I honestly despair of how many have such a one dimensional view of such a multifaceted issue, as well as a lack of understanding on just how soon we will be seeing and feeling the impacts of this and indeed what those impacts are.
I am sick of hearing how great for the planet and environment this will be. Yes great, less people for the planet but have you sat and genuinely thought about what that will mean for you, for your children etc. I mean yes this could indeed be better for ecological reasons, but you will be feeling the impact of societal shift, economic shift in negative ways long before you will see any long term positive benefits.
The lower birth rate is not just about people choosing to have less or no children, it is also brought about by a sharp decline in fertility, both male and female (though male factor infertility is on the rise) so many people are ending up childless and not through choice. That’s all before you even consider that generally less people even want to have children due to the huge financial, or those delaying parenthood trying to get themselves in a decent position before starting a family.
If the lax, delayed and erratic response by government to covid, climate change and a whole host of other issues is anything to go by we will be knee deep in the midst of this before any real direction or action is taken, we are already deep into it and yet you hardly hear of it.
Taking accountability is not something the government does well, it’s hardly likely they are going be holding their hands up and saying: yeah sorry we haven’t been paying attention to the UPF’s in food, the chemicals in our drinks, the pesticides our crops are treated with and the micro plastics things are packaged in and oops sorry because we’ve only just noticed this impacting your health, well-being and fertility. It’s not like they are going to hold their hands up and say sorry we’ve been on the side of big business for far too long and have helped them to keep wages low and employ cheap labour and all the while we’ve been moaning about the benefits bill. Sorry you all can’t afford to live, can’t afford housing, food, heating, let alone have a child or two because we are too lazy to tackle government funded affordable childcare for those who need it. Or be bothered to have a proper system that adequately ensures absent parents remain financially responsible for their offspring and that the resident single parent is properly supported instead of being punished financially and economically and treated like a stain on the economy because they are forced to rely on benefits.
I also hate spouting all of that and pointing it out because it makes me sound like some kind of conspiracy theory loon, I am not I assure you, but this is going to be like watching a slow motion car crash and when other people are just like ‘oh yes less people, how fantastic for the planet, this will be good’ just makes me eye roll HARD!