Dear Ayesha Imam, Norma Torres, and Annie Leonard,

We write with great admiration for what you have done for the environment. But our generations made mistakes that fundamentally led to the climate crisis and vast inequity we see today. We treated the act of having children as more personal to the parents than interpersonal for the children who would be born, and the communities they would comprise. Instead, we should have used child equity – ecosocial equity – as a standard for our family policies.

That move – choosing parental autonomy – meant Greenpeace helped undo its environmental progress.

 

Current family policies ensure children are tortured to death by their own parents, more and more animals are subjected to suffering and slaughter, many other species are wiped out, the gap between rich and poor widens, children are robbed of their potential because we do not invest in them, and each person has less of a say in their political systems – turning town halls where many rule to shopping malls where few rule. These policies have created the political space for the reemergence of abortion and contraception bans, and enable influencers in media to openly push women to have more children to grow economies. 

Greenpeace can admit the family polices it chose lead to these things.

Environmental organizations need to admit that our approach to family policy in the past was flawed in order to change course and do better.

We need to do it to pivot towards things like climate restoration through birth equity.

Please consider changing your approach to family policies, and embracing something at least approaching Fair Start in your programming, including a vision of future families that can rewild the Earth.

Thanks for considering,

The Team at the Fair Start Movement