Eight billion humans, Tuesday, November 15, and we will soon be 9.7 billion by 2050, according to UN projections. While the Earth had less than a billion inhabitants until the 1800s, it only took twelve years to grow from 7 to 8 billion. A sign of its demographic slowdown, it will take about fifteen years to reach 9 billion in 2037. The UN projects a “peak” at 10.4 billion in the 2080s and stagnation until the end of the century. But never mind: given the climatic situation, the question of having children arises more and more among young French people.
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Titouan’s parents had him when he was 24, the age he is today. So comes the moment for him to decide if he wants to become a father. But the answer of this Isérois is already found: “I think it’s an ecological aberration to have a child. Today, we are too many and having children is adding too much on top of too much.” Titouan has environmental convictions, he sees his choice as a necessary sacrifice. “In truth, it’s hard to say that I’m not going to have children when in real life I kinda want to”he admits.
“I have this somewhat egocentric desire to have my ‘mini-me’, to see someone born. It’s mystical to create someone. But I’m going to forbid myself this experience because I think it’s is the best thing to do.”
Titouan, 24 years oldat franceinfo
Clémentine is 26 years old and lives in Paris. Like Titouan, she will have no children. If she didn’t necessarily want to, climate change finally convinced her: “Even by living soberly, the resources are not infinite”she believes. “And the more people there are, the more people there are to house, to feed, to heat.”
“I couldn’t bear to potentially create a future little super consumer and a future little super polluter.”
Clementine, 26 years oldat franceinfo
The impact of increasing population on climate change
there is no consensus in the scientific community. But there is no doubt, for Denis Granier, president of the association Démographie Reponsable, which militates for a self-limitation of the birth rate. “We should ensure that the population stabilizes faster than what is expected”explains Denis Granier. Stabilization is still expected in 2080… We would also like the population to begin a decline to return to a sustainable number for the environment. For us, that number is half of what we are today.” In other words: return to four billion humans on Earth.
To do this, Denis Granier expects more incentive political measures, starting with “the capping of family allowances for two children. Whether you have one or two children, we find that very good. It is beyond that that it poses problems.” In France and almost everywhere in the world, the fertility rate, that is to say the number of births per woman, has tended to drop since the 1960s, but not enough, according to these descenders.