Shows
The Lakes Of The MoonInnvervale Chapter 5The Agents meet Vernon Lamb, the leader of Mount Horeb and the self-proclaimed son of the living Jehovah.Erika Sanderson - Lori ShawAllison Cossitt - Charlie LocklearCherie Hendrie - InterviewerDavid Jervis Green - Vernon LambTalen Winchester - Deputy MitchLucy Eddington Brown - Skylar GalottiPhoebe Elizabeth Royal - Elise ShawDave Gardner - SinclairTrigger Warnings: Coarse Language, Cults, Mentions of Child Abuse, Mentions of Statutory Abuse, Sexual References, Mentions of Terrorism...2025-05-0516 min
Ages 9 To Adult (A92A)I Wanna Rock: The 80s Metal Dream | A92A Ep 103Tina and Erika review the brand new Paramount + documentary "I Wanna Rock: The 80s Metal Dream," a 3-parter that features interviews with Janet Gardner, Kip Winger, Dave "Snake" Sabo, John Corabi and others.2023-08-0332 min
OVERSHOOT | Shrink Toward AbundanceThe Perils of Population Denial | Sofia Pineda OchoaHuman overpopulation creates habitat destruction and species extinction. Physician turned documentarian Sofia Pineda Ochoa joins us to expose the harms of population denialism on other species and future generations. Sofia Pineda Ochoa explains why she is taking our society to task for ignoring the peril of human overpopulation. Habitat destruction, species extinction, and animal agriculture top the list of topics. Human numbers are the root of the problem. “Can’t we talk about something that’s so obvious and undeniable?” asks Ochoa. Co-host Nandita Bajaj also shares a name change and updated mission, plus a new tag...2021-09-2257 min
OVERSHOOT | Shrink Toward AbundancePronatalism and Overpopulation | A PanelPronatalism and Overpopulation Webinar The decision to have children or not is largely regarded as an isolated personal decision, but how personal is it really? We are joined by four expert international panelists to unpack the pervasive and oppressive powers of pronatalism. Are our decisions about having children really made freely – without pressure from government, church, business, media, family and friends? The decision to have children or not is arguably one of the most important decisions we make in our lives. It’s largely regarded as an isolated personal decision and a natural rite of passa...2021-08-251h 09
OVERSHOOT | Shrink Toward AbundanceOverdrafting Earth's Ecosystems | William Rees“The only way out of overshoot is less production and less consumption, so it means a much smaller economy and far fewer people.” William Rees, ecologist and co-creator of ecological footprint analysis, joins us. “Humankind is using up the biophysical basis of its own existence.” That’s the bottom line of this Earth Overshoot Day conversation with William Rees, the father of ecological footprint analysis. According to Rees, “the only way out of overshoot is less production and less consumption, so it means a much smaller economy and far fewer people.” Earth Overshoot Day in 2021 is July 29. At...2021-07-281h 04
OVERSHOOT | Shrink Toward AbundanceThe Unmet Need for Family Planning | Kathleen MogelgaardGreat strides have been made in advancing women’s reproductive autonomy, but there is still much to accomplish. Kathleen Mogelgaard, president of the Population Institute, joins us. Kathleen discusses the Population Institute’s work, including reducing the unmet need for family planning (affecting over 200 million women around the world) and an active effort to permanently repeal the global gag rule (which interferes with provision of important family planning services). Regarding the recent surge in baby-bust alarmism, Kathleen notes that the lower birth rate in the U.S. represents real progress – women taking advantage of a greate...2021-06-231h 07
OVERSHOOT | Shrink Toward AbundanceUntucking Overpopulation | Alexandra PaulIt’s an insane world where speaking the scientific truth is an act of courage. Alexandra Paul, actor and outspoken advocate for sustainable population, animal rights, and the childfree choice, joins us. Alexandra Paul has been courageously educating people about human overpopulation for over thirty years. Her most notable effort is a TEDx Talk, Overpopulation Facts - The Problem No One Will Discuss. The questions we ask her about that TEDx experience reveals just how irrational our society is about discussing this subject. We also discuss other actions Alexandra takes as a sustainable population activist, including op-eds and...2021-06-021h 21
OVERSHOOT | Shrink Toward AbundanceMeet our New Executive Director | Nandita BajajNew Executive Director and podcast co-host Nandita Bajaj shares her brief history and the evolving path that led her to becoming a sustainable population advocate. Former Executive Director Dave Gardner interviews Nandita her about her plans for World Population Balance and why she is dedicating her life to this cause. Nandita shares her perspectives of the tightly woven links between pronatalism, anthropocentrism, and human overpopulation and why our growing human enterprise is one of the most pressing planetary justice issues of our time. A passionate advocate for minimalism, veganism, and childfree living, Nandita speaks about the joy...2021-05-1150 min
OVERSHOOT | Shrink Toward AbundanceReflections from our Former Executive Director | Dave GardnerPodcast co-host Dave Gardner reflects on the agony and the ecstasy of working to alert, educate, and inspire action to end our overpopulation crisis. Nandita Bajaj turns the table and interviews Gardner about his 6 years on the podcast and serving as executive director of World Population Balance. Who IS this guy? Why has he been working seven days a week for years to alert people about population overshoot and to “save the planet?” Don’t worry, Dave’s not leaving the podcast. But on May 1st he is stepping out of his position leading World Population Balance, the nonprofit standing...2021-04-2151 min
GrowthBustersThe Good Ancestor: Is There an Intergenerational Golden Rule?How often do you think about the effect of your actions today on the wellbeing of future generations? What do we owe our children’s children? Are we capable of responsibly delivering on that debt? Philosopher Roman Krznaric explored these questions in the book, The Good Ancestor: A Radical Prescription for Long-Term Thinking. Krznaric thinks we do, and we can: “...humankind has always had the innate ability to plan for posterity and take action that will resonate for decades, centuries, even millennia to come. If we want to be good ancestors and be remembered well by the generations who foll...2021-04-2054 min
OVERSHOOT | Shrink Toward AbundanceSex, Religion, Politics and Overpopulation | Chris TuckerThe solution to the human overpopulation crisis is quite beautiful. It means less childhood poverty, parents who aren’t exhausted, children receiving ample parental attention, families can afford nutritious food, health care and educational opportunities, and the planet can meet our needs long into the future. In part two of our conversation with Christopher Tucker, author of A Planet of 3 Billion, we continue exploring how to make the “uncomfortable” conversation about overpopulation more comfortable. One thing is certain: We’re keeping up the conversation, because the more we discuss it, the less uncomfortable the conversations. We also explore...2021-03-1648 min
OVERSHOOT | Shrink Toward AbundanceA Planet of 3 Billion | Chris TuckerWhat is a sustainable human population? Chris Tucker, author of A Planet of 3 Billion, joins us. We’re asking the Earth to support 80 million more humans every year, and we add to the challenge by deleting some of the needed resources from the planet each year. Meanwhile, too few us ask the question, “What is a sustainable human population?” Christopher Tucker did ask the question, went to work on it, and wrote a book about it: A Planet of 3 Billion: Mapping Humanity’s Long History of Ecological Destruction and Finding Our Way to a Resilient Future. He came up w...2021-03-0344 minGrowthBustersFinding Common GroundCan we achieve some unity without giving up our integrity and core values? That’s a very current conundrum, so this seems the perfect time for us to publish this conversation. We confess we recorded this conversation last May! Apologies to our guests for the long delay. We could not make up a believable excuse that would keep our integrity intact. When it seems like we can’t agree on even the simplest choices, one has to wonder if humanity will ever find common ground and a way out of the climate crisis. Kevin Wilhelm and...2021-02-0450 min
OVERSHOOT | Shrink Toward AbundanceEmbracing an Aging Population | Jane O’SullivanAre nations with low birth rates going to collapse due to a temporary bulge in the ranks of the elderly? Jane O’Sullivan, lead author of Silver Tsunami or Silver Lining? Why we should not fear an ageing population, joins us. Depopulation alarmists in numerous countries are pushing for baby bonuses or high immigration quotas in order to avoid getting into recovery from growth addiction. It’s all for the sake of maintaining perpetually increasing numbers of taxpayers, consumers and workers. This approach to demography is unsustainable and dangerous. Jane explains why the fears propagated by alarmists are v...2021-01-0549 minGrowthBustersShrinking Your Travel FootprintIs flying always the worst travel choice for climate stability? Is traveling by rail always the best? You might be surprised. In this episode of GrowthBusters, Dave shares his research on this subject with co-host Erika Arias and frequent guest Joshua Spodek. We also share a great cheat-sheet, Getting There Greener – The guide to Your Lower Carbon Vacation, from the Union of Concerned Scientists. We’d like to remind listeners that while it may seem like the system is stacked against us, we really do have choices about how to transport ourselves. With a little bit of creativity, personal agen...2020-12-2859 minGrowthBustersPhilosophy of Shrinking FootprintsWe set out to make this the second of a series of episodes about shrinking our travel footprint, but the conversation ended up being a broader exploration of philosophical issues related to all kinds of footprint-shrinking actions. Erika and Dave are joined by recurring guest, Joshua Spodek, host of the This Sustainable Life podcast. The conversation includes: The joy of not flying Generating a lot less waste Is the new iPhone really green? And plastic, plastic, plastic. MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE: Donate to Support this Podcast (yes, it’s...2020-12-2642 min
OVERSHOOT | Shrink Toward AbundanceAre There Too Many of Us? | Nandita BajajA recent report on Deutsche Welle’s Eco India environmental news magazine recently asked, “Are There Too Many of Us on Our Planet?” The report mysteriously arrived at the conclusion that, “It’s not the population element that’s going to be the problem.” Reporter Aditi Rajagopal advised our attention should be redirected to, “the more hidden and dangerous concerns of waste and overconsumption.” We applaud Rajagopal for covering this topic, but we’re compelled to go through her report and correct an array of instances of faulty logic. At the top of our list with our guest Nandita Bajaj: the mistaken...2020-12-1830 minGrowthBustersTaking a Vacation from Carbon EmissionsHow far will you go in your quest to shrink your carbon footprint? What’s eco-tourism, and is it really ecologically responsible? International tourism accounts for 8% of all carbon emissions in the world, and transportation of all types accounts for an even greater proportion of of our carbon emissions. In the first of several episodes about shrinking our travel footprint, Dave and Erika chat with Dr. Michael Hall, Professor in the Department of Management, Marketing and Entrepreneurship at University of Canterbury in New Zealand. According to Hall, “tourism leads to the short and long term decline of natu...2020-10-271h 07
OVERSHOOT | Shrink Toward AbundanceSeparating Sex from Conception | Malcolm Potts and Alisha GravesSex and conception are separated by contraception. Malcolm Potts and Alisha Graves, experts in reproductive health and sustainable population advocates, join us. As World Contraception Day (26 September) approaches, Dave and Erika pick the brains of two experts, Alisha Graves and Malcolm Potts. Potts is Professor at the School of Public Health at the University of California, Berkeley, was the first chair in Population and Family Planning, and founded the Bixby Center for Population, Health & Sustainability. Graves is President of Venture Strategies for Health and Development, a non-profit organization aiming to help stabilize global population by securing women’s...2020-09-211h 01GrowthBusters1-See Planet of the Humans; 2-Resolve OvershootWhat should we do in response to the key messages of the 2020 documentary, Planet of the Humans? This is a continuation of the discussion begun in part one of the webinar, Planet of the Humans: a Sequel. In part 2, our panel explores actions we can take now – to avoid terminating human civilization. Both parts of the webinar addressed the roles of overpopulation, overconsumption and economic growth in the most serious environmental crises we face. The webinar was co-hosted by GrowthBusters and World Population Balance. Panelists: Kristine Mattis: An interdisciplinary environmental scholar with a bac...2020-06-121h 35
OVERSHOOT | Shrink Toward AbundanceBusting Only Child Myths | Lauren SandlerLonely, selfish and maladjusted? NOT. Careful consideration of all the ramifications of your family-size decision is smart. Perhaps you’re leaning toward having only one child; there are plenty of good reasons to stop there. But you’ve heard only children are spoiled and selfish, or can be peculiar. It turns out these are myths. Journalist Lauren Sandler did a lot digging, and in this episode she tells us there is “a lot of data supporting the one-child family as a healthy, important choice.” Lauren wrote a Time magazine cover story on the subject, The Only Child: Debunkin...2020-03-021h 04GrowthBustersIs GrowthBusters a Good Earth Day Movie?The documentary, GrowthBusters: Hooked on Growth is guaranteed to provoke conversations. Over eight years after it originally premiered, it’s still being screened. Is it still relevant? What kind of conversations does it spark? After he first watched, famed Stanford biologist Paul Ehrlich wrote, “This could be the most important film ever made.” You may want to screen the film in your community around Earth Day this year. It sparked such a spirited discussion as part of an Earth Day screening attended by filmmaker Dave Gardner in 2019, that he invited one of the audience members to joi...2020-02-1350 minGrowthBustersYou Have to Stay Poor – I’m Having a SteakOn a full planet, where human civilization is already in overshoot and in the process of crippling life-supporting ecosystems, it’s unfortunately not possible for the world’s poor, en masse, to rise out of poverty and live as richly as the even the average family in the industrialized world. There’s not enough biocapacity for 8 billion people to live high on the hog, and technology has not changed that. But “reputable” economists and technology Pollyanna’s like Andrew McAfee routinely fail to recognize this. In this episode, Dave and Erika respond to the surge of listener feedback fro...2020-01-2346 minGrowthBustersSustainable New Year’s ResolutionsWe’re back! Today’s episode of the GrowthBusters podcast welcomes the New Year with the Telegraph’s 11 Green New Year’s Resolutions That Put the Planet First. But do they really? Whether you’re considering switching to electric, eating less meat, or choosing some combination of this year’s most popular green resolutions, Dave and Erika unpack the good and the confusing, and pick apart the not-so-great. “You cannot get through a single day without having an impact on the world around you. What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference...2020-01-0846 min
OVERSHOOT | Shrink Toward AbundanceTo Kid Or Not To Kid | Maxine TrumpIs motherhood an essential part of womanhood? Filmmaker Maxine Trump joins us to discuss the enduringly strong pronatalist pressures in her documentary film, To Kid or Not to Kid. It might surprise you how much societal pressure remains today for women to have children. Mothers hope for, and some pressure their children to give them) grandchildren. Friends ask newlyweds when they’re going to “start a family” (aren’t the newlyweds already a family?). Even the attitudes of some medical professionals can lack sophistication. Some couples make the decision to have children as an automatic default – just the next s...2019-11-1253 minGrowthBustersDecoupling NonsenseTechnological innovation cannot take the environmental destruction out of economic growth. Get the real facts, not the blind faith and hope, about whether “decoupling” can allow more and more “prosperity” for more and more people without also delivering more and more ecosystem collapse. Decoupling is Not a ThingIn this episode, Dave and Erika take serious exception to Andrew McAfee’s misguided thesis in his latest book, More from Less: The Surprising Story of How We Learned to Prosper Using Fewer Resources—and What Happens Next. Erika really likes Sam Harris’ podcast, Making Sense, but when it comes to his episode...2019-10-311h 01GrowthBustersComing Out as ChildfreeMore and more young women are declaring their intention not to conceive children. BirthStrike, Conceivable Future and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have all made headlines on this point. Erika and Dave unpack the issues surrounding womanhood without motherhood in this conversation with the author of the new book, Childfree by Choice, sociologist Amy Blackstone. Amy is a professor of Sociology at the Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center at University of Maine. Her research into the childfree choice has appeared in a variety of academic and media sources including the New York Times, National Public Radio, and other nati...2019-10-041h 07
OVERSHOOT | Shrink Toward AbundanceChild-Centric Family Planning | Sarah Bexell and Cat Graff-HugheyThe decision to have a child should include consideration of the rights of the child to be born into a supportive community and a healthy environment. Sarah Bexell and Catharina Graff-Hughey join us to discuss their paper, A Human Rights Approach to Planning Families. Today, family planning decisions tend to be all about the desires of parents, with little or no regard for the rights and living conditions of the prospective child and people who are already here. Do two adults have the right to bring a child into a world that’s a dystopian hell? Or do...2019-09-301h 01
CausepodsPushing Sustainable Living with Dave Gardner of GrowthBustersDave Gardner is the director of the documentary, GrowthBusters: Hooked on Growth and host of the GrowthBusters podcast which is a part of GrowthBusters project, which promotes sustainable living (perpetual growth in the scale of the human enterprise is physically impossible, and our pursuit of continued growth of our economy and human population is stressing and injuring Earth\'s life-supporting ecosystems). Project began as a documentary (GrowthBusters: Hooked on Growth) released in 2011.Key TopicsIntroducing Dave Gardner and his podcast. [00:47]How Dave got into his work on sustainable living [01:12]The reason behind why Dave s...2019-09-1923 minGrowthBustersIs the End Near?There may be beer in your fridge when you open it, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t in the early stages of climate catastrophe. The crisis is now, this is a present threat, not a future threat, according to our guest on this episode, Jeff Nesbit. He compiled an attention-getting catalog of things unraveling around the planet in his book, This Is the Way the World Ends. Is Nesbit predicting the end of the world? Listen to this episode to find out. In their discussion of Jeff’s book and interview, Erika and Dave agree he pla...2019-08-1455 minGrowthBustersWe're in Deep: Earth Overshoot Day 2019In seven months humanity has burned through the resources it takes the Earth a full year to replenish. This is overshoot, and yes, it is a very big deal. In 2019, Earth Overshoot Day falls on July 29. Find out how we know when “Earth Overshoot Day” falls, how and why we’re operating in ecological deficit, what it means for us and our children, and what – if anything – we can do about it. Ecological footprint co-originator Mathis Wackernagel joins Erika and Dave for an in-depth discussion of overshoot. He explains the rigorous analysis done by the Global Footprint Network (w...2019-07-241h 30GrowthBustersOvershoot Playlist: Top 10 Environmental SongsWhat’s the soundtrack of human civilization’s time on Earth? If we were to put ten songs into a time capsule to help historians in the future piece together what the hell humankind was doing as the planet crumbled beneath our feet, the ten songs in this episode would tell half the story. We’ll have to share another ten songs in a future episode to tell the rest of the story. So here’s our top ten (five curated by Erika and five picked by Dave). Music licensing restrictions prevent us from sharing these songs in full...2019-06-1544 minGrowthBustersAvengers: Endgame – I Cut the Population in Half; Don’t Make Me Do This AgainDid the heroes solve a problem or make it worse? Did super-villain Thanos in the blockbuster movie, Avengers: Infinity War, solve the overshoot problem when he killed off half the beings in the universe to end overpopulation? Should the Avengers undo his deed if they can? Dave and Erika dissect Avengers: Endgame and how it treats these sustainability issues. We’re looking for a podcast editor or producer with great audio editing skills. If you’re interested, email us. LINKS: The Science of Avengers: Endgame Proves Thanos Did Nothing Wrong by JV Ch...2019-05-3040 minGrowthBustersMasturbate, Don't ProcreateBill Maher and Steven Colbert become the first honorees on the GrowthBusters podcast’s “Wall of Excellence.” You’ll find out why in this episode. We want to thank and celebrate influencers who help alert the public that we are in overshoot, demonstrate sustainable living in their own lives, or help educate the public about important ways we can shrink our footprints. New co-host Erika Arias introduces herself. She is very interested in the voluntary child-free choice and hopes to do research in this area in the future. She shares a clip from a recent episode of Real Tim...2019-05-1537 min
OVERSHOOT | Shrink Toward AbundanceEmbracing Fertility Decline| Philip CafaroAn aging and shrinking population is good for both humanity and the Earth. Philip Cafaro, philosopher and environmental ethicist, joins us. News reports and economists exhibit collective angst about declining birth rates and the resulting aging of populations in many nations. They worry about labor shortages, upside-down pension programs, rising health care burdens and stagnating GDP. A research team at The Overpopulation Project wondered if these challenges are outweighed by the ecological advantage of a population shrinking back to a level that won’t crush the Earth. In this episode World Population Balance Executive Director Da...2018-11-2739 min
OVERSHOOT | Shrink Toward AbundanceChild-First Family Planning | Carter Dillard and Karin KuhlemannWe need to put our children first. Carter Dillard and Karin Kuhlemann of the non-profit, Having Kids, explain "child-first" family planning and how it will benefit our children and make human civilization more sustainable. See episode website for show notes, links, and transcript: https://www.populationbalance.org/podcast/dillard-kuhlemann ABOUT US OVERSHOOT | Shrink Toward Abundance [Formerly The Overpopulation Podcast] OVERSHOOT tackles today’s interlocked social and ecological crises driven by humanity’s excessive population and consumption. The podcast explores needed narrative, behavioral, and system shifts for recreating human life in bal...2018-08-1445 min
OVERSHOOT | Shrink Toward AbundanceSmall Families, Small Planet | Robin MaynardRobin Maynard has tremendous faith that the young people of the world have both tremendous power and growing awareness and interest in getting humanity back onto a sustainable path. Our guest, the director of Population Matters, shares his thinking about human overpopulation and talks about the organization's goals, strategies, and tactics. Like World Population Balance, his organization is working hard at "shifting those amplifiers in society who really could reach so many people and talk in a rational, humane and compassionate way about population." There is still a perplexing guilt, awkwardness and hesitation to talk about population...2018-02-031h 00
OVERSHOOT | Shrink Toward AbundanceSmall Family Campaigns and Incentives | Colin Hickey and Jake EarlAre there ethical and moral ways for governments to accelerate the move to smaller families in order to contract population? Ethicists Colin Hickey and Jake Earl weigh in on why this should be done and how we might do it fairly. See episode website for show notes, links, and transcript: https://www.populationbalance.org/podcast/earl-hickey ABOUT US OVERSHOOT | Shrink Toward Abundance [Formerly The Overpopulation Podcast] OVERSHOOT tackles today’s interlocked social and ecological crises driven by humanity’s excessive population and consumption. The podcast explores needed narrative, behavioral, and sy...2017-01-171h 07
OVERSHOOT | Shrink Toward AbundanceToward a Small Family Ethic | Travis RiederEveryone should consider the ethics of having children on an overpopulated, climate-disrupted planet. Travis Rieder, bioethicist and author of Toward a Small Family Ethic: How Overpopulation and Climate Change are Affecting the Morality of Procreation, joins us. See episode website for show notes, links, and transcript: https://www.populationbalance.org/podcast/travis-rieder ABOUT US OVERSHOOT | Shrink Toward Abundance [Formerly The Overpopulation Podcast] OVERSHOOT tackles today’s interlocked social and ecological crises driven by humanity’s excessive population and consumption. The podcast explores needed narrative, behavioral, and system shifts for recrea...2016-11-151h 05
OVERSHOOT | Shrink Toward AbundanceChoosing Childfree | Laura CarrollFor over 20 years Laura Carroll has been researching the childfree choice and she’s interviewed thousands who’ve made this choice. We discuss the roots of our pronatal culture, where to get support for the childfree decision, myths about family size, the cost of raising children, and doing your part to solve overpopulation. Laura served as editor for the book, Man Swarm: How Overpopulation is Killing the Wild World by Dave Foreman, and is the author of The Baby Matrix: Why Freeing Our Minds From Outmoded Thinking About Parenthood & Reproduction Will Create a Better World, and Families of Tw...2016-08-0145 min