As climate despair continues to grow, some have said they feel helpless; others have even said climate change has made them feel suicidal. Though Miley Cyrus isn’t on that level, she did recently said she doesn’t want to have kids until the climate crisis is resolved.

And she’s not alone. There’s actually an entire movement, BirthStrike, that shares the sentiment of not having kids due to the crisis. The movement is growing, and though Miley made no specific mention to it, she seems to embody at least some of its values.

Miley Cyrus Shares Her Thoughts with Elle Magazine

In a recent interview with Elle, Miley shared her thoughts on sustainability and climate change fairly extensively, saying:

“We’re getting handed a piece-of-shit planet, and I refuse to hand that down to my child. Until I feel like my kid would live on an Earth with fish in the water, I’m not bringing in another person to deal with that.”

We saw Miley’s angry rhetoric before: at one of her concerts, where she expressed her disdain for how human activity has damaged the environment. That speaks to her passion for the climate topic.

Later in the same Elle interview, Miley added:

“We just take and take and expect it to keep producing … it’s exhausted. It can’t produce.”

Though it’s unclear what she’s referring to specifically, her statement could be alluding to a number of things. For instance, she could be referring to the deforestation problem or how ocean pollution has affected marine habitats.

Miley Cyrus Isn’t Alone

Though most people’s decisions to have children aren’t affected by the climate crisis, Miley is far from being alone. BirthStrike is quickly gaining popularity, currently counting over 330 people as members of its organization.

To learn more about the organization, CNN spoke with 33-year-old British musician Blythe Pepino, who told the network:

33-year-old British musician Blythe Pepino is the founder of the BirthStrike movement. Image Credit: Linda Nylind/The Guardian

“I love my partner and I want a family with him but I don’t feel like this is a time that you can do that.”

The BirthStrike movement is grounded on two fundamental principles:

Having kids would subject them to a deteriorating planet. Having kids would add to the emissions problem.

On an emotional level, the first point. And on a statistical level, since the typical person emits over 5 tons of carbon dioxide annually, one can understand the second point.

Miley echoes this sentiment, saying:

“I feel like that’s what all millennials are dealing with right now … We don’t want to reproduce because we know that the earth can’t handle it.”

But what really influenced her position on the climate crisis were the Californian wildfires, of which her family was a victim.

Wildfires Influence Miley’s Decision

The 2018 Woolsey fire caused over $6 billion in damages. Included in those damages was Miley’s $2.5 million Malibu home and some of her earliest songs. Miley took immediate action, and has accomplished a ton:

“After the Woolsey fire, I thought about how we helped more than 120 families who lost their homes. We’ve served nearly 1,300 homeless kids in Hollywood every year since 2014. And last year, we helped 270 kids find housing and provided 32,000 meals. That won’t burn down. That helped me become much more disconnected from things.”

The Woolsey fire burned Miley’s $2.5 million Malibu home and some of her earliest songs.

But despite a tremendous contribution from Miley, she can’t solve the wildfire problem alone (or at all, really). In part, that’s because the wildfire problem is everywhere. That’s where the helplessness comes from, as she shares:

“With natural disasters, you don’t get a choice. You surrender.”

To think from Miley’s perspective: “How can you expect your kids to do well if they can lose just about everything they have to a natural disaster?”

Conclusions

Regardless of whether you plan on having kids, a necessary consideration is whether the Earth can actually support them. Miley suggests that many millennials like her understand that it might be in everyone’s best interests to not bring up children in an age faced with the implications of climate change. That’s your decision to make.