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I am 43, and many of my generation have made the leap into parenthood in the past few years – happily sharing scan photos, scoping out buggies and arguing in the baby section at Ikea. For them, altruistic concerns for the environment or the danger of their children being born into a harsh world were dwarfed by a biological need to reproduce, alongside the joy they would feel bringing up a son or daughter.

I have long taken a different view – I have decided I do not want children, due to a combination of existential fears about what will happen to our society over the 100-year lifespan of any child of mine, mixed with a long-standing belief that I am largely unsuited for fatherhood.

My friend Anusha, a 28-year-old retail analyst, is another “birth striker”, deciding when she was about 21 that she didn’t want to have children. “At the time lots of friends and family told me that as I got older, the biological clock would start ticking,” she recalls.

“But actually the opposite has happened. The older I’ve got the more my decision has solidified. There are now a lot of wider issues that I’m passionate about in terms of the planet and climate change that have confirmed that decision for me. Beyond not eating meat, recycling, using public transport, the number one thing that you can do for the planet is not reproduce.”

At the time lots of friends and family told me that as I got older, the biological clock would start ticking

Anna Hughes, a cycling instructor and author, agrees. “It’s inescapable that having kids… creates a resource-consuming person,” she says, adding that if she were to fall pregnant, “I would have an abortion.”