Vice President Kamala Harris' 2024 campaign hired a new climate director who has frequently said the effects of climate change are part of what's stopping her from having children.
Camila Thorndike, who previously worked in the Senate managing the climate portfolio of Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., was given the title of climate engagement director for the Harris for President campaign in September 2024, according to her LinkedIn page.
Prior to joining the Harris campaign, Thorndike said on several occasions that she considers climate change a factor when deciding whether to have kids.
"I was 15 when I first saw the climate ‘hockey stick’ graph. I realized that this skyrocketing arrow of temperature would take place in my lifetime. All of the big milestones of life that I was looking forward to would be in the context of this big global crisis. It led to the question of whether or not to have kids – which is still a big question for me – where I would put down roots, what my family would do," Thorndike said in 2018 when she was the D.C. campaign director for the Chesapeake Climate Action Network.
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Again in November 2019, Thorndike described it as an "ethical question that keeps me up at night."
"I have always been someone who enjoys children and loves the idea of a family, and that’s why I have wrestled with this, because my logical mind and the facts of the future I can see bearing down on us are not supportive of the life I would want for them," she told Yahoo News at the time.
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During an appearance on the "My Climate Journey" podcast in August 2022, a show hosted by Jason Jacobs and Cody Simms for people seeking to better understand climate change, Thorndike again made a connection between the decision to have children and what it might look like in the future amid climate change.
"I plotted my own lifetime against that and realized that around the time that I would, especially, be considering having kids or whatever, in around my 30s, we would start to see the escalation of this crisis. And so that was when I realized that, at the time, the grownups were not coming to save us and my generation would have to fight to take the wheel."
Featured in a Washington Post article about whether people should not have kids due to climate change, the new Harris campaign official said she worried about her potential kids "suffering" from climate-related issues.
"It’s coming partly from a place of love for my hypothetical child," she said. "I want to protect them from suffering. Not that life is ever free from suffering, but what of the joys and peace and goodness that make me happiest to be alive will be accessible in 20, 30, 40 years?"
Harris acknowledged this idea during a discussion at the "Fight for Our Freedoms" event in September 2023.
"I’ve heard young leaders talk with me about a term they’ve coined called ‘climate anxiety,’ which is fear of the future and the unknown of whether it makes sense for you to even think about having children, whether it makes sense for you to think about aspiring to buy a home," Harris said in a clip that has resurfaced since she became the 2024 Democratic nominee.
A clip of the comment, shared by Donald Trump Jr. in July, prompted backlash from critics of Harris.
Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, who is now former President Trump's running mate, wrote in a post on X, formerly Twitter: "It's almost like these people don't want young people starting families or something. Really weird stuff."
"Shamala is an extinctionist. The natural extension of her philosophy would be a de facto holocaust for all of humanity!" wrote billionaire and X owner Elon Musk on his platform.
