Should You Stop Having Children Due to Climate Change?

[Darris McNeely] Climate change is in the news. Just about every day, I have stuff coming through my inbox and my newsfeeds all the time about climate change. Recently, schools across the United States gave students a day off in order to go out into the streets and to protest or to lobby for policies regarding climate change. All kinds of predictions are being made. Like I say, it is big news today and people feel that within 10, 20 years if things are not reversed, climate change is going to destroy human life. One of the most interesting spin-offs that I heard recently about this was now a movement among those that are advocating for doing something to reduce the amount of climate change, one way, stop having children, that it is unethical, even immoral, in their minds to have children. So, young people are buying into the idea that they should not have children because of the drain on resources upon the Earth and its potential to impact future climate change and suffering, and it's an interesting proposition.

I've heard it before in other circles and in other discussions. Forty years ago, I heard it in regard to the fact that the population of the Earth was growing exponentially. There would not be enough food to feed all of the additional millions of people. Therefore, we needed to reduce the birth rate. Well, that was more than 40 years ago, and we are feeding people around the world today thanks to the Green Revolution. As a matter of climate change, where do we go for answers on that? How does the Bible speak on that? Well, let me give you one verse on this. In Genesis 1:28, the idea of not having children because of their impact upon the Earth run smack against what God said regarding the creation of human life on this Earth. In verse 28 of Genesis 1 God blessed them, it says, "And God said to them," said to the first humans, "Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the Earth and subdue it."

Human creation is geared, its purpose, is to multiply, to fill the Earth, to regenerate the population. Otherwise, the generations will die off. "Have dominion over the fish and the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the Earth." Genesis 1:28 runs against some of the popular ideas theorizing about climate change and how to tackle that issue. In fact, it runs against it in many, many different ways. Before making that decision, understand what the word of God says, in addition to understanding the issues of climate change and all that it means as we deal with that in our present climate of opinion and philosophies and ideology and where the world is going at this time.

That's BT Daily, join us next time.