Poll Finds Nearly Third of Americans Believe a Couple Should Consider the Negative Effects of climate Change When Deciding to Have Children

WASHINGTON – Nearly 30 percent of Americans believe couples should consider the effects of climate change before deciding to have a child, according to a Business Insider (BI) poll.

BI conducted the poll from March 1-2, after Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York told her followers on Instagram to consider the impact of climate change on future generations before making the decision to have a child.

There is a “[s]cientific consensus that the lives of children are going to be very difficult, and it does lead, I think, young people to have a legitimate question,” the New York representative said before asking, “Is it okay to still have children?”

BI polled an audience of Americans using the online service Survey Monkey. The poll garnered 1,102 responses and has a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points.

About 38 percent off millennials between the ages of 18-29 years old strongly agree, agree or somewhat agree with Ocasio-Cortez that climate change should be a factor when deciding to have a child. Around a third of Americans overall – 30 percent – side with Ocasio-Cortez.

Roughly 40 percent of Americans somewhat disagree, disagree, or strongly disagree with Ocasio-Cortez. About 29 percent of respondents said they were neutral on Ocasio-Cortez’s assertion or did not know.

Environmental activists have rallied around the call to forgo having children and call themselves “birthstrikers.”

“Our planet is in a kind of collapse. The natural world is collapsing around us, and that’s actually happening right now,” climate activist Victoria Derbyshire told Bloomberg News in an interview Monday.

“And I’m so disappointed by the response by authorities to this crisis, and so freaked out by everything I’ve read that I’ve — I’ve basically last year I came to the decision that I couldn’t bring a child into that.” Derbyshire said.

Follow Tim Pearce on Twitter