As we observe World Population Day 2013 on July 11, we at the GrowthBusters project think this is a time to ensure the public is armed with the facts about population. We put this video together to do just that. I went out with a camera and microphone to talk to the people, to find out what they know and think about the state of the world population. You might be surprised at what I found.

Growth apologists want us to relax about population growth and remain complacent, waiting at least another 100 years for world population to stabilize (if supplies of food, water, energy and scarce resources miraculously keep up). Many people feel the UN population projections are just a fact of life and nothing we can do will end population growth sooner.

The truth is we don’t want to be complacent about the world’s growing population. The scale of the human enterprise (the size of our population and our economies) passed into overshoot (exceeding the Earth’s sustainable carrying capacity) 30 years ago.

This story will give you a quick snapshot.

And the truth is we have the power to not only stop population growth but to contract our population to a sustainable level – within 100 years if we really set our hearts on it, by simply making sure every couple around the world is armed with knowledge of what their family size decisions will mean to their own children, and by ensuring these couples have access to family planning tools like contraception, and by supporting women’s right to have a say in their own reproductive health.

You are welcome to show the video to any audience, at any event. I hope teachers will show this to their classes, parents to their children, constituents to their elected officials.

Special thanks to Nina Paley for the use of her wonderful stork animation.

To learn more about our full world and our culture’s unhealthy growth addiction, check out my documentary, GrowthBusters: Hooked on Growth. Follow us on facebook and Twitter. And please donate to help us spread the word about our culture’s worship of growth everlasting.

Dave Gardner
Director of the documentary
GrowthBusters: Hooked on Growth 

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World Population Day 2013 is coming up later this week (July 11), so we’re counting down the Top 10 Reasons to Choose a Small Family. Reason #4 is: Have You Ever Seen a Quiet Kid in a Movie Theater, Restaurant or Airplane? We actually love kids. That’s why we’re working hard to ensure we leave our children a planet worth inheriting.

It’s good to have a sense of humor even while saving the planet. Today’s reason for choosing a small family reminded me of this fun commercial from Belgium:

We know the scale of human activity on Earth passed into overshoot several decades ago. The coming crises are so severe we must make drastic changes in both our consumption and our reproductive behavior. We can humanely and voluntarily get world population back to a sustainable level within a century, if we are genuinely committed to it. What is required is that every couple be aware of the ramifications of their decisions about family size. We all want good lives for our children.

The current population level and state of overshoot are two very good reasons to choose to have no children, or perhaps just one. Even stopping at two will help. Adoption is a good option for those who desire more.

Please share this thought with your friends and children. Subscribe to our updates to get the rest of the Top 10 Reasons to Choose a Small Family!

Dave Gardner
Director of the documentary
GrowthBusters: Hooked on Growth 

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Since the focus of World Population Day 2013 is adolescent pregnancy, this inspiring story about one woman’s heroic effort to do something about this problem she saw reducing opportunities and quality of life for young women not ready to be mothers. What if every community had a program like this?

My compliments to Claudia Haltom and the members of her community who got behind what became A-Step-Ahead Foundation, which makes long-term, reversible birth control available to the women who need it most. The foundation works on much more than accessibility, however, as this story reveals. This is a great effort and a positive story, AND it’s about efforts in the U.S. Yes, teen pregnancy is a huge problem in the U.S., not just for the individual lives impacted and the costs to society, but for its contribution to U.S. overpopulation. Overpopulation is not just happening in developing nations.

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In the run up to World Population Day 2013, we’re counting down the Top 10 Reasons to Choose a Small Family. Reason #5 is: Each child adds over 9,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide to a parent’s carbon legacy.

We know the scale of human activity on Earth passed into overshoot several decades ago. The coming crises are so severe we must make drastic changes in both our consumption and our reproductive behavior.  In considering climate change, we tend to focus on how we heat, cool, feed and transport ourselves. But we seldom consider how many need to be heated, cooled, fed and transported. Research conducted by Oregon State University reveals our decisions about family size will have a much greater impact over the long haul than whether we drive a hummer or ride a bike. Grist Senior Editor Lisa Hymas wrote beautifully about this in her column a few years ago. Lisa wrote from the perspective of someone who has chosen not to conceive any children, but the logic is just as useful in determining whether to have one child vs. two, or two vs. three. The 400+ comments posted to this column give us a hint about how fascinating and challenging this conversation can be.

We can humanely and voluntarily get world population back to a sustainable level within a century, if we are genuinely committed to it.  What we lack is the will to acknowledge the problem and to strongly recommend to all our children that they limit the size of their family.

The current population level and state of overshoot are two very good reasons to choose to have no children, or perhaps just one. Even stopping at two will help. Adoption is a good option for those who desire more.

Please share this thought with your friends and children. Subscribe to our updates to get the rest of the Top 10 Reasons to Choose a Small Family!

Dave Gardner
Director of the documentary
GrowthBusters: Hooked on Growth 

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In our countdown of the Top 10 Reasons to Choose a Small Family, Reason #6 is:  75% of the world’s fish stocks are being harvested faster than they can reproduce. World Population Day is July 11, when we’ll reveal the number one reason to choose a small family.

Fisheries are declining because a growing human population is eating the fish, and because our other activities are making more and more of the oceans inhospitable for the fish. Ocean acidification and ocean dead zones are among the byproducts of the massive scale of the human enterprise on the planet. The University of British Columbia (UBC) Fisheries Centre has found that big predatory fish like tuna and cod have declined globally by more than two-thirds over the past century. Every year we see new headlines like this: Study Sees Global Collapse of Fish Species. No matter who is doing the studying, the news is never good.

We know the scale of human activity on Earth passed into overshoot several decades ago. The coming crises are so severe we must make drastic changes in both our consumption and our reproductive behavior.  We can humanely and voluntarily get world population back to a sustainable level within a century, if we are genuinely committed to it.  What we lack is the will to acknowledge the problem and to strongly recommend to all our children that they limit the size of their family.

The current population level and state of overshoot are two very good reasons to choose to have no children, or perhaps just one. Even stopping at two will help. Adoption is a good option for those who desire more.

Please share this thought with your friends and children. Subscribe to our updates to get the rest of the Top 10 Reasons to Choose a Small Family!

Dave Gardner
Director of the documentary
GrowthBusters: Hooked on Growth 

Continue Reading →

We’re counting down the Top 10 Reasons to Choose a Small Family. Reason #7: We’re currently adding about 9,000 people to the planet every hour. This adds up to roughly 80 million every year. On World Population Day, July 11, we’ll reveal the number one reason to choose a small family.

We know the scale of human activity on Earth passed into overshoot several decades ago. The coming crises are so severe we must make drastic changes in both our consumption and our reproductive behavior.  We can humanely and voluntarily get world population back to a sustainable level within a century, if we are genuinely committed to it.  What we lack is the will to acknowledge the problem and to strongly recommend to all our children that they limit the size of their family.

The current population level and state of overshoot are two very good reasons to choose to have no children, or perhaps just one. Even stopping at two will help. Adoption is a good option for those who desire more.

Please share this thought with your friends and children. Subscribe to our updates to get the rest of the Top 10 Reasons to Choose a Small Family!

Dave Gardner
Director of the documentary
GrowthBusters: Hooked on Growth 

Continue Reading →

The United Nations’ revised World Population Prospects, released a few weeks ago, offered sobering news and even less reason to be complacent about population growth. This story in New Security Beat offers a thorough and factual account of the report’s findings. Estimates were revised upwards partly because earlier estimates turned out to be overly optimistic about the rate of decline in fertility levels. The most widely reported change in the UN population estimates: The medium variant world population level for 2050 was raised from 9.3 billion to 9.6 billion. 2100 is expected to see nearly 11 billion world population.

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We’re counting down the Top 10 Reasons to Choose a Small Family. Reason #8: 5.3 Billion are Likely to Face the Threat of Water Shortages by 2025. We’ll hit reason number one on July 11, World Population Day.

Water is one of the most essential parts of our life-support system and it is limited. There is only so much fresh water on the Earth and no substitute. There are vast amounts of salt water in the oceans, but desalination requires vast amounts of energy, wreaks havoc on nearby sea life, and  leaves a brine disposal problem. 720 billion people don’t have adequate access to fresh water today. 25% of major rivers dry up before they reach the sea. Major aquifers are being pumped dry. All this is with 7.2 billion people on the planet. Upping that number would not be considered a wise strategy for addressing the fresh water crises we’re warned about.

We know the scale of human activity on Earth passed into overshoot several decades ago. The more we ignore the population multiplier in the sustainability equation, the more drastic must be our contraction of economic activity (consumption). Yet we have the tools to prevent world population from ever reaching even 9 billion. We could humanely and voluntarily get world population back to a sustainable level within a century, if we were genuinely committed to it.  What we lack is the will to acknowledge the problem and to strongly recommend to all our children that they limit the size of their family.

The current population level and state of overshoot are two very good reasons to choose to have no children, or perhaps just one. Even stopping at two will help. Adoption is a good option for those who desire more.

Please share this thought with your friends and children. Subscribe to our updates to get the rest of the Top 10 Reasons to Choose a Small Family!

Dave Gardner
Director of the documentary
GrowthBusters: Hooked on Growth 

Continue Reading →

We’re counting down the Top 10 Reasons to Choose a Small Family. On World Population Day we’ll announce the number one reason. Reason #9: A Sustainable Population Living a Modest European Lifestyle is 2 Billion. Of course current world population is 7.2 billion and rising by about 200,000 every day.

We know the scale of human activity on Earth passed into overshoot several decades ago. The more we ignore the population multiplier in the sustainability equation, the more drastic must be our contraction of economic activity (consumption). Yet we have the tools to prevent world population from ever reaching even 9 billion. We could humanely and voluntarily get world population back to a sustainable level within a century, if we were genuinely committed to it.  What we lack is the will to acknowledge the problem and to strongly recommend to all our children that they limit the size of their family.

The current population level and state of overshoot are two very good reasons to choose to have no children, or perhaps just one. Even stopping at two will help. Adoption is a good option for those who desire more.

Please share this thought with your friends and children. Subscribe to our updates to get the rest of the Top 10 Reasons to Choose a Small Family!

Dave Gardner
Director of the documentary
GrowthBusters: Hooked on Growth 

Continue Reading →

We’re building up to World Population Day on July 11 by counting down the Top 10 Reasons to Choose a Small Family. Reason #10: World population is 7.2 billion. The most recent United Nations “medium variant” scenario has us passing through 9.6 billion in 2050, with no end in sight (at least not for another 50-plus years). That does not have to be our destiny. We know the scale of human activity on Earth passed into overshoot several decades ago. The more we ignore the population multiplier in the sustainability equation, the more drastic must be our contraction of economic activity (consumption). Yet we have the tools to prevent world population from ever reaching even 9 billion. What we lack is the will to acknowledge the problem and to strongly recommend to all our children that they limit the size of their family.

The current population level and state of overshoot, coupled with the forecast that we are rapidly heading toward 10 billion, is one very good reason to choose to have no children, or perhaps just one. Even stopping at two will help. Adoption is a good option for those who desire more.

Please share this thought with your friends and children. Subscribe to our updates to get the rest of the Top 10 Reasons to Choose a Small Family!

Dave Gardner
Director of the documentary
GrowthBusters: Hooked on Growth 

Continue Reading →