When I read yesterday that wildfire season had begun, my heart sank a little. I had hoped, irrationally, that the smoky air we breathed last year was a one-off nightmare. Instead, it’s looking like the new normal. Out-of-control fires are now blazing in parts of B.C., Alberta and Manitoba. Because of drought, experts predict that this wildfire season could be even more severe than the last.
Jenna Ross, a 38-year-old potter who lives in a small community in New Brunswick about a 90-minute drive northwest of Fredericton, says that anxiety about climate change was the main reason she decided not to have kids. She didn’t want to bring babies into this smoky mess. Ross has written a moving piece for Maclean’s about being childless by choice. “The population is eight billion people,” she says. “I don’t need to add another one.”
Ross lives in an off-grid home fitted with renewable solar panels and a composting toilet. Instead of parenting, she puts her energy into planting native trees on her almost 100-acre property. She gets some flak from family and friends about her decision not to procreate but she’s confident in her choice. “I don’t want to throw kids into the gamble of an uncertain world,” she says.
—Sarah Fulford, editor-in-chief
