Birthstrikers. Ever heard of them? No, me neither, not til this morning when I learned of this ‘movement’ of couples who have decided not to bring children into a world, the future of which is tragically, ecologically, environmentally, errr… futuristically unknown. They don’t think its fair on the child to introduce it to a world so horribly rich in carbon and in plastic waste. Or they think the introduction of yet another ‘person’ will further increase the carbon footprint of the world’s population.

And I have a lot of sympathy for these ‘birthstrikers’ who are denying themselves for the future of mankind, or alternatively, have almost written off the future of mankind and don’t wish to introduce people who won’t be able to enjoy the wonders of the, by-then extinct, Madagascan moth-eaten butterfly. Or an ocean living, bottom feeding nematode that no-one’s ever actually seen but whose future is also doomed. They have a point. Just not a very good one.

So I think a better name than ‘birthstrikers’ is actually ‘Tossers’. Because that’s what they are, for so tragically missing the whole fucking point.

Evolution works in ways no-one can control. You can only observe it afterwards. We, and I speak for all humans here, can only observe it because the Cretaceous extinction killed off the dinosaurs which enabled the tiny mammals to become cows and bears and monkeys, which eventually became us. Well, I speak for all humans except the ultra religious who don’t buy into Darwin at all, and most of the southern states of America, who view such thought as sacrilege.

Fast forward (a few hundred millennia) and due to our opposable thumbs (yours) and massive brains (mine) we are now in a position to spend all day surfing porn on mobile phones whilst hurling plastic bottles around the place and spewing carbon out of every imaginable mode of transport and manufacturing we can invent.

In another 100 thousand years, historians (if there are any) will be able to see what happened next. Maybe humanity, as we know it, Jim, will cease to exist. Maybe it’ll evolve into some carbon-breathing thing? Half tree, half Taylor Swift. Who the fuck knows. What we do know though is you have to be ‘in it to win it’. And if you don’t reproduce then you’re abandoning your rights to involvement in the biggest game in town. The Evolution Game. You’re making a decision on behalf of all those unborns to just quit and give up.

If the world is becoming excessively carbony then that’s the world we have. The only world we have. We have to cope. Get rid of the carbon or evolve into something that can cope with it. And with the changes in temperature, the floods, the everything. Don’t give up your children’s future just because it possibly won’t look the same as your past. That’s ultra-conservative, defeatist and stupid. And not giving your offspring the chance to thrive and play football for the Alpha Centuri Aliens.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx