āI feel like we are passing the responsibility to solve mistakes and missteps of the past and present on to future generations when we decide to have children out of biological imperative during times when our activity needs to be spent on repairing an environment that we are stripping bare. I cannot, in good conscience, bring a child into a world that we are actively degrading only to say, āI didnāt have time to change my habits because I was raising youā or āit was too expensive to invest in environmentally responsible materials and practices because I had children to raise.ā What kind of world is left for those children if we make excuses for this ecologically abusive behavior. I never want to have to say to my child, āthe air didnāt have this color, smell, particulate in my day.ā Iām ashamed of the part I have played in the active exploitation of the earth, the people who are already here, and future generations for the sake of economic growth.ā
ā Erica Ward, 27
