New Year, Same Crippling Anxieties!

Happy 2022! Or is it 2020, too? The years really do zip by faster the more years lived, a smaller percentage of the whole. I can barely keep up with it all.

As this beautiful blue marble orbits the sun once more, I’m more aware of the immoveable burden resting on my heart than ever before. It has been sitting on my chest for quite some time, and I am making peace with the fact that it will most likely stay with me for all of my years, however many they may be. As long as I am conscious, I will be pondering the ethical questions surrounding motherhood and childbirth in a time when we are working too far slowly to change our disastrous planetary trajectory.

The fact remains that I am selfish. I have to repeat that fact to myself every time I feel the baby fever rise and imagine Jack and I welcoming a new soul into our lives, a tiny baby bundle of joy, the living embodiment of a love and a soul-bond that I know will never die. “I want to be a mother.” What a weak, selfish justification. Frankly, I don’t know that my child would want to live on this dying planet. And even if there were more reasons to be optimistic about the future, like the advent of safe nuclear fusion (check out MIT’s most recent work using super magnets to contain a nuclear fusion reaction), or the widespread rebuilding of our electrical grid so that it is thoroughly decarbonized, the fact remains that no one is born with consent. The fact remains that, even though I fruitlessly engage with climate deniers and try to get my message of action and collaboration out to as many people as possible, I am not making any headway and I probably never will. And even if I were successful, that doesn’t mean I’m at all worthy of propagating my genes to the next generation. There is nothing particularly special about me. I would simply be contributing to overpopulation.

I sit in an interesting position where most of my female friends and acquaintances either do not want to procreate, or are undecided. Of my six bridesmaids, four definitively do NOT want children (not even to adopt), one is on the fence, and one definitely does want to give birth. If I take a more expansive look at my friend circle, this ratio evens out a bit, but more people still skew toward the childless lifestyle. There are plenty more years ahead for the future to be remade, but looking at this current assemblage of people closest to me, it seems we’ll be aging out quietly, with no noise or chaos of small humans growing to adulthood and fulfilling the important roles we will grow too old to continue carrying out. It makes me sad to think about it, but it makes me guilty for wanting to bring in children of my own just to assuage my generational loneliness. I am selfish, I am selfish, I am selfish.

What can I possibly do to make the world more livable, more cooperative, and more sustainable? I write, I volunteer, I work a position that actively tries to safeguard the environment and the natural resources we need most: water, clean air, biomass in all its many forms. My professional life is dedicated to the cause as is my spare time, my personal choices, and my private internal struggles. And it really doesn’t matter how much effort I put into serving other people today and serving future generations tomorrow. I am selfish at the root of it all. I want to carry Jack’s children in my womb, birth them and meet them Earth-side, watch them grow, give them guidance, love, and affection. But there will be no guarantee of safety, or even a guarantee of access to drinkable water come 2050, especially if we’re still living in the arid west. I can willingly give my life over to my offspring, but I cannot give them an entirely new planet, one undamaged by extractive capitalism and overconsumption. Biosphere 2 demonstrated that the extent of human ingenuity is limited, and that we are too unsophisticated to reproduce something as complex as Earth. We are killing our only home, spreading and consuming like locusts. It’s hypocritical for me to want to continue populating a system that cannot provide for all of us, especially since I very well know better.

I recently re-watched Titanic. Wow, what a film. I personally love it and think it held up quite impressively in the 25 years since its release in 1997. It hit especially hard this time, comparing the disaster to climate change. Our Earth ship is sinking and there are still so many loud, violent, obnoxious (in my personal experience) MEN who are clinging to the railing as the icy water washes over the deck screaming that it’s a pleasant voyage and that everyone trying to avoid a watery grave is a brainwashed idiot. There is no convincing them to be a part of the solution. There is no releasing them of their own fear and emotional immaturity. They staunchly insist they are correct in the face of the very real, overwhelming evidence unfolding before our eyes that no, Earth is not okay. Species are dying orders of magnitude faster than the normal background extinction rate documented in the geologic record. But sure, go off on how I’m a demonic liberal (haha) for daring to use the phrase “climate change denier”. I think “ecocidal future-child murderer” is more accurate. It is significantly more harsh, sure, but drives the point home that their factual incorrectness is costing the lives of all humans who will inherit an overheated, utterly cooked planet. Their decision to repeatedly, shamelessly lie is morally reprehensible. Lying is a choice, not a personality trait, and certainly not a birth defect. I have zero qualms about verbally lambasting these liars. If they don’t want to help bail water, fine. But the least they can do is stand off to the side out of everyone’s way.

These posts really are just an opportunity for me to shout into the void and to vocalize my existential dread. I cry at the drop of a hat. These first three weeks of 2022 have been especially rough for my mental health and even though I show up to work every day, even though I teach my dance classes at night, and volunteer at the fire department, and most recently appeared as a guest speaker on The Everything Else Show with Martin Willis to discuss my message of climate action (while we still have time to act), I feel like none of it matters. None of it amounts to the changes we so desperately need to make as a species. I believe in ripple effects, absolutely, but I am a weak, limited, emotionally fragile woman who will likely worry herself to an early grave. Perhaps I will survive longer than I give myself credit for. It is, after all, written into our very DNA as living creatures that we strive to survive for as long as possible. The ship is sinking, but we’re still trying to avoid the water at all costs, to avoid slipping into the freezing North Atlantic. Refusing to live in the face of certain devastation is not the answer. The answer is to alter the way in which we produce energy. And even though it’s a simple answer, there is no political will or emotional fortitude to accomplish such a change. Any attempt made to alter viewpoints is met with hostility and vitriol, even as the threat looms right in our faces. We cannot work together even to defeat a common enemy. It breaks my heart. It breaks my brain. It saps my energy. I give and give and somehow my cup refills enough for me to make it through the day over and over, but it accomplishes nothing. I accomplish next to nothing.

I suppose it’s unfair to title this post “New Year, Same Crippling Anxieties!” I am not crippled. I still function. I have a support network where many people have no one and nothing to lean on. It is, once again, my privilege that allows me to take time out of my schedule to write these pointless posts. My words convince no one and largely go unread, but here I am, back on my bullshit, talking about my feelings to no one but a glowing computer screen. And even that’s not true. Jack listens to my dread and my anger, holds me when I cry, kisses away the rage and despair. I often pick up my phone and am able to call any number of my closest friends, and always they open their heart to me and lend their undistracted ears. Even though my very worth as a human feels tenuous at best, I have so many people that I love who love me right back. I live for them, I live for my two dogs, I live for the hope of a brighter day when we take longer, stronger strides toward solutions that benefit the greatest number of people in a time when severe weather events become more frequent and destructive. If everyone took it upon themselves to relentlessly speak up about the greatest threat to our existence, perhaps we might have a shot at reversing our actions and stabilizing the atmosphere. We each hold the agency needed to choose a decarbonized lifestyle and work toward passing down this beautiful home to our children and grandchildren. Every voice matters, no matter how small or timid, no matter how broken and raw. I am largely useless in the face of it all, but I will roar (or perhaps I’m just screaming) until I draw my last breath.

Jack and I Are Evacuees of the Monument Fire. I Can’t Imagine Parenting in this Chaos.

The Monument Fire began on July 30th, the result of dry lightning striking dense, desiccated, well-seasoned timber. We watched the fire grow in acreage, consuming Del Loma, Big Bar, Big Flat, Helena, Junction City as it moved east along the 299 corridor. But the Monument Fire has been growing in a circular fashion, expanding on all sides as the winds shift and circle around. Burnt Ranch is threatened. Hayfork has already evacuated. Weaverville, where Jack and I enjoyed our first home for a little over one month, and Douglas City are under evacuation warning. We got the text on Tuesday August 17th and were relocated to Whiskeytown National Recreation Area that same day.

We knew damn well before we bought our house that fire country was an extremely dangerous place to live. But the stars aligned and we found a cute home within our price range, we were able to acquire wildfire insurance, and we closed the deal. Trinity County is heaven on Earth for 8 months of the year. For the other 4, it is literal hell.

The relocation was fairly smooth, but during my first full day in Whiskeytown NRA, I came down with a splitting migraine that had me violently vomiting for hours. I know mothers reading this will think, “You just make it work, push through it, put your child first.” But honestly, I’m just trying to keep myself fed and maintained. I’m back to functioning at a low level, surviving, trying to make the best out of a fluent, destructive natural disaster with an uncertain timeline. I can’t even fathom having a wee babe wholly dependent upon me for their every need. I can barely keep my head on straight.

And then I remember what year it is. 2021. If I were to have a child right this moment, what kind of hellscape will he or she be navigating in 2041 at the tender age of 20, a mere child in my eyes even though at the time of this writing, I am 29 years old and still a child to many of my elders. I wonder if Jack and I will succumb to respiratory illness or heart disease from chronic smoke inhalation before we reach age 60. I wonder if we’ll run out of food and freshwater, starving and dehydrating, baking in the sun, cooking until the very proteins in our cells unravel.

I try my best to be realistic rather than macabre. But the reality is, we humans have fragile bodies that were only evolved to survive within a narrow range of temperatures, just as we only perceive a narrow portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. We have air conditioning now to cool ourselves during these scary heatwaves, but if our energy grid fails, we will be thrown to the mercy of Mother Nature. And she is, rightfully, FURIOUS. Absolutely livid. We humans grew and prospered and procreated, extracting and mining, polluting and spoiling the landscape in proportion to our population.

All I can say with certainty is that safety will become ever more scarce. The entire planet is affected by multiple positive feedback loops that are unraveling the climate we knew and loved and replacing it with a hotter, more energetic climate and a beefed-up hydrological cycle on steroids. Dry places will get drier. Wet places, wetter in such a manner as to be destructive and deadly. It’s physics. It’s chemistry. It is the reality we are faced with.

I want a family. I want my world to revolve around the bright new souls that Jack and I bring into being. But I think often of the guilt my friend spoke of, guilt for creating humans that will have to endure hellacious firestorms, water and food shortages, constant migration and relocation . . . all because I, having known better, having known how fast we’ve killed the planet, wanted to be a mother. It’s possible that such chronic guilt would be even worse than the acute stress of surviving continual apocalypses.

Having taken zero steps to become pregnant, all I can do is wonder. All I can do is strive to convince as many people as possible that we need to decarbonize NOW while we still have the time, technology, and cohesive institutions and social structures to pull it off. If not for the sake of the children Jack and I may never have, then for the sake of the children who have already been born and are yet to be born. They deserve a habitable planet conducive to human life. We need to make drastic changes to pass down such a planet. We need to put life ahead of our own selfish, short-lived comfort.

But my intuition knows the message will fall on deaf ears and paralyzed hearts. We should have addressed this 50 years ago in 1970. We still aren’t addressing it. My hope for the future grows thinner, even as I fight harder and more viciously to maintain it.

An Old Friend and New Mom Told Me Not to Give Birth. How Could I Possibly Respond?

I recently had an old friend and coworker reach out to me about one of my more heated climate posts on Facebook. The following conversation ensued. (I’ve altered the text only to withhold her name and her husband’s name.)

Friend: “Thanks for your climate message. It is really hard to think about these things day after day. We struggled for a long time about whether to have a child or not. We thought about adoption, and even attended some adoption meetings, but it is just so expensive. So we had a kid. I love her more than anything, but I dunno, we probably shouldn't have had her. I guess I didn't appreciate how quickly things will go downhill climate wise. The guilt that I carry on my shoulders about what she is going to face is extreme, and it will only get worse over time. And it horrifies me thinking that no matter how bad things are at the end of my life, I will know that they will be so much worse for her after I am gone. I just love her so much... but I would be able to make peace with the coming future so much easier if we hadn't had her. I don't even know if I would want to adopt a second child, at this point, because it is too heartbreaking to be so tied to the next generation, knowing what they will suffer. I know its a bummer of a conversation, but I hope you don't mind. Thanks for talking about it with me. You would think everyone, everywhere would be having these conversations, but most folks just want to sweep it under the rug. Anyway, just wanted to give you my perspective if you are agonizing about having a baby...she is my favorite thing ever. I love her more than anything... but the guilt I feel is so, so intense and will never go away. Anyway, I hope you are living somewhere beautiful and enjoying life. We miss your smiling face.”

Me: “It’s so good to hear from you. I am so glad you and your partner procreated. I know you must stress and worry constantly, but you’re one of the good ones fighting the good fight for sustainability, for life. Don’t feel guilty. We will need smart, kind people in the next generation. The best thing we can do now is prepare; learn to forage, farm, hunt, I would say “fish” but the salmon hit 100% mortality in the Sacramento River. I cry nearly every day because I found a wonderful man who is beyond my ideal partner, who is so far above and beyond what I could have envisioned. I want to have his child, grow life, fight like hell to keep it. But I also know that Jack and I will be struggling to live probably within the next 5-10 years, at least if we stay in CA. It’s aridifying so quickly. And even if we go back to the wet, humid northeast, the wet bulb temperatures might still be too hot to survive. Idk. I’m scared. I’d already be pregnant if the climate weren’t collapsing. I’m right on the precipice. I know which way my heart wants me to fall, and I know which way my brain should make me fall. I’m glad you messaged me, because I only ever talk about this with Jack. But it weighs on my mind all day every day. Anyway, I’m glad you two are parents. I know it’s agony, the information, the lack of action. Just don’t give up. It’s not over.”

Friend: “Oh Megan. I feel your pain. It is so hard to want kids so bad but feel like you shouldn't pursue it. We didn't have kids till I was 37 because for the longest time I said I wasn't going to because of climate change. But then the reality of how expensive and challenging adoption is really started to sink in. And it is such a magical and beautiful thing to have a baby grow inside you. And is a natural , hard to quell desire, especially with someone you love so much. I probably wouldn't have gone through with it, except I know how much it meant to my husband. He never pressured me into it, but I could see how hard it was for him to let that dream go. And it feels so unfair that there are Americans out there having 4 or 5 kids and not even thinking about population, and here we were agonizing about one. I wish you the best in this difficult struggle. I am so glad to talk about it with you. My husband is certainly not a climate change denier, but he just doesn't want to talk about it, because it is too sad. But I think we have to talk about it, or else we won't act on it. Anyway, I wish you and Jack so much joy and hapiness in your marriage. I'm so glad you found each other! Much love.”

I haven’t responded but for the simple fact that I don’t know what to say. My friend makes a lot of valid points, particularly that the guilt is undoubtedly soul-crushing and ever-present. And yet I chafe at being told “not to pursue” parenthood. Surely prospective parents who are emotionally, mentally, financially, and physically prime to give rise to new life deserve the chance to at least try, right?

Perhaps I am barren. Perhaps I cannot have children. Perhaps even if Jack and I were to try, we would be unsuccessful for any number of reasons.

But haven’t we at least demonstrated our capabilities, our strengths as teammates in the world? Haven’t we earned the right to start a family all our own? Teenagers do it all the time by accident. Why should I, someone responsible, tender-hearted, and future-thinking, be blatantly told not to propagate my DNA into the world in the form of a son or daughter? I won’t save the planet or save the human race or save a single species by not having children. I just feel so deeply cut, so spiritually wounded by the advice, even though I know it was made wholly with good intent and a soft, empathetic heart.

But still…

Am I really so unworthy of motherhood that I should be told by a mother I’m incapable of tolerating the guilt and sorrow that will accompany the decision? Shouldn’t I be the judge of how much guilt and sorrow I can stomach?

Children used to die of disease all the time. Then modern medicine advanced, vaccines were produced, and child mortality plummeted. Surely I can’t be solely to blame if my child were to, God forbid, tragically die prematurely of a climate-related cause (starvation, dehydration, heat stroke). No parent has complete control over external forces at work once their child enters the world.

(**Grim side note: Long-term, like 4 or 5 decades from now . . . yeah, whatever offspring Jack and I have (IF we have any) will probably be fighting for dear life in a brutally, blisteringly hot planet.)

Surely I can’t solely shoulder the blame if technology were to fail to catch up and address the climate crisis. I would battle with every ounce of wit, cunning, resourcefulness, and strength I possess to keep my child fed and happy, come hell and high water, and I mean that literally. The sea is literally rising and the American West is literally hell for 3-4 months each year now.

All the same, it hurts to be told to just not even try to raise viable offspring to adulthood.

I feel like Jack and I would at least have a fighting chance of providing stability and prosperity for our children. Folks are going bananas breeding without any regard for what we collectively face as a human race, and I feel trapped between my desire for parenthood with Jack, my knowledge of anthropogenic global warming and its consequences, and my deep longing for family. If we brought children into the world, could they ever forgive us for the crime of bringing life to a planet that will soon be unwelcoming and inhospitable to all of us?

We were adapted to the climate we enjoyed for 2 million years. Now it is completely unraveling.

Is that a justifiable reason to forgo having a baby: to avoid the wrath and condemnation from the life we will into being?

More importantly, how would I justify myself to my children? How would I justify my decision to become pregnant? I have plenty of points to make, but who can say whether all of them taken together could be powerful enough to soothe such a wound as perpetual existential crises? I certainly can’t say.

And so that’s why I haven’t replied to my friend.