What I don’t tell my brother...

My brother and his wife have a child – their whole world. Every few days we receive photos of a sheltered childhood. “Are you planning to have children?” I’m often asked this within my family circle, as are many others my age. No, we don’t actually plan to, and we shrug our shoulders as if we’d never really discussed it.

A recent Nature modelling study from 2026 reaches the alarming conclusion that a combination of 1.5 to 1.9 degrees Celsius of warming plus 22 to 28 per cent deforestation could be sufficient to trigger widespread tipping points. At present, deforestation stands at around 20 per cent.

https://taz.de/Erderwaermung-und-Kipppunkte/!6195169&s=entwaldung/

It’s news like this that moves us to decide we don’t want to subject any living being to that future. The same kind of reports over and over again, and no sign of improvement. It’s hard to imagine what the future might look like in 30 years’ time. My generation bears some of the blame for this. So how could anyone still look their children in the eye? Perhaps it’s all just needless panic, and you might well be the one to have the child who saves the world. But you can’t really believe that?!