, birds (one of her first words), fish, penguins, seals, gorillas, lions, tigers, otters, and meerkats — at least judging by her reactions to what she finds at the zoo or aquarium.

The above photo of my daughter when she was six months old was taken by my wife last year. The same year that Monarch butterfly populations plummeted, that some scientists warned we are locked into catastrophic global temperature increase, and that “the ocean is broken” made front page news.

Reading the article about a sailor repeating a journey he made ten years earlier from Australia to Japan, my wife informed me that the Oceans are dying. Not just from radiation leakage, or nitro-fertilized dead zones the size of Texas, or acidification from climate change, but from mere over-fishing. If all those other life threatening problems miraculously went away, and all that was left was our collective desire to eat Sushi, and other seafood on demand, the Oceans will be bereft of major life by 2048.

Again imagine trying to explain that to my daughter, who would be almost my age now in 2048: Once these vast waters, which compose 70% of Earth’s surface, represented profound mystery to earlier cultures. They are literally understood to be the cradle of life, where life began. Now the Ocean floor is a barren waste land, the coral reefs long past, and where life does persist it is jellyfish and bacteria.

Sounds bleak. But, could we perhaps wipe out all life in the Oceans and go on living just fine? My brother might think so; as technology advances his main fear for the future is what robots will do to employment.

But can we go on living at all? Clearly if 85% of the oxygen we breathe is produced by algae endangered by biodiveristy loss and ecosystem collapse, then the answer might very well be: nope.

This might mean I never have to have that conversation with my daughter. But I still have to have it with myself. Is it fair, knowing what I know at this point about humanity’s probabilities, to bring a child into the world at this moment in time? I should confess that we are talking about having a second one.**

And while the world as we know it is indeed straining and groaning, ripping open in some places, imploding in others — while crisis becomes as common as bad weather, and it is clear that the weather is only getting worse; while government corruption, food shortages, public outrage, and populist politicians, seem like a perfect recipe for war, and reports are not encouraging for the stability of the financial system; while a lot seems like it has tipped over, or is on the edge — there is still a shining possibility that we might get through the next few decades of turmoil, and regenerate a world of peace, justice, and prosperity.

Now, this doesn’t really seem likely. Especially not if you read the newspaper. In fact, it seems naive, or, more politely, improbable. Most likely, the accelerating mass extinction characterizing the Anthropocene will catch up with us.

But, something that is unlikely is still something that is possible. And the dream of a just, thriving world is as old as civilization herself. This dream has never been very likely, but ever so tantalizingly possible. Previous generations were faced with extreme catastrophes and still managed to create great beauty and move us toward liberty, equality, justice and freedom— just think of those who were 20 in 1900, and by the time they were 65 had lived through repeated recessions and turmoil of the labor movement, the collapse of the gold standard and the outbreak of World War I, a major flu epidemic, a Great Depression, World War II and the advent of the Cold War with its threat of nuclear annihilation.

And throughout all of this, some folks continued to pass the torch, generation to generation, lessons learned through struggle, how to build a better world. And so the work continues, and truth be told, we don’t know what the future brings.

And this is an important point, too often glossed over in the glib over-hyped media age: we can not predict the future. Despite our wonderful scientific advances, we are still fundamentally ignorant of the forces and factors shaping change, and the future is always full of surprises, completely novel phenomenon that we have no experience of and thus couldn’t incorporate into our models. But most importantly, to the extent that humans can make choices that shape our destiny, the future is unpredictable because it depends on choices we have yet to make.

So while it is certainly the end of the world as we know it, it just might not be the end of the world. Planetary civilization still has a shot at life.

That’s the best I can do to rationalize my choice to bring children into a time of dying — what scientists call the 6th Extinction. Basically, while it seems we are far along in the process of killing Earth, there is still a chance we might turn from ruin, to thriving. We might transform our life-destroying civilization into a life-sustaining one. We might.

I do also believe that it is better to have love and lost, than never to have loved at all — but such beliefs, and rationalizations, can not shield my child, or anyone’s children, or any future children, from the pain of the journey before us.

Because even IF it gets better one day, and that is a big IF, the next few years are pointing toward a time of impending chaos. It is precisely in the uncertainty, that I find the greatest basis for hope. And I am sorry to have brought you into this mess, even as I love you with fiercest devotion, and pray you can find your way to a better tomorrow. But I guess that’s what all parents have always had to say.

**Since I wrote this piece in 2014, business-as-usual continues on its suicidal course of self-destruction, and our second daughter Sylvie was born. She is a total delight and I do not regret one minute of choosing to be a parent. Crazy.