I appreciate Zoe Williams’s excellent interview with Camilla Cavendish (Spermageddon, ‘greedy jobs’ and abject fear: why birthrates are plummeting – and why it matters, 17 September), but I have to take issue with one of her statements: “Of course, the climate crisis is playing a big part in that, but it still doesn’t wholly stack up – in the 80s, there was the wraparound threat of nuclear annihilation and it didn’t seem to dent anyone’s joie de vivre.”
Yes, the buildup of nuclear arms and the terror surrounding it reached its peak in the 20th century, but it was kept in check by policies of Mutually Assured Destruction: a singular launch of a nuclear arsenal would have instantly ended humanity.
