By John Bacon, USA TODAY
A Canadian teen’s pledge not to have children until her government takes serious action against climate change is drawing support from young people around the globe.
Emma Lim, 18, launched a climate change movement this week called “#No Future, No Children” that includes a website where other teens can take her pledge.
“I am giving up my chance of having a family because I will only have children if I know I can keep them safe,” she says on her website. “It breaks my heart, but I created this pledge because I know I am not alone. … We’ve read the science, and now we’re pleading with our government.”
By Thursday afternoon more than 1,200 kids had signed on.
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Jacob Diercks, 18, lives near the North Sea in Meldorf, Germany. He signed onto the pledge, saying that in his lifetime he has seen the North Sea warm considerably. He said farmers there are in trouble due to flooding and summers so hot they burn the fields.
“I see it as irresponsible to bring children into such dangers,” he wrote. “Our government is doing too little to protect the climate and thus our region.”
In Stockholm, Sweden, 18-year-old Isabelle Axelsson signed on.
“I am taking this pledge because I don’t want to give birth to a child that will feel the same climate anxiety and fear as I do,” she wrote. “I don’t want any more children to have to face the consequences of our inaction.”
Lim writes that she always imagined herself being a mother someday. She says she loves children so much she has worked as a nanny. But she is concerned about the world she would be bringing her children into.
Related:
Climate activists at White House today declare they will have no more kids until the Green New Deal passed! pic.twitter.com/EJYBBZucM7
— Marc Morano (@ClimateDepot) September 14, 2019
