2023-05-19 19:30:00
The Outremont borough distributed a pamphlet to its citizens suggesting that having one less child would be the best action to fight once morest climate change.
“It’s irresponsible and it shows a total lack of judgment,” says Sarah Dorner, shocked by the content of the leaflet announcing the holding of the public consultation on the 2024-2030 Climate Emergency Plan led by the Montreal borough.
According to the document, having one less child would be the action that would have the greatest impact on climate change, far ahead of living without a car, taking one less transatlantic flight and dropping the meat.
Pierre-Paul Poulin / Le Journal de Montreal / QMI Agency
The leaflet suggests that one less child is the action that allows the most climate savings.
A delicate ethical issue
Mme Dorner denounces all content that highlights individual actions that are unsuited to the local context and ignore social inequalities.
“When you work in climate justice, it’s not a message you want to share. We don’t want our children to feel bad regarding existing,” underlines the one who is also a professor of hydrological engineering at Polytechnique Montréal.
For ecosociologist Laure Waridel, the proposal to have fewer children raises delicate ethical issues.
“The birth rate can also be positive and a force for change,” says the co-founder of Équiterre and mother of two children, who launched the group Mères au front.
For her, the sinews of war is rather to encourage all levels of government to act to offer a better world to future generations in the context of the climate crisis.
The mayor in “deep disagreement”
The distribution of the printed document to 9000 copies began at the beginning of the week and was suspended on Wednesday, at the request of the mayor Laurent Desbois.
On Wednesday evening, the elected representative of Ensemble Montréal published a “correction” on Facebook in which he invites the citizens who received it to disregard the option of having one less child to protect the environment. .
“I want to be clear, I strongly disagree with that. Having children is a personal choice. It’s a value judgment, we don’t have to go there, it’s not our responsibility, ”he reiterated in a telephone interview.
He explains that a borough technical officer adapted the graphic from a scientific article. “It fell between the cracks,” he said.
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