Hannah Chinn
speaker
88 appearances
5 recordings
1 series
first heard Dec 2024
last heard May 2025
Hannah Chinn’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Hey, Emily. And today we're going to talk about what some people consider the third rail of climate change, the kids question. True. True. True. True. True. I mean, the majority of Gen Zers report that they're worried or anxious about climate change, period.
And more broadly, a Pew Research survey last year found that of folks under 50 who don't plan to have kids, more than a quarter of them say concerns about the environment and climate change are a major factor in that. And I really wanted to figure out where is this concern coming from? Like, who or what told us that having kids was a major contributor to climate change?
So I started reporting on this back when I was working on the Gimlet podcast, How to Save a Planet. And I found a bunch of recent articles, like in the past five or so years, that all cited the exact same paper. It was published in 2017 in the academic journal Environmental Research Letters. It's called The Climate Mitigation Gap.
She was a co-author of this paper. She's a professor of sustainability science at Lund University in Sweden. And she told me that when she and her colleagues published this paper... The press coverage really focused on the fourth individual action. Have one less child.
Specifically, an average of 58.6 metric tons of CO2 a year if you're in an industrialized country. That's an equivalent of 7.9 homes energy use for one year. And this kicked up a lot of debate because people already have very strong feelings about children and reproductive choice.
Right. What is driving global climate change is fossil fuel use. Human development overall is definitely part of that, but it has more to do with energy companies and governments and how we set up our infrastructure.
Yeah. As someone who does want to co-parent a kid someday, that's the journey I'm interested in. Like, I think reproductive autonomy is really important. And I'm still worried about the climate impacts of my individual actions, including things like flying and driving and maybe having a kid.
I think it helps to hear that because I don't even know what my future is going to look like. Right. So how could I bring another new human being into that?
We do know that birth rates in the U.S. are down, but it kind of seems like that's due to a variety of factors, right? The cost of living crisis, job and housing insecurity, a lack of social safety nets, etc., etc., etc. So we can't attribute it solely to climate change. Maybe we'll know in 10 years once more Gen Z and young millennials have kids or don't have kids.
In fact, Kimberly says the people best positioned to do those high-impact climate actions aren't just politicians and energy CEOs. They're also anyone who makes a little over $42,000 a year. Those people are part of the top 10% richest people on Earth.
Yeah. We'll link to this guide in the episode notes. And when I was working through this guide, I was struck by how many of these actions were things that we do collectively, like encouraging your loved ones to take their money out of banks that use fossil fuels or working with your union to change industry standards. Here's Jade again.
So researchers say, if you're hearing all this and you're upset, join the fight.
Elizabeth Bechard got involved back in 2018. That was the year Hurricane Florence devastated coastal North Carolina, where she grew up. And the IPCC came out with a report saying, we have 12 years left to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius and limit
And Emily, that's the last thing that really stuck with me, that caring for a child can also be a hopeful thing to do. It can connect us to each other. It can help us act because the future isn't set in stone. And that's true whether we have kids in our lives or not.
We've linked all the resources we mentioned in our episode notes, along with books written by our guests for whatever role kids and climate might play in your life.
This episode was produced by Hannah Chin and Rachel Carlson. It was edited by our showrunner, Rebecca Ramirez, and fact-checked by Tyler Jones. Jimmy Keeley was the audio engineer.
Great conversation makes for a great party. But how do you ask the questions that really make the room come alive? Well, here at Life Kit, we've got you. What is a path you almost took but didn't? On our latest episode, how to ask the magical questions that'll make your party sparkle. Listen to the Life Kit podcast from NPR.
Hey, short wavers. Regina Barber here with producer Hannah Chin. Hey, Hannah. Hey, Gina. So today you're bringing us a story about sex.
I think I remember, like, clownfish can change sexes over their lifetime.
And there's also animals like the New Mexico whiptail lizard. Like we've covered that on Shortwave. And that's a species that has like no males and the females just like lay eggs. They're like viable and they don't need fertilization at all.
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