From covering seahorses to the catastrophic impact of highways, and the work of Black environmentalists, the most outstanding environmental books reviewed in Booklist over the past year offer resounding revelations.

The Conceivable Future: Planning Families and Taking Action in the Age of Climate Change. By Meghan Elizabeth Kallman and Josephine Ferorelli. Feb. 2024. Rowman & Littlefield
Questions about bringing new life into a world torn by conflict and climate change are addressed in this thoughtful, richly sourced, and genuinely useful look at emotional, social, economic, and political concerns.

“You can’t ignore it,” Ferorelli said of climate change. “You can’t tune it out the way you could before, not just because more people are talking about it, but because I wore a tank top to the post office yesterday, and it was snowing this morning. This doesn’t seem normal anymore.”

UMass Boston associate professor in the School for Global Inclusion and Social Development Meghan Elizabeth Kallman has debuted a new book exploring how the climate crisis is affecting family planning, parenting, and political action, with co-author and climate activist Josephine Ferorelli.

Authors Meghan Elizabeth Kallman and Josephine Ferorelli explore reproductive choices with climate change at the door.

This balanced and empathetic offering comes from Kallman and Ferorelli, cofounders of the Conceivable Future organization…. Their thoughtful and engaging narrative addresses multiple facets of emotional, social, economic, and political concerns (cultural expectations, adoption, reproductive activism), with helpful navigational features (self-checklists, flowcharts, step-by-step action guides) and numerous quotes and anecdotes from specialists, commentators, and individuals seeking answers.

— Kathleen McBroom

booklistonline.com

Meghan Elizabeth Kallman and Josephine Ferorelli discuss the politics of pregnancy and childbirth in an era of environmental challenges.

yesmagazine.org/video

The authors of “The Conceivable Future” argue that we should focus less on whether or not to have babies and more on stopping the extraction and burning of fossil fuels.

yesmagazine.org

Friends and co-directors of Conceivable Future Meghan Elizabeth Kallman and Josephine Ferorelli share their process of turning their activism into a book nearly a decade after meeting for the first time.

writersdigest.com

Should climate change keep you from having kids? The authors of a new book, ‘The Conceivable Future,’ discuss how people are thinking about family planning in a time of climate change.

yaleclimateconnections.org

Advice for raising children amid the battle for a livable planet

independent.co.uk

Josephine Ferorelli and Meghan Kallman on what adults owe to kids growing up today – regardless of whose kids they are

gendread.substack.com

“The Conceivable Future” examines raising a family amidst the climate crisis

citywideblackout.blogspot.com

New Parenting books Ask the big questions

publishersweekly.com

Below is an exclusive excerpt from ‘The Conceivable Future’ Chapter 4, which we were lucky enough to publish with permission.

girltalkhq.com

Wide-ranging podcast intervew with Lisa Smith

My husband and I struggle with the impact having kids would have on the planet.

goodhousekeeping.com

New research is asking whether Australian women consider the world a safe and promising place for children and the next generation to flourish. [More researchers using CF’s testimonies as a dataset!]

phys.org

WBEZ Chicago on NPR One | 4:20

one.npr.org

Two climate activists weigh in on why thinking about your uterus as the site of your political action is problematic.

earthisland.org

Around the world, members of Generation Z are experiencing climate anxiety. And many people are debating whether to ever have children.

providencejournal.com

In a world of pandemic chaos, political strife and climate catastrophe, some would-be parents see the future as too dark to procreate.

This NYT Styles article conflates anxiety about the changing climate’s threat to babies with babies’ ‘threat’ to the climate. This is the first distinction we make at Conceivable Future.

nytimes.com

A generation facing an intractable problem debates whether to bring a new generation into the world.

theatlantic.com

Climate change is influencing reproductive choices.

“The point is not whether or not to have kids; the point is, what can this political moment teach us about what we have to do? The fact that people are asking themselves these questions, having these thoughts, that’s the problem. The problem is that we have built a world where people need to ask [themselves if the climate is too much of a threat to a future child].“

yahoo.com

In 1969, a year after Paul and Anne Ehrlich published a book predicting that a “population bomb” would set humankind on a path to widespread famine and Anna Louie Sussman.

nybooks.com

A collaboration between Gen Dread and The All We Can Save Project

Britt Wray

gendread.substack.com

badbehaviorpodcast.com

Faced with an ever-worsening climate crisis, young women are taking matters – and their reproductive future – into their own hands.

ellecanada.com

Every generation wanted more than their parents, until now

insidehook.com

The U.S. birthrate is currently at its lowest in 32 years, with 2018 being the fourth consecutive year of decline. Usually births increase at times of economic stability, so these latest numbers have led demographers to wonder what else is on prospective parents’ minds.

yahoo.com

Faced with the stark reality of the climate crisis, a growing movement of people are deciding not to have children. We spoke with Blythe Pepino, the founder of Birthstrike in the UK. We also sat down with Meghan Kallman and Josephine Ferorelli of Conceivable Future, a women-led network of Americans who come together to discuss the intersection of climate change and reproductive justice.

The YEARS Project

For many people of childbearing age, the choice to bring kids into an uncertain future doesn’t feel like much of a choice at all.

sfchronicle.com

In the age of climate crisis, childbearing has become a fraught question for couples around the globe.

Ted Scheinman

bbc.com

And they want to do something about it.

wnycstudios.org

Is the future simply too horrific to bring children into? Some women, worried about droughts, wars and famines brought on by climate change, say yes.

usatoday.com

"It was a powerful relief to say it out loud and to hear someone else recognize it.”

huffpost.com

“I had this internal struggle: ‘Do I really want to bring a child into this world?’” a Seattle 29-year-old said.

nbcnews.com

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, nonprofits, and ethicists are now publicly addressing questions about procreation in the age of climate change.

Umair Irfan

vox.com

A recent trend of environmental bad news - warming oceans , melting ice sheets , and more intense tornadoes - prompted New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to pose the question of whether it's right to still have children in a world threatened by climate change.

newstimes.com

“I‘ve decided not to have kids, to do my part for climate change.” It’s a deeply personal choice and for many it’s the biggest decision of their life – whether to have children or not. This week...

We spoke with the BBC last week for an episode of Cut Through the Noise about climate change and its impacts on our generation’s reproductive lives.

facebook.com

A study last year found that not having children was one of the most effective ways of reducing carbon emissions, but others say meaningful change has to start at policy level

Just replace ‘on a planet’ with 'in a country’ in the following quote and you get to the heart of what we’re really talking about:

“Founders Josephine Ferorelli and Meghan Kallman, however, argue that the question shouldn’t be whether people have fewer children because of their future carbon footprint, but why we live on a planet where there is such a carbon cost to having a child.”

independent.co.uk

Young couples face a complicated decision at a time when the dire consequences of climate change are becoming clearer, is it ethical to bring a child into the world? Science journalist Britt Wray talks with parents, prospective parents, ethicists, scientists, and children on this thorny question.

CBC discusses the climate crisis as a reproductive crisis, and then a surprising turn of events. They elide childlessness with nihilism. We pointed out this error, and they offered an apology here.

cbc.ca

Like a growing number of potential parents, I’m questioning the ethics of bringing children into a warming world.

Asparagus Magazine

medium.com

With the effects of climate change no longer theoretical, projections more dire and action lagging, some potential parents are hesitating.

Maggie Astor

nytimes.com

Meghan Kallman and Josephine Ferorelli’s essay “On the Future: A Harsh Climate for Motherhood“ was published in this collection in March. Order your copy from Demeter Press, and support feminist scholarship.

demeterpress.org

CHICAGO -- Climate change is creating yet another debate -- this time largely among women who are wondering what it means for their reproductive future. They are not saying they fear their ovaries are affected by climate change; instead, they are saying they are so worried about climate change, it has made them wonder if bringing a child into the world right now is a bad idea.

wgntv.com

Many boomers' adult children are saying it's the reason they won't have kids

nextavenue.org

People weigh parenting decisions because a child in America produces 45,000 pounds of CO2 yearly. In Ethiopia? 221

Diane Stopyra

A direct, thoughtful article that really gets to the point of what we’re about.

salon.com

What does climate change have to do with your decision to have kids or not? A lot.

fusion.net

Episode Summary: Our guests on today’s show are the co-founders of a group called, Conceivable Future – Meghan Kallman and Josephine Ferorelli. Conceivable Future is a woman-led network of... Read more »

A long-form podcast interview with CF Co-Founders Meghan and Josephine

wildlensinc.org

Conceivable Future Co-Director Meghan Kallman speaks on the intersections of climate and reproductive justice in Rhode Island.

rifuture.org

"It sounds dramatic, but I'm just being realistic. The way we live currently simply cannot sustain more people."

We were featured in a Broadly article, released today. It’s a decent piece, but its dead-end focus on personal choice largely misses the point. This question (whether or not to have kids, and how to parent) isn’t an end unto itself, but a way of pointing back at and demanding change from the large, broken system that is posing us all with this unanswerable question.

vice.com

For some climate activists, the personal decision to have a child is also fraught with moral consequences: the negative impact on the environment, and on the quality of life for those children.

npr.com

Given the increasingly dire predictions about the future, being a climate activist is stressful. Some say it's making them stress over something else — whether or not to have children.

npr.com

Conceivable Future’s Meghan and Josephine did a long-form interview with Arthur Weaver and Guillermo Metz on WRFI’s The Forecast, May 18th episode.

theforecast.org

Posts about Conceivable Future written by kjschapira

“I was glad to hear their stories… and to see the faces and hear the voices of Conceivable Future’s interviewees. If they’re important, it’s because hearing that we’re not alone can help shape how we act together, toward each other.“

climateanxietycounseling.wordpress.com

Act Out! host Eleanor Goldfield interviews Conceivable Future Co-Founders Meghan Kallman and Josephine Ferorelli.

Occupy.com

The librarian was nondescript in the way that everyone standing behind a counter is, probably in her 30s, with straight, fox-colored hair. When she took my stack of books, I noticed the way her sweater draped over a conspicuous melon-shaped belly, and I felt a tug in my chest and warmth rise in my s...

thenation.com

Our poster design won WEDO’s women+Climate Justice poster competition! Check out the other winners, and WEDO’s excellent work in the lead-up to Paris..

womenclimateart-blog

Everyone wants the best possible world for their children.

Upworthy comes to a Conceivable Future house party…

upworthy.com

"I found myself explaining the doubts and fears I had entertained when my wife and I decided to have children over a quarter century ago. I didn’t grow up with the specter of cataclysmic climate change. I had grown up under the threat of nuclear war, an idea that now seems quaint and old fashioned."

Steve Ahlquist

rifuture.org