Yale Climate Connections is a crucial media service for understanding the greatest environmental threat facing our species. But a recent article may have missed a key opportunity to further that understanding. The article involved an interview with fertility coach Elizabeth Bechard, and focused on the connection between family planning and our ecological future. Bechard, whose profession involves people having kids, gave this advice:

I personally have, I guess, a spiritual framework that helps me to trust that there’s more going on than meets the eye, and I believe at a spiritual level that the children who come through are souls that chose to be here. And so, you know, if someone deeply desires a child, I would say listen to that.

Is there better advice we can give prospective parents who want to protect their kids’ future? The key lies in Bechard’s own decision not to have a third child, for ecological and other reasons. Choosing a small family is the most effective thing one can do to mitigate the climate crisis – twenty times more effective than other lifetsyle changes like changing one’s diet. And if we go one step further, and collectively shape our family planning polcies around equity, and the distribution of resources that would give every child a fair start in life, we can effectively reverse many of the other crises facing our kids.

If we really care about our kids’ future, shouldn’t we do what is most effective?

TAKE ACTION: 1) Urge Bechard at elizabeth@elizabethbechard.com to tell the truth about the connection between family planning and our shared future, and 2) tweet the Editor of Yale Climate Connections, @bud_ward, and urge him to ask the questions that really matter for our shared future.