The Overpopulation Podcast Population Balance

We chat with environmental and procreative ethicist Dr. Trevor Hedberg about his recent book The Environmental Impact of Overpopulation: The Ethics of Procreation, and the ethical implications of bringing new life into existence, both in terms of the risk of harm to which the child is subjected, but also the environmental impact that it has on the planet. We also discuss the role that pronatalism plays in influencing procreative decision-making, and why the right to found a family must be balanced with the rights of others to not be harmed, while also rejecting antinatalism and misanthropy. We conclude by discussing the moral imperative for population reduction in order to reduce unnecessary suffering to people and other species, and Dr. Hedberg shares some of his ideas on rights-based policy strategies.
See episode website for show notes, links, and transcript:
https://www.populationbalance.org/podcast/trevor-hedberg
ABOUT US
The Overpopulation Podcast features enlightening conversations between Population Balance executive director Nandita Bajaj, researcher Alan Ware, and expert guests. We cover a broad variety of topics that explore the impacts of our expanding human footprint on human rights, animal protection, and environmental restoration, as well as individual and collective solutions. Learn more here: https://www.populationbalance.org/

What happens when we renounce our ego and allow nature to become our teacher? We talk with rainforest conservationist and educator Suprabha Seshan about her incredible efforts to protect and restore the forest at the Gurukula Botanical Sanctuary in Kerala, India. Suprabha shares with us her decades of work which has involved the integration of scientific and traditional practices, understanding the complex conditions in which plants exist and relate to each other, and how human societies can exist in harmony with this diversity. She sees the botanical sanctuary as providing an ‘ark’ for the endangered plants of the Western Ghats biome from the ‘flood’ of human expansionism, and the remarkable ways in which rewilding can offer a refuge to the remaining exuberance of life, including ourselves.
See episode website for show notes, links, and transcript:
https://www.populationbalance.org/podcast/suprabha-seshan
ABOUT US
The Overpopulation Podcast features enlightening conversations between Population Balance executive director Nandita Bajaj, researcher Alan Ware, and expert guests. We cover a broad variety of topics that explore the impacts of our expanding human footprint on human rights, animal protection, and environmental restoration, as well as individual and collective solutions. Learn more here: https://www.populationbalance.org/

We chat with Andrew Kyamagero, an award-winning Ugandan journalist and family-planning advocate, about the interaction of population dynamics, family planning, and male involvement in the promotion of gender equity within Uganda. Because of his incredible efforts to enhance gender equity and healthcare delivery across the country, Andrew has been appointed by the Ugandan Ministry of Health as the National Family Planning and Male Involvement Champion. We discuss the role of patriarchy in driving the high fertility rates, high rates of child marriage and teenage pregnancy, and low rates of education and female labour force participation in Uganda. We also discuss the role of Western imperialism, past and present, in undermining Uganda’s attempts at becoming a sovereign nation. Andrew highlights his unique work in engaging boys and men to confront patriarchy and pronatalism as an important strategy to complement the empowerment of girls and women in order to achieve true gender equality and sustainability in the country.
00:00 Opening
02:05 Introduction
04:15 Getting involved in family planning work
07:55 Population growth in Uganda
10:45 Religious pronatalism
12:09 Differences between religions
16:32 Environmental issues in Uganda
17:37 Firewood as fuel
19:10 Cultural and social attitudes
20:56 Urbanization and values
23:43 Lack of sexual education, consequences, policy
30:21 Western imperialism, commodity export model, cooperatives
37:03 Women's participation in workforce
38:15 Unpaid labor
39:34 Empowerment as a threat to patriarchy
43:07 Omuntu Wawansi
46:52 Sex education in schools, effective family planning strategies
54:23 Shifting cultural norms, stigma, self-care products
55:05 Challenges as a journalist
59:49 Impact of reporting on these issues
1:01:53 Wrap up
See episode website for show notes, links, and transcript:
https://www.populationbalance.org/podcast/andrew-kyamagero
ABOUT US
The Overpopulation Podcast features enlightening conversations between Population Balance executive director Nandita Bajaj, researcher Alan Ware, and expert guests. We cover a broad variety of topics that explore the impacts of our expanding human footprint on human rights, animal protection, and environmental restoration, as well as individual and collective solutions. Learn more here: https://www.populationbalance.org/

In honor of World Population Day, we are joined by Robert Engelman, researcher, writer, and former newspaper reporter on environmental, demographic, reproductive health and gender-related topics. Through his deep learning experiences over three decades at leading environmental, journalism, and population organizations, Bob shines a light on the intimate links between reproductive autonomy and planetary health, which were also the subject of his seminal 2008 book, More: Population, Nature, and What Women Want. We discuss the fascinating trends over the last 10,000 years that have led to the progressive diminishment of women’s reproductive rights, and the accompanying growth in population and environmental degradation. We also discuss the positive trend towards gender equality and the subsequent reduction in fertility rates over the last century, and the concerted efforts that are needed to sustain and accelerate that trend for the sake of reproductive and ecological justice.
00:00 Opening
02:09 Introduction
04:18 Journalism to research advocacy
05:05 Environment and reproduction
10:35 Population Action International
11:40 Worldwatch Institute
15:39 More: Population, Nature, and What Women Want
22:27 Emmenagogues and pessaries
24:18 Women's role in reproductive process, midwifery
26:08 Rise in reproductive autonomy, family, media coverage
36:18 Trends, norms, coercion
42:15 Pushing back on pronatalist policies
43:20 Demography
48:52 Welcoming population decline
50:53 Consumption and population
54:44 Sustainababble
58:09 How to get better media coverage
1:02:22 Wrap up
See episode website for show notes, links, and transcript:
https://www.populationbalance.org/podcast/robert-engelman
ABOUT US
The Overpopulation Podcast features enlightening conversations between Population Balance executive director Nandita Bajaj, researcher Alan Ware, and expert guests. We cover a broad variety of topics that explore the impacts of our expanding human footprint on human rights, animal protection, and environmental restoration, as well as individual and collective solutions. Learn more here: https://www.populationbalance.org/
 

We are joined by Amanda Janoo, Economics and Policy Lead at the Wellbeing Economy Alliance where we unpack the fundamentals behind the Wellbeing Economy. What happens when we stop treating people and the planet like they're here to serve the economy and start treating the economy like it's here to serve us? Through clear examples and policy strategies, Janoo illustrates the cultural and metaphysical transformation that can occur within communities when social and ecological wellbeing become our primary goals, and the economy becomes the means to help us achieve those goals by putting our fundamental needs for Dignity, Nature, Purpose, Fairness and Participation at the core of its activities and getting things right the first time around. We also discuss the work of the Wellbeing Economy Alliance in leading the collaboration of organisations, alliances, movements and individuals working to transform the economic system.
00:00 Opening
03:22 Introduction
05:06 Goals of global capitalism
05:47 Goals of wellbeing economy
07:20 Wellbeing Alliance's goals and policies
10:07 Experiences that led down this path
14:39 Commodity export model
18:05 Economic logic colonizing world
23:22 Confronting modern worldview
27:36 Notion of fairness
28:28 Process of economic policy design
33:06 Communities creating a Wellbeing Economy
34:57 Examples
39:23 Meaningful participation
43:20 La Paz, Bolivia; Citizens' Assembly; participation fatigue
46:12 WEGO economies
51:21 COVID and change
56:19 Role of political power in creating Wellbeing Economy
1:00:46 Using policy to push back against market forces
1:04:54 European Parliament and degrowth
1:10:13 Shift in policy discourse, well balanced media reporting
1:12:26 Wrap up
See episode website for show notes, links, and transcript:
https://www.populationbalance.org/podcast/amanda-janoo
ABOUT US
The Overpopulation Podcast features enlightening conversations between Population Balance executive director Nandita Bajaj, researcher Alan Ware, and expert guests. We cover a broad variety of topics that explore the impacts of our expanding human footprint on human rights, animal protection, and environmental restoration, as well as individual and collective solutions. Learn more here: https://www.populationbalance.org/
 

We are joined by Naomi Oreskes, Henry Charles Lea Professor of the History of Science and Affiliated Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard University, and a world-renowned earth scientist, historian and public speaker. Using her latest book that she co-authored with Erik M. Conway, The Big Myth: How American Business Taught Us to Loath Government and Love the Free Market as the basis of our conversation, she explains how free-market fundamentalism has had a long history of undermining democracy and exploiting marginalized communities to benefit a small minority of elites. We also discuss the role that libertarian, techno-fundamentalist, and Catholic anti-choice think tanks such as the Cato Institute, Foundation for Economic Education, the Breakthrough Institute, and Population Research Institute have played in fueling anti-Science propaganda on overpopulation denialism, and why these forces must be vehemently opposed for a more just and sustainable planet.
00:00 Opening
02:44 Introduction
04:00 Eight Billion People in the World Is a Crisis, Not an Achievement
06:50 The Malthusians are Back
09:13 Mainstream media
10:00 Breakthrough Institute
11:37 Free market fundamentalism, overpopulation myth, planning
17:05 Disempowered people, overpopulation, labor
19:29 The Big Myth
25:20 Tripod of freedom
30:56 Population control, pronatalism, authoritarianism
34:29 Intellectual foundations of market fundamentalism
43:13 Major actors pushing market fundamentalism
49:20 Powell Memorandum, Reagan, Republican party
54:42 Monopolies, economic power to political
57:37 Citizens United
58:23 Role of government
1:01:13 Free market and wellbeing
1:02:52 Research on ecological overshoot and human overpopulation
1:04:40 Technology
1:05:03 Wrap up
See episode website for show notes, links, and transcript:
https://www.populationbalance.org/podcast/naomi-oreskes
ABOUT US
The Overpopulation Podcast features enlightening conversations between Population Balance Executive Director Nandita Bajaj, cohost Alan Ware, and expert guests. We cover a broad variety of topics that explore the impacts of our expanding human footprint on human rights, animal protection, and environmental restoration, as well as individual and collective solutions. Learn more here: https://www.populationbalance.org/