"I decided not to have children for the future of our planet."
This choice, Leilani Münter made it 25 years ago. And today, in the light of environmental crises, she is more convinced than ever that this is the right decision.
00:00Hi, my name is Leilani Munter and I decided to not have children for the future of our planet and all the species we share it with.
00:22I decided to not have children when I was around 20 years old.
00:27I was going to college at the University of California in San Diego where I graduated with a degree in biology specializing in ecology, behavior, and evolution.
00:38One day I went into my biochemistry class and my professor told us all to close our books and said he was instead going to show us a film.
00:47It was a film about human population and I had never really thought about that issue before.
00:52I remember just being completely devastated by what I learned and having a long conversation with my professor after class.
01:00I decided on that day that I was not going to contribute to growing the Earth's human population.
01:07I was 20 years old at the time so obviously for the last 25 years I've been hearing people tell me that I'll change my mind.
01:15I'm 45 now, I have not changed my mind, and I am even more satisfied with my decision.
01:24It took humanity approximately 200,000 years to hit our first billion. That happened in 1806.
01:31It then took us only 126 years to hit our second billion which happened in 1930.
01:37Then only 30 years to hit our third billion in 1960.
01:40Then just 14 years to hit our fourth billion. That happened in 1974 which was the year that I was born.
01:50Since then we have nearly doubled our human population on our planet.
01:55Because of the human impact on our planet we are currently driving species to a rate of extinction that is approximately 1,000 times faster than the natural background rate.
02:07We are currently living through the sixth mass extinction of species.
02:12This era is being referred to as the Anthropocene which translates to the age of man.
02:18It is a time where our human impact on the planet is so great that we are actually changing the fossil record of our future.
02:26If we are going to preserve this planet and save the rainforest and save the coral reefs and save all of the beautiful, amazing animals and biodiversity that we have on this planet,
02:38we have no choice but to address the human population issue because that is the driving force behind every other environmental problem that we face.
02:55The Anthropocene is a time when the human impact on the planet is so great that we are actually changing the fossil record of our future.
03:04We are currently living through the sixth mass extinction of species.
03:09This era is being referred to as the Anthropocene which translates to the age of man.
03:15It is a time where our human impact on the planet is so great that we are actually changing the fossil record of our future.
03:24It is by far a greater impact than any of those other things and that is because no matter how ecologically friendly you are to the earth,
03:34you know, I'm vegan, I have solar on my house, it charges both my house and my electric car.
03:41All these things are great things but let's be real, there's no way for a human to live on this planet without having a carbon footprint and creating some pollution.
03:50So the best way for us to reduce it is to have smaller families or no children or if you really want to be a parent,
03:59you know, there are 153 orphan children in the world that are already here that are in need of a home.
04:06I believe that more and more people are making the choice to be child free as people learn about this issue,
04:12as we talk about it more, as society accepts going child free as an alternative, as an acceptable choice.
04:22You know, I think for many, many generations it was sort of just expected that you were going to have children.
04:31It's, you know, part of the process of life. You're born, you go to school, you meet your significant other, you get married, you have children.
04:38It's, you know, it's kind of that assumed next step, so to speak.
04:43And so I think it's been an adjustment for society to start accepting, you know, that not only is this should be an accepted option,
04:55but it should be the preferred option being at what humanity is facing right now.
05:00I don't have any children. I'm not going to have any grandchildren.
05:03I don't have future generations of my own to be looking out for.
05:07But I chose to not have children because I know that that will help the future generations.
05:14This world will be a better place if it's less crowded.
