People who don't have children benefit our environment more than any campaign – it's time to celebrate them

Kim Cattrall famously said
that she didn't want to
be referred to as "childless"
 as she found the term offensive. 

The global population is growing rapidly, while the resources we depend on to live are dwindling. If you consider the footprint each person makes on the world – in terms of food and water consumed, electricity and gas used, and waste produced – the challenge of improving living standards while protecting natural resources and the environment is striking. The question of human population size is fundamentally one of sustainability, and in that so is the choice to have children.

Rather than being taboo, being childfree is something that should be celebrated and valued. The childfree do more for our environment than any campaign. In the UK our electricity use per capita is 5,407 kWh – it’s nigh on impossible to make up for the environmental footprint of having a child by remembering to switch off the lights. Finite resources mean we must consider our consumption now, what living standards are acceptable, and how to maintain the ecosystems on which we depend and how many of us there are.

Read the story on the Independent by Simon Ross - “People who don't have children benefit our environment more than any campaign – it's time to celebrate them.”