No Future No Children Pledge

Climate Strike Canada created a pledge for youth to not have children until the government takes serious action to counter the climate crisis.

With climate change threatening every aspect of life, the youth of today are facing a world that is increasingly unsuitable for life. In BC, wildfires have become so prevalent that some scientists are calling it a “fifth season”. In Ontario, “once in a hundred years” floods have started happening every year. The average age to have kids in Canada is around 30, but when young people in Canada are 30, they will be seeing unprecedented shifts in climate, food security, heat waves, air pollution, economic collapse, and mass migration. When the children of now are 30 we will all be living in a global crisis.

Emma Lim, a school striker with Climate Strike Canada created the pledge to be both an expression of fear and a plea for action. “As a descendant of survivors of the holocaust, the idea that my children might again face the worst of what humanity has to offer scares me more than anything else.”

The threat of climate change requires our government leaders to take urgent action before it is too late, and as children and young people who have been walking out of school for a year, this pledge encompasses the desperation and frustration they feel.

Hundreds of youth around Canada have pledged not to have children because of the climate crisis. We are already seeing the effects of the climate crisis that will only get worse. We are terrified for our futures, and don’t want to bring children into the world with that fear. We are striking so we can have a future and a child. We can’t imagine bringing children into a world that is falling apart.

We will not have children until we KNOW they will have a livable future.