Could choosing not to have children be environmentally friendly?

Race car driver Leilani Munter thinks so. She is a patron of the charity Population Matters, which aims to raise awareness of overpopulation and its effect on the planet.

Leilani is also a biology graduate from the University of California in San Diego, which is where her interest in this issue comes from.

"Every single environmental issue that we have is accelerated by our growing population. We cannot address any of these unless we address the root problem, which is that there are currently 7.6 billion people on the planet and we are growing at a rate of a billion people every 12 years."

Leilani and her husband have chosen not to have children, and she thinks it's something that needs to be normalised.

"We need to make it more socially acceptable for people to not have children. The societal norm is you meet your partner, get married and have kids. If you really have the need to be a parent, there are 138 million orphaned children in the world that are looking for homes."

She says she doesn't think there's a danger of genocides and mass sterilisations resulting from this idea.

"I want people to just think about this when they consider having children, and for having one child or no children to be applauded and championed rather than being questioned."

To catch the full chat press the play button on the image on the top of the screen