Gen Z and younger millennials are generally the most climate literate generations. As an age cohort that started learning about climate change in school, they're worried about how to plan for their future jobs, houses and, yes, kids. With climate-related disasters and global warming likely to worsen, climate anxiety is giving way to reproductive anxiety. So, what do experts say about how to navigate the kid question?
On this encore episode of Nature Quest, Short Wave speaks to Alessandra Ram, a journalist covering climate change, who just had a kid. We get into the future she sees for her newborn daughter and ask, how do we raise the next generation in a way that's good for the planet?
Here are the resources recommended by the experts we interviewed for this story:
Action Tools and Community Resources
- The High-Impact Climate Action Guide by Kimberly A. Nicholas
- The Climate Mental Health Network and Climate Emotions Wheel
- The Climate Café® Hub - for finding a local group
Books and Research Papers
- Climate Anxiety and the Kid Question: Deciding Whether to Have Children in an Uncertain Future, by Jade S. Sasser
- Parenting in a Changing Climate: Tools for cultivating resilience, taking action, and practicing hope in the face of climate change, by Elizabeth Bechard
- Under the Sky We Make: How to Be Human in a Warming World, by Kimberly A. Nicholas
- The role of high-socioeconomic-status people in locking in or rapidly reducing energy-driven greenhouse gas emissions, Nielsen, K.S., Nicholas, K.A., Creutzig, F. et al.
Got a question about changes in your local environment? Send a voice memo to shortwave@npr.org with your name, where you live and your question. You might make it into our next Nature Quest episode!
Listen to Short Wave on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
Listen to every episode of Short Wave sponsor-free and support our work at NPR by signing up for Short Wave+ at plus.npr.org/shortwave.
This episode was produced by Hannah Chinn and Rachel Carlson. It was edited by our showrunner, Rebecca Ramirez. Tyler Jones checked the facts. Jimmy Keeley was the audio engineer. Special thanks to Sam Paulson for writing our Nature Quest theme music.
Copyright 2025 NPR
