The Overpopulation Podcast

In this episode with Dr. Zachary Neal and Dr. Jennifer Watling Neal, we explore their research about the prevalence and characteristics of childfree adults in the US and globally. Despite the fact that people without children make up a significant portion of the population, both nationally in the US (20-25%) and globally, this group remains largely underrepresented in policymaking and demographic surveys. Driven by the desire for m...

In this episode with bioethicist and moral philosopher Dr. Travis N. Rieder, we discuss his latest book Catastrophe Ethics, in which he explores how individuals can make morally decent choices in a world of confusing and often terrifying problems. We explore the morally exhausting and puzzling nature of modern life in which individual actions can often seem insignificant in the face o...

To celebrate International Women’s Day on March 8th, we interviewed Laura Carroll, internationally recognized expert on pronatalism and the childfree choice, who starts by sharing highlights from her latest book A Special Sisterhood: 100 Fascinating Women From History Who Never had Children. We also unpack her book The Baby Matrix: Why Freeing Our Minds From Outmoded Thinking About Parenthood & Reproduction Will Create a Better Wor...

In this interview with freelance writer Christopher Ketcham, we unpack the techno-industrial extractivism that plagues modern societies and the media’s complicity in failing to challenge the growth model on which it is based. We discuss Chris’ book This Land: How Cowboys, Capitalism, and Corruption Are Ruining the American West in which he outlines the environmental destruction caused by unregulated public lands livestock grazing, ...

In this interview with award-winning science journalist Angela Saini, based on her bold and radical book The Patriarchs: How Men Came to Rule, we explore the roots and complex history of how patriarchy first became embedded in societies and spread across the globe from prehistory into the present. Angela discusses how gendered roles, pronatalism, and militarism – key features of patriarchies – are...

When and why did population become a dirty word? And why are so many people shamed for advocating for population reduction? Despite innumerable scientific studies showing the impact of human overpopulation and overconsumption on mounting social and ecological catastrophes, including climate change, biodiversity destruction, ocean acidification, resource scarcity, and conflict, most policymakers, journalists, and academics are too a...

In this episode, we chat with Asher Miller and Rob Dietz of the Post Carbon Institute about their latest report "Welcome to the Great Unraveling", which explores ways to navigate the environmental and social breakdown resulting from multiple intersecting crises. Recognizing human supremacy and overshoot as the drivers of the polycrisis, we discuss the threat of increased polarization, techno-solutionism, conflict, and suffering as ...

Dr. Hope Ferdowsian, president of Phoenix Zones Initiatives (PZI) and a public health physician, discusses how she and her colleagues are working to dismantle the roots of oppression, exploitation, and domination harming humans and non-humans. She highlights the physical and psychological suffering and harm that animals face in food production and in research labs, and how this systematic exploitation of animals is link...

We chat with population ecologist, co-creator of the ecological footprint analysis, and one of the world’s best big-picture ecological thinkers, Dr. Bill Rees. Bill explains how our blind faith in human exceptionalism, technological optimism, and neoliberal economics fooled us into disregarding ecological limits and brought us into a state of extreme overshoot. These same false stories enabled humans to use cheap abunda...

Dr. Kevin Bales, world-renowned expert on contemporary global slavery, shines a light on the human rights violations and ecocidal impacts of modern day slavery, which tragically still exists in much of the world today. Dr. Bales discusses the history of slavery, from ancient civilizations to modern times, highlighting how it has evolved over time, including the role that population growth, patriarchal pronatalism, religion, politic...

Japan-based feminist scholar, Dr. Isabel Fassbender, discusses her new book, Active Pursuit of Pregnancy: Neoliberalism, Postfeminism and the Politics of Reproduction in Contemporary Japan, and how a toxic mix of patriarchy, biomedical capitalism, and nationalism has emerged in response to Japan’s slightly declining population.

As a country whose ecological footprint is nearly 8 times its biocapacity, and whose citizens chronically...

In this interview with Dr. Camilo Mora, widely acclaimed professor and award-winning researcher, we discuss the impacts of human activity on climate change, biodiversity loss, resource scarcity, and pandemics, and how to move past population denial to grapple with our compounding crises. Dr. Mora shares his firsthand experience of the direct impact of population pressures he has experienced in Colombia, including the loss of biodiv...

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 de...

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 plant...

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 I...

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 plan...

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 metaphysic...

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 basi...

We are joined in this episode by Richard Heinberg, one of the world’s foremost experts on energy and sustainability. Using his latest book, Power: Limits and Prospects for Human Survival as the basis of our conversation, we unpack how humans have come to overpower Earth's natural systems and oppress one another and how we might address this. Richard challenges the techno-utopian absurdity of “green growth” and explains how unfetter...