Working in the climate change industry meant I knew and understood more than most the environmental impact of overpopulation (Picture: Philline Donggay)

I remember the day I decided not to have children.

It was Halloween 2011 and my news feed was filled with information about the world population as the UN had just announced a baby girl in the Philippines to be the seven billionth person on the planet.

As a Filipino national I was already frustrated with the country’s (over)population (non)policies but working in the climate change industry meant I knew and understood more than most the environmental impact of overpopulation.

How could I parent responsibly when a child brought into the world in the age of climate breakdown will experience threats to their health and well-being never experienced by generations that came before?




I stirred together fear and terror, guilt and shame, anger and frustration and found myself swimming in ‘climate anxiety’.

Not wanting children was only one manifestation of it.

I stopped banal things like posting travel albums on my social media accounts because I was fearful of unintentionally inspiring younger people into thinking a jet-setter lifestyle full of flight carbon was a legitimate life goal. As a female with mild anemia I was afraid to stop eating meat, but more terrified of the consequences if I didn’t.

Having grown up as part of a mall-going culture, I was now also refusing to visit these commercial centers as regularly as I had in the past. I gave up free air conditioning in year-long summer seasons, all for the fear of being mind-tricked into the latest fast fashion purchase.

To my family, I became the climate wonk with multitudinous, sometimes crippling rules to life.

I hated watching the news on the latest extreme weather event, but rolled my eyes when I came upon one that didn’t mention climate change. When a deluge hit my home region, killing over 1,000 people, I questioned what made me so special that I was spared.

To my family, I became the climate wonk with multitudinous, sometimes crippling rules to life. To my friends and colleagues, a depressing misplaced activist who could barely keep it together.

I have sobbed countless times after delivering climate change presentations over the past eight years. I once burst into tears because of a post-grad report about how the Syrian war was essentially climate-induced, to the horror of my colleagues.

As with regular anxiety, people are said to deal with climate anxiety in different ways. I deal with mine by moving forward.

Joining protest rallies and making picket signs for climate change campaigns were not effective enough, so I found myself working in proactive climate policy.

And when that did not yield the results I was hoping for, I ended up exploring climate finance.

I then convinced my own family to inadvertently support the clean energy revolution I was always rooting for and convert to flexitarianism with me. I promoted a switch to renewable energy in my region and made my friends plant trees to celebrate my birthday.

It also helps to find your own anxious tribe, too.

When I first heard UN climate chief Christiana Figueres speak at the Global Power Shift conference in 2013, she broke down in tears while talking about how she worried for her daughters’ futures.

I also became friends with Naderev ‘Yeb’ Saño, the former climate negotiator famous for weeping during a UNFCCC conference speech, and together we watched climate activist Greta Thunberg give the speech that became vindication for climate anxious folks the world over.

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These days, I manage my anxiety well enough to function.



I live a vicarious activist life through my partner, who will happily drive a boat in the way of an oil tanker, lead a mob inside a fossil fuel giant’s office or stand in front of a moving coal train shipment.

The threat climate change poses is no longer up for debate: the planet is heating up and Antarctic ice is melting faster than ever before. Extreme weather events are set to become more frequent, putting lives at immediate risk.

Experts including Sir David Attenborough have warned of the ‘catastrophic future’ we face if climate change is not addressed as a matter of urgency.

I feel a sense of duty to campaign and highlight the risks of climate change, although knowing there is always more I can do fuels my anxiety further.

There are changes we can all make on a personal, micro level to redress the balance, whether that’s addressing our diets, plastic use or modes of travel but without change on a global scale, my overwhelming fear is that we leave the children a planet made more cruel by what has been done by us and others in the past, and that’s just not fair to them.

In the meantime, we just do what we have to do, and keep swimming, and surviving.

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