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A Word for Stephen Colbert - Overpopulation
02 Jul 2012
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Nonsense About Sustainable Population Advocacy
23 Jul 2012
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Irrational Fear of Population Decline
13 Jul 2012
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Endangered Species Condoms
27 Jun 2012
Date posted: July 09 2016
This year’s theme is “investing in teenage girls.”
Date posted: July 09 2013
World Population Day 2013 is 2 days away, and we’re counting down the Top 10 Reasons to Choose a Small Family. Reason #3 is: The Average Cost to Raise a Child (in the U.S.) is a Whopping $389,670. That does NOT include college tuition (or beer). It’s an astonishing number, especially when you consider the many socialized costs that are not included (like public education). It’s entirely possible couples would be much more careful about practicing safe sex if they had this information.
I’m confident couples around the world will also plan their families carefully and happily choose to conceive only one or two children, or perhaps none, if they understand how the world is overpopulated today. U.N. estimates that world population will hit 10 billion around the year 2061 should not fool us into thinking this is predestined. We have the power to end overpopulation this century. The first step is to EXPECT moral, rational behavior from ourselves!
More information about the cost of raising children can be found here (we used this source) and here.
How do I know the world is overpopulated? Data from the scientists at Global Footprint Network, as published in the WWF Living Planet Report, is a good place to start. There are either too many of us, or we are living too high on the hog. Both are actually true.
This week, as we contemplate World Population Day, let’s make an extra effort to talk about overpopulation, and especially to make sure everyone approaching child-rearing age is made aware of the situation!
Dave Gardner
Director of the documentary
GrowthBusters: Hooked on Growth
Date posted: July 09 2013
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
Date posted: July 07 2013
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.