Untucking Overpopulation

Written By Population Balance

It’s an insane world where speaking the scientific truth is an act of courage. Actress 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 letters to newspapers like the Los Angeles Times and The New York Times. Also on the table: baby bust hysteria, veganism and animal rights, over 20 arrests, overconsumption, and our obsession with economic growth.

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

  • Alexandra Paul 0:00

    I'm still shocked that not more people are disturbed by population growth. And I think it's because, as a species, we've decided not to talk about it. To kind of tuck it away. So I'm here to untuck it.

    Dave Gardner 0:16

    Those words were spoken back in 2012 at a TEDx Talk by our guest, actress and activist, Alexandra Paul.

    Nandita Bajaj 0:23

    Music to my ears.

    Dave Gardner 0:24

    Yeah, mine too. We'll do some serious untucking next on the Overpopulation Podcast.

    Dave Gardner 0:38

    Welcome to the Overpopulation Podcast, the podcast that can't wait to be obsolete when the scale of the human enterprise has contracted back to a level that's in sustainable balance with nature, then you won't need us. I'm your co-host, Dave Gardner.

    Nandita Bajaj 0:53

    And I'm Nandita Bajaj, co-host and Executive Director of World Population Balance, an organization that boldly takes a stand on why human overpopulation is devastating our planet, and the many positive ways in which we can help address it.

    Dave Gardner 1:07

    You can learn more about sustainable population at worldpopulationbalance.org. In this episode, we're going to visit with a smart, bold pioneer in the sustainable population movement. But a couple of little things. First one is my voice. How do I sound today? Is my voice coming back?

    Nandita Bajaj 1:22

    It sounds a lot better, Dave.

    Dave Gardner 1:24

    Better than it did the day that we had our chat with Alexandra Paul, which we're about to share with our listeners. On that day, it was a little bit weak. I'm just recovering from emergency surgery. So I just wanted you to understand why it didn't sound like the usual Dave Gardner. The other thing, before we get down to it with Alexandria Paul, is shall we check the inbox?

    Nandita Bajaj 1:43

    Let's do it.

    Dave Gardner 1:44

    Okay. Okay. Well, we've had really several emails congratulating you, and Nandita Bajaj, for your new post as Executive Director of World Population Balance. I'm excited about that. And I would share them all if we were doing a three hour podcast, but we're trying not to do that. So let me just share one from Ruth. Hello, Nandita. I just wanted to say how happy I was to learn that you were the new Executive Director of World Population Balance. I've been listening to the podcasts with Dave Gardner for about five months, and look forward to each one. They, and the organization, are like a buoy in a stormy sea for me. Your manner of presentation, eloquence, and thoughtful perspective on the topics are superb, and so appreciated. Thank you so much for all that you do. And I look forward to hearing more of you in the future.

    Nandita Bajaj 2:34

    Well, thank you so much for your kind remarks, Ruth. And Dave, another response that is giving a shout out to both of us. I love that when it happens.

    Dave Gardner 2:42

    Yeah, that was pretty cool. And she must be a writer, too. I mean, that was pretty, those were a lot of good words in that email.

    Nandita Bajaj 2:48

    Very beautifully written. And thank you, Ruth, for the vote of confidence. I'm so excited about taking on this leadership position.

    Dave Gardner 2:55

    Ditto. So thanks a lot for writing to us. As always, if you have any feedback, or if there's a topic you would like us to address on the podcast, just send an email to podcast@worldpopulationbalance.org.

    Nandita Bajaj 3:07

    Alexandra Paul, thank you for joining us.

    Alexandra Paul 3:10

    Oh, it's my pleasure. Thank you so much.

    Dave Gardner 3:13

    I have to say I am very excited about this. This has been way too long in coming. So thanks for spending a little time with us today.

    Alexandra Paul 3:19

    Well, I'm a fan. So I'm honored to be on.

    Dave Gardner 3:22

    I guess it's a mutual admiration society. And we don't usually fawn all over the people that we interview, but we might fawn a little bit today.

    Alexandra Paul 3:30

    You say that all the interviewees, Dave.

    Nandita Bajaj 3:35

    I'm proof he doesn't.

    Dave Gardner 3:39

    Thank you. Thank you for that. Kind of refreshing my memory a little bit earlier this week, you had mentioned somewhere that you had done some pretty early work on population and in effect, didn't you get some kind of an award from the United Nations in 1997?

    Alexandra Paul 3:54

    I, in the early nineties, 1991 or two, I took three months off work to just speak to schools around LA on human overpopulation with my friend, Professor David Abramis. And so he had a lot of knowledge on how to teach and I had a lot of passion about the issue, and together we had a presentation that we presented to high schools and middle schools actually, around LA. Back then you had to write postcards or call teachers in different schools to just say, "Could we please come speak?" Because there was no internet. So it was labor intensive, but we did get a lot of yeses, "Please come." Teachers are often happy to, you know, not have to teach and be able to sit back and watch somebody else teach a subject. So we did that and ended up speaking to six thousand students around LA, both in classrooms and auditoriums. So that was in the early nineties. And then the United Nations flew me out to, I think it was New York, with Esai Morales, another actor who's involved with the environment. And we spoke and then gave us an award for doing good work. I wish I had the award. And actually, when I looked it up, I couldn't find what the award was or anything so but anyway, you can find on the internet that we were there, we spoke, and we were allowed to be there.

    Dave Gardner 3:55

    It's a good sign that narcissism isn't one of your primary character traits.

    Alexandra Paul 5:24

    I don't keep my awards. I have a friend who is so mad at me because I use some of them, a couple of them as doorstops, but other than that...

    Dave Gardner 5:33

    So that's interesting, that was right about the time that Dave Paxson was founding World Population Balance, and he was doing talks early on. So you two were kind of on parallel paths back then.

    Alexandra Paul 5:45

    I didn't know him though, unfortunately. I didn't know, I was a member of the West Side chapter of ZPG (Zero Population Growth) at the time, and that's how I got involved with the issue more, more, and found my friend, David Abramis, to speak to schools with.

    Dave Gardner 5:59

    Well you first hit my radar screen when your TEDx Talk came out, which I think you did that talk in Topanga, California in 2012. And those of us who were in the sustainable population movement, were we were all just thrilled because you articulated the issue so well, and of course, Ted Talks get a lot of virality, that gets spread around quite a bit. So you were you became an instant hero to us. Or is there something between the nineties and 2012 that is really noteworthy that we ought to chat about?

    Alexandra Paul 6:37

    Well, I was involved with a lot of environmental issues, because I came to the issue of human overpopulation from an environmental standpoint at first. And I actually, in the eighties, left a lot of groups that I was involved with because they wouldn't deal with the human overpopulation issue. They were mostly focused on recycling, which I had been doing for years, my mother had been doing, so it just didn't seem like enough. And so I was happy to be able to do, not only speak in schools with David Abramis, but also I co-produced and hosted an educational film that was directed by Michael Tobias, who is just amazing on this, this issue.

    Dave Gardner 7:18

    Yeah.

    Alexandra Paul 7:18

    He wrote a book called World War Three that has a lot of amazing information. And he directed it, and it was called Jam Packed. And it was for schools because there was no educational film on the issue available in schools around America except for like a five minute cartoon. So we produced a half an hour film about it for kids in high school.

    Dave Gardner 7:41

    And then went on to be become even bigger than Reefer Madness, I believe.

    Alexandra Paul 7:45

    I wish.

    Dave Gardner 7:49

    Is it possible for people to find that film?

    Alexandra Paul 7:51

    I don't think you can find it now. And it's also very much - it's not hip. You wouldn't, kids wouldn't relate to it now. So someone else needs to do another one for schools. Everybody out there!

    Dave Gardner 8:05

    Could be Nandita, could be Nandita.

    Alexandra Paul 8:07

    That's right.

    Nandita Bajaj 8:07

    Yes, in partnership with Alexandra.

    Dave Gardner 8:11

    That would be too cool. Because I have to say, I was I really loved that film that you did, or that series for high school students about overconsumption.

    Alexandra Paul 8:20

    Well, that was a sequel to Jam Packed, actually, with Michael Tobias. Same team, Jeff Holland and Greg Molina, the four of us wrote, produced, and directed/hosted that together.

    Nandita Bajaj 8:33

    And what kind of reception at the time did you receive from the students and the teachers on the film?

    Alexandra Paul 8:39

    Well, you know, the film, I didn't really know where it went. But I do know that when, in the nineties when we were speaking in schools, we received a really positive reception. And I remember years later, being in the airport, buying a magazine before getting on a plane, and the young woman behind the counter said, "You came to my school and spoke on overpopulation." Like, yay! So I reached somebody! She remembered! So that was kind of neat. Oh, and then I was standing in line also in a yogurt shop, and a person right behind me said, "Excuse me, you spoke at my school about water." And we did this thing about water, and I can't even remember exactly what it was, but obviously, they came away with, this was years later, maybe ten years after speaking at their school. So I was just happy that they remembered something, that it was an environmental thing, maybe. But so, I know I touched at least two people, and they seemed to be fine with it. But no, seriously, when I speak about human overpopulation, I have not gotten any backlash, and we did not get backlash when we spoke in schools either. I think the youngest grade we spoke to was second grade, actually. We changed a little bit but we did not get backlash. And it might have been also that because of the internet, parents weren't knowing exactly everything that went on in schools, but I mean, because there was no internet. Parents were, "How was your school, your day today?" "Oh, fine," you know, it wasn't on the internet, it was harder to find out what was going on.

    Nandita Bajaj 10:08

    Right, right.

    Dave Gardner 10:09

    Well, I was gonna ask you about, did it get tucked away after those experiences? Did something change between the early and mid-nineties and 2012? Or has your experience been pretty rock solid that no one's ever given you any pushback about talking about the subject?

    Alexandra Paul 10:25

    Well, I did do a presentation on Earth Day a few years ago at Pierce College, and I went into the bathroom afterwards. And I heard a lady complaining about the fact that I was telling people not to have kids, which is not true at all, I never tell people not to have kids. I don't believe that's a very good way to get something done. It's better just to tell them the ramifications of having too many kids or more than two children, and let them decide. So she didn't... she saw me in the bathroom. So she didn't confront me. I would have just told her the same thing I just told you. And then yes, I was recently asked to speak at a college and the students, without talking to me or knowing anything about my presentation, just knowing that it was called something like Human Overpopulation: An Overview, that they wanted to cancel my talk because they felt that it was racist to discuss this issue.

    Nandita Bajaj 11:22

    Wow.

    Dave Gardner 11:23

    They assumed that.

    Alexandra Paul 11:24

    They assumed that. And I had a meeting with them, with some of them, because I wanted to explain answer any of their questions and see if they would put me back on, maybe reschedule me again. I was irritated because I believe that they could definitely not agree with me, but the fact that they've never spoken to me or didn't even know about what I was going to be speaking about, and canceled it -insisted on it being canceled, that was irksome. And I wanted to have a discussion. So when I spoke with them, it was so interesting how uneducated they were on the issue. And one young woman said, "Well, if you talk about population, people won't talk about consumption. And that's not a good thing." And I said, "Well, wait, why can't we talk about more than one thing, more than one issue? We can hold these two and they are very much intertwined." And she also had the misconception that the population was going down, and I had to tell her, "Birth rates might be going down, but population is actually going up." So happy ending! After our very civil discussion, they said, "Yes, okay, you can present." So we rescheduled it, and it all went fine. Nobody was offended in the question and answer period, not a single person, so.

    Dave Gardner 12:38

    Well, that's a success story. Congratulations.

    Alexandra Paul 12:41

    In fact, Nandita, you were at that the second presentation.

    Nandita Bajaj 12:44

    I was, yeah.

    Alexandra Paul 12:45

    The presentation that had been canceled.

    Nandita Bajaj 12:48

    I did not know that. Because I didn't have any backstory around the presentation. I was just so excited to see someone, you know, being able to get into a university to do a presentation on the topic, because there is so much resistance. And Dave, might you have any idea why students think that our population is declining? Could it have anything to do with baby bust alarmism in the news a lot lately?

    Dave Gardner 13:12

    Ten or twenty times a day only?

    Alexandra Paul 13:16

    And also, it's a complicated issue. People, and I'm sure journalists get it wrong, too. Well, they do get it wrong, because they'll say the rate is slowing, but then they'll infer that the population is already declining, which is not a truism at all.

    Nandita Bajaj 13:30

    Yeah.

    Alexandra Paul 13:30

    So it can be complicated if you really, you have to be very careful with how you phrase the situation.

    Dave Gardner 13:37

    One of the missions of this podcast is to really improve overpopulation illiteracy, to help everyone around the world become more knowledgeable about the subject. And thank you for being a fellow professor in that endeavor. And in fact, this might be a good segue to talking a little bit about your TEDx Talk. It's just amazing to me, when I went back and watched it again the other day, for the first time in years, how you were really remarkably on message with exactly what World Population Balance has been talking about today. I think you were ahead of at least that one organization and ahead of, of my thinking in terms of what needs to be said, how can we best communicate about this?

    Alexandra Paul 14:21

    Well, thank you. I think it was, Dave, I might have met him around that time, actually. Dave Paxson. And he told me that people, including population organizations, were not using the word overpopulation. And I almost fell off my chair. I was so shocked. And now I have a I have a broader view after speaking with a lot of people. I still use the word overpopulation, but I have more understanding of the sensitivity around the issue. I think the big difference between me and the organizations is I don't charge anybody to speak, I don't have any donors, I don't really care if people don't agree with me because I believe that I'm correct. I won't be censored by my job by speaking out like this. So I can use the word overpopulation. But maybe other organizations feel like they can't. What what do you two think?

    Nandita Bajaj 15:13

    Well, our podcast is called the Overpopulation Podcast. So we're definitely not shying away from using the word. I'll let Dave speak to his history and his adoption of the word, but I believe the world is overpopulated. If the ideal number for humanity to exist coexist in harmony with all of the other life forms, is about two billion or three billion, then we're overpopulated by about five billion. And it doesn't mean that there are redundant people who shouldn't be here when we use that word. For us, at least for me, not acknowledging the fact that we are grossly over the number that we should be is, you know, not educating about where we should be heading. And to the billions of animals that are being displaced, we are definitely overpopulated in their eyes.

    Dave Gardner 16:13

    And you said yourself in that TEDx Talk that you believed that human population needed to get down from seven billion at that time back to about two billion as a sustainable number. And so many people, way too many people today are just blissfully unaware of how deep into overshoot we are today, and so they do tend to think that if well, population growth is a is a problem, but that's I hear that's coming to an end so I can relax. And what attracted me to Dave Paxson and World Population Balance years ago, actually, when I was making my film Growth Busters, was the fact that David felt it was really important to use the word so that people understood stabilizing population might be one little step in getting back into sustainable balance, but it's not enough. So people needed to really understand that we're in population overshoot, and we can't just end growth. But I know there are some authors, experts, and environmental organizations - a few - who do talk about the subject, but they have chosen not to use the word because for some reason, they think that the use of that word does somehow imply somebody has to be eliminated from the planet tomorrow.

    Alexandra Paul 17:28

    Right, which is so odd, because we're exactly the opposite of that. We're trying to make sure that people don't die and suffer by lowering the population in a humane, steady, thoughtful way before it becomes too late.

    Dave Gardner 17:44

    Exactly, exactly.

    Nandita Bajaj 17:45

    That's right.

    Dave Gardner 17:46

    So what was it? Was there anything that was happening in 2010, 2011, 2012 that inspired you to prepare this TEDx Talk? I'm sure you put a lot of work into it. It wasn't something you decided to do and a week later you were on stage?

    Alexandra Paul 18:01

    Well, actually, well 2011, I think it was October, we got to seven billion.

    Dave Gardner 18:05

    Yep.

    Alexandra Paul 18:06

    I did that TEDx late 2011, I think. And it was really because somebody asked me to do a talk. And so I said yes, and then did the talk, and then created it. So I didn't create it, and then, as far as I remember, that's how it went. So it was sort of I rose to the occasion. I think that's that's what it was.

    Dave Gardner 18:28

    That was the most important subject to you, if you were gonna get on stage and talk about something, that was the one, right? I guess.

    Alexandra Paul 18:34

    Yes, for sure. I've been involved with a lot of different issues. But in my late forties, I decided that I was going to focus on animal rights and human overpopulation because those were the two issues that were sort of more fringe that people were less comfortable with. And I thought that I, being a middle class white woman in a career that doesn't excoriate you for speaking out, without, you know, needing donors or caring when people thought - that that's where I needed to put myself instead of raising money for children's hospitals, for example. Which I can't do anyway, for because it goes to animal research, but so.

    Nandita Bajaj 19:17

    Did you face any resistance from the organizers when you proposed the talk?

    Alexandra Paul 19:22

    No, not at all. You know, what I find is that most people do think that there are too many people on the planet, they just don't like to delve any deeper. They see a lot of traffic and they they understand it, I think in a very deep way. But then there's this other part of them that doesn't want their rights taken away and they immediately jump to China or India. I really wonder where our issue would be today if China and India hadn't sort of ruined our reputation, because people jump to that immediately. They don't even know the actually the ins and outs of it, they just know there was oppression.

    Nandita Bajaj 19:22

    Right.

    Alexandra Paul 19:23

    So it'd be an interesting thought exercise. If that hadn't happened, would our issue be more mainstream and be more accepted and not so feared?

    Nandita Bajaj 20:14

    Yeah.

    Dave Gardner 20:14

    Yeah, good point. So was it scary at all to you? Did you have any apprehension about choosing that topic and going with it?

    Alexandra Paul 20:22

    No, not at all. After all, I had been speaking about it in schools ten years or twenty years earlier, gosh, twenty years earlier. And I had gotten involved, I think one of the reasons that, you know, my involvement with the issue was not consistent, in other words, I haven't spent the last thirty years only focused on human overpopulation. And part of that was because there just aren't a lot of people out there working on the issue with whom I've interfaced and so I got involved with the electric car movement and really moved that forward. And when electric cars became mainstream, I knew I didn't, they didn't need me anymore. And so I focused on animals and overpopulation again. So I have been, yeah, guilty of not being incredibly consistent in terms of my activism. And then recently on this issue, last year I wrote to some colleges and asked if I could speak, and I did hear back from one, the San Diego State University, and I'll be speaking, actually, to another class there tomorrow. So you know, and I'm thinking actually, and speaking with you now makes it more real, of hiring someone to help me just do all that work of outreach, because I think I could probably find an intern or somebody whom I could pay, and I'd be able to afford somebody who could just do outreach, and to maybe get me booked, so that I can speak, because that's, that's the hard thing is trying to get in. I have spoken to Scripps University of Oceanography, is it called a university? College of Oceanography. They have a climate change class, you could actually get a degree in science and climate change policy. And so I've spoken to their class three consecutive years. So I didn't shock them.

    Dave Gardner 22:12

    Well, that's great.

    Nandita Bajaj 22:13

    I found your presentation that you did for San Diego University to be so accessible. I felt it was just really well done. And I just even wanted to ask you, in the nine years since you've given the TED Talk, your messaging was still very bold, and on point, but have you evolved how you were talking about overpopulation then versus now?

    Alexandra Paul 22:39

    Now the TED Talk was only nine minutes and the presentation I gave, for example, to Scripps is an hour and a half. So it's different. But now it's about one child per couple. It's really, I used to speak in the early nineties certainly about two kids or fewer. And now it's really about having one child, getting people comfortable with with the notion of single children, only children. I know I spoke about that in the TED Talk. But now there's no equivocating, because now we're hitting eight billion since that TED Talk.

    Dave Gardner 23:12

    I want to interject real quick that we will put links in the show notes to as many things that we talked about as we can, definitely will put a link in the show notes to this TEDx Talk and Alexandra's talk at San Diego State University, I think that's available to the public. We'll put a link because I didn't get a chance to see it because I had something more important to do - I needed to recycle that day.

    Alexandra Paul 23:34

    You know everything I'm saying anyway. You know, so. I think I'm learning from Nandita about pronatalism, though. I wasn't that aware of that concept. I mean, I knew there was a push, because I'm a woman, and I've had people push me to have babies and be scornful that I haven't. But I'm learning from Nandita about pronatalism more. So I'm happy about that. That's certainly broadening my perspective.

    Nandita Bajaj 24:02

    Thank you.

    Alexandra Paul 24:02

    And also being more from the organization Having Kids, which will soon be Fair Start, I'm also recognizing other ways to look at the issue rather than the way I look at it, which is from an environmental point of view and quality of life for humans. Like there's other ways to show people that population is a problem and that we can solve it. And I think a Fair Start does that.

    Dave Gardner 24:33

    Yeah, they're pretty impressive in that department. So let's listen to a moment from your introduction at that TEDx Talk.

    Alexandra Paul 24:41

    A couple of days later, I told my friend Susie Hollander that because there seems to be too many people in the world for it to handle that I wasn't going to have any kids. And she looked at me and she replied that she was going to have three. And I felt pretty alone in my beliefs. And thirty-seven years later, I still feel pretty alone in my beliefs. And I'm still shocked that not more people are disturbed by population growth. And I think it's because, as a species, we've decided not to talk about it. To kind of tuck it away, so I'm here to untuck it.

    Alexandra Paul 25:20

    I can hear how nervous I was in my voice.

    Dave Gardner 25:24

    Only you, only you. You really, I think you carried yourself better than 99% of the TEDx talkers out there. But thank you for untucking it. I just love that notion that you're there to untuck it.

    Alexandra Paul 25:35

    I do believe, and thank you for having this podcast, because it's all part of the fabric of all of us moving to try and untuck what people refuse to speak about. And so they stay with these notions that those university students did, that people who want to lower the population or even stabilize it or talk about having fewer kids are racist, classist, etc., when actually, we're the opposite of that, because a world of eleven billion is going to be really terrible for the folks who are in countries where they're less developed, or, the rich countries are going to fare better, in other words.

    Dave Gardner 26:17

    And the privileged people. Yeah.

    Alexandra Paul 26:19

    Yep. So a lot of the European and North Americans, we're going to be feeling it later.

    Nandita Bajaj 26:29

    Yeah, no, I'm with you on that. I think we both are, in that, you know, overpopulation is a social justice issue. It is hurting the most marginalized communities now. And it's going to hurt the most marginalized communities increasingly as our population continues to grow, and we continue to grow the number of climate refugees that are being harmed by these disastrous events.

    Dave Gardner 26:56

    So you told the story that you felt alone as a child, and thirty-seven years later, not much had changed. Now, another eight years or so later, do you feel just alone? Or do you feel like you have a little more company today than you did?

    Alexandra Paul 27:10

    Well, I have more company because I've met people like you. But the world I think is still, judging from the response in the media after the 2020 census, and all the articles that are coming out now about how the population is declining, which isn't true, but the population birth rate is declining and how terrible that is. They do, everyone in the media is hysterical. And I've only seen one or two, I think I've seen I've read three articles that I had to seek out that say there's an upside to having a smaller population. If it were getting smaller.

    Dave Gardner 27:50

    Three out of hundreds.

    Alexandra Paul 27:51

    Yes, right, exactly.

    Dave Gardner 27:53

    Hundreds on the subject, only three had that perspective at all.

    Alexandra Paul 27:58

    And none of them but one in Business Insider, the other two were blogs. So the New York Times, the LA Times, all these newspapers are printing many articles in the last few weeks that all gives you this feeling when you finish them that oh my gosh, we really need to have more people, otherwise we're going to be in trouble. Did you read the one in the New York Times on Sunday?

    Dave Gardner 28:17

    Yeah.

    Nandita Bajaj 28:18

    Yeah.

    Alexandra Paul 28:18

    I mean-

    Dave Gardner 28:20

    That was a heartbreaker. Yeah.

    Alexandra Paul 28:22

    It was a heartbreaker. They were trying to make people who read it heartbroken about all the people, the empty this and the empty houses. And I'm thinking, you know that in some places like LA, that, and San Francisco, it's so expensive. There's so many people wanting housing, that it's super expensive. And here you are. In one hand, we're complaining about the expense of too many people trying to get too few houses in these cities. And on the other hand, we're lamenting empty houses. It's like, well, we need to discuss this so we can come to a happy medium.

    Dave Gardner 28:56

    Yeah, the dissonance is just deafening. So that the New York Times piece was called Long Slide Looms for World Population With Sweeping Ramifications. We'll include a link in the show notes. And it was mostly heartbreaking. But you know, there was one bit in there that gave me a little bit of hope.

    Alexandra Paul 29:14

    You mean the one sentence? There was one little or maybe two sentences, right? Because I wrote a letter, by the way, and noted that they only had one sentence that acknowledged climate change.

    Dave Gardner 29:27

    But German demographer, Frank Swiaczny, which I know I'm not pronouncing correctly, German's a tough language, Chief of Population Trends and Analysis for the United Nations until last year, he's quoted in the piece saying countries need to learn to live with and adapt to decline. Now, decline is kind of a poor choice of words. But you know, that is the mantra for this century, is countries do need to learn to live with and adapt to population contraction. It's gonna happen, hopefully sooner than later. And we just need to adjust.

    Alexandra Paul 30:00

    It's going to happen. And we hope that it happens in a way, because as, that women and couples choose to have it happen instead of it happening because of a pandemic sweeping through overcrowded cities, or wars happening over resources, or famines due to climate change that can't support this larger population.

    Nandita Bajaj 30:22

    Yeah.

    Dave Gardner 30:23

    Yeah. And that Business Insider piece, the Declining American Birth Rate Could Actually be Good for the Economy. I will put a link in the show notes for that too.

    Nandita Bajaj 30:31

    It was, you know, a relatively positive article, the first of its kind that I've seen in a while.

    Alexandra Paul 30:36

    It did acknowledge that the fact that the birth rates are going down is because of women's rights are going up. And education is going up. Now, the other articles actually have acknowledged that and I have been impressed that the mainstream media does get the link between women's rights and then they're choosing to have smaller babies, which makes it all the more confounding that these outlets and journalists would want women to go backwards into, you know, having more children, which unless they think oh, well, don't worry, those women can have a full-time job and four children. Totally fine. Because that's what they're basically suggesting that we should do.

    Nandita Bajaj 31:16

    Right.

    Dave Gardner 31:17

    I think those other pieces, sort of, they recognize it, but they sort of, it's almost presented as well, here's the cause of the problem. End the story. And this piece in Business Insider, you know, really kind of celebrated more that it's about women having access to education and employment opportunities, about the rise in individualism, the rise in women's autonomy, and a change in values. It was, it's more celebrated in this piece than any of the others I've seen.

    Alexandra Paul 31:42

    Yes.

    Dave Gardner 31:43

    And it seems to me like even the pieces that talk about the fact that well, this may be the new normal, and we do need to start working on adjusting. And you see someone with kind of a good attitude about that, and yet, there's still some pro-growth bias inherent in that because they they're trying to figure out one is, well, we got to figure out a way for the economy to keep growing while this happens. Well, why is that? You know? Perpetual economic growth is just as unsustainable as perpetual population growth. And the only reason you might need economic growth is to meet the needs of a growing population. So population contracts, then the economy can contract and it's a win-win. And I haven't seen anybody who really kind of completes the circle on that. But even if they recognize that there are some benefits for sustainability, and you know, the livability of the planet and the survival of, of us and other species, when they start talking about the adjustments, they go back to ways to make it possible for women to work and have kids. They don't talk about adjustments to the economy so it isn't so dependent on perpetual growth.

    Nandita Bajaj 32:53

    Right.

    Alexandra Paul 32:54

    So you're talking about, sort of, Biden's plan of helping with childcare and things? Yeah. I think if we look back at ourselves in fifty years, we'll just be appalled at our priorities now. Because we haven't been like this for millennia. I don't know when the economics, capitalism, and this drive and this priority of capitalism came along. Did any of you have a background in that?

    Dave Gardner 33:18

    Pretty marginal. I mean, you could say three hundred years ago or two hundred years ago, or even really intensely a hundred years ago, and some people think maybe ten thousand years ago, but not a hundred thousand years ago for sure. Well, I think a lot of it came about when capitalism got unleashed by fossil fuels. Yeah, we got carried away. But thank you, Alexandra, for for writing to the New York Times, and and writing to the LA Times, and doing that kind of thing.

    Alexandra Paul 33:46

    I feel like a crazy woman because they make me so mad. And I'm just writing and but it feels good, because at least you know what, even if they don't get printed, it doesn't matter. It shows that people care about the issue and want to see another side. So I feel like I'm doing, I'm very much believer in the power of one, even on a planet of 7.8 billion.

    Dave Gardner 34:06

    Good for you. So most recently, you wrote to the LA Times after they published an editorial Declining U.S. Birth Rate Adds Urgency to the Need for Smart Immigration Reform. And I was really thrilled to see that they published three letters that were all quite intelligent and articulate, taking them to task for wanting continued population growth instead of celebrating the rights of nature and having a livable planet for future generations. And so you're not a crazy lady. It's pretty clear you're not, and they must recognize that.

    Alexandra Paul 34:39

    I guess so. Yes. And good news is that the LA Times actually published, also the day before, a letter on the issue, because they'd written another article just a couple of days before that had the same discussion about US census lowering, and oh my god, we're all going to be doomed. So it's four letters in two days for the values the three of us share, which is great that they acknowledge that. They didn't print a letter as far as I know, saying, yay, populations should be going up, so thank you for your article telling us that. They didn't print any of those, so.

    Dave Gardner 35:13

    You know, there was something in that LA Times editorial that troubled me a little bit, I'd really love to get both of you as the superior gender, I'd like to get your opinion on this. We men have been in charge way too long, and we have failed miserably. So I'm looking forward to more and more women being in charge as we go forward. So there was just one part of the editorial where they wrote younger women reported in one survey that they were delaying or opting not to have children because they wanted more personal freedom and leisure time, did not have a partner with whom they wanted to share a child, or worried about the affordability of childcare. Notably, deciding not to have children, or not to have as many often means more success in careers for women. A patently unfair trade off. Do you think it is? Is that an, is it unfair? That that there's that trade off? As a society, do we need to find a way to make it so women don't have to choose between the two?

    Alexandra Paul 36:08

    I mean, I personally, I would agree with that statement. And say that I chose not to adopt partly because I wanted to continue my acting career, and not, because adoption is an option for those of us who have decided not to have kids because of overpopulation. But because I knew, even though my husband is very progressive, I didn't trust that we wouldn't fall into roles. Not because of him, but because of me, and guilt. And just feeling like, as a woman, I should be a certain way. Whereas a husband, or the male partner, doesn't have that same kind of pressure. So I think that we need to change the well, we, it is changing, but slowly, the gender roles. It's one of the great things about when gay couples have kids, they have to discuss things like gender roles, you know, traditional gender roles and who's going to take on what, instead of hetero couples like I am, I'm in hetero relationship. We don't we don't do we didn't discuss it. We just through our, we've been together twenty-five years, we've sorted it out. But we didn't discuss it in the beginning.

    Nandita Bajaj 37:15

    Right.

    Dave Gardner 37:15

    But do you have a right to have a superstar career and four kids if you want? Is that your right?

    Alexandra Paul 37:21

    Oh, I see.

    Dave Gardner 37:22

    That's kind of my question.

    Alexandra Paul 37:23

    Oh, I see, sorry. Nandita, would you like to answer that?

    Nandita Bajaj 37:27

    I'm so glad, Dave, that you picked up that tiny little nuance that that they're trying to throw in there of still trying to make it seem like a trade off, a sacrifice, there's something wrong with you if you can't have it all. It's so inherently pronatalist in its language, saying that this is ultimately what all women must want. And the fact that climate change is pushing people to not do it, or rising cost of living, you know, wanting to have freedom. All of those things are excellent reasons. But the fact that it's being presented as a sacrifice that women are having to make, definitely not the place that I'm coming from. My husband and I, we did choose to not have children to address overpopulation. But also because we really did not see children in our lives. We consider ourselves as complete families, we have an adopted companion animal. And I'm finding that there is a necessity to move away from this kind of pronatalist culture that defines family, you know, as a unit that consists of children, or a family that must consist of a couple to something I, you know, even spoke about in the last podcast is the word family has evolved in such a dramatic way that people don't refer to this, you know, more kind of heteronormative structure of a nuclear family with two kids as a family. So I find it problematic when it's presented as a sacrifice. I would like to live in a world where the child-free choice is celebrated as a valid option, not as a sacrifice, not as a lack, but as a valid option for women to make that choice completely autonomously and to not be considered selfish for it.

    Alexandra Paul 39:26

    Well said.

    Dave Gardner 39:27

    Well, Alexandra, you're right. Adoption is certainly a potential equalizer because it is a little bit unfair that if a couple wants to conceive a child, that the heavy lifting falls to the woman, that they haven't figured out a way to make us men carry a child to term. Adoption really does free a couple to get completely outside of those traditional roles if they want to.

    Alexandra Paul 39:49

    But it doesn't for the pregnancy, but it doesn't after the adoption, there's still the negotiation between the man and the woman about raising the child. And what I see is that, even with progressive men, mostly the woman is the default. If given a choice between the man having to give up something to go pick up the child from school and the woman, it's generally the woman's, for example, her work that will be put second and expected she will make that that run to pick up the kid.

    Dave Gardner 40:20

    True.

    Nandita Bajaj 40:20

    That's kind of what that that sentence that you picked up, Dave, was suggesting too, right? It didn't say that about men. It said that specifically about women, that they're going to have this trade off of not being able to have it all.

    Dave Gardner 40:33

    Yeah, they're not thinking completely outside the box there are they?

    Alexandra Paul 40:36

    And I think, like I said, one of the reasons that I chose not to have children is that I don't think that I would fall into those expectations and gender expectations and that my career would suffer. You never see a male actor wondering if having kids is going to stifle his career. I've never, but female actresses they do. They have to take time off from work, or slow down, or work just in town just so they can take care of their kids.

    Dave Gardner 41:04

    Yeah. Well, here's another notable moment from your talk that I'd like to share.

    Alexandra Paul 41:08

    And this is where people start getting nervous talking about overpopulation and population issues, because they're scared that I'm going to take away their rights to have children. But I don't want to take people's rights away, I want to give people rights. Forcing people to have fewer children does not work. In fact, the fastest and most efficient way to stabilize the world population is to send girls to school and to empower women, and to give everyone access to and education on birth control. And those are good things. And as a culture, we need to emphasize the benefits of having a one-child family, so people will choose to have fewer kids.

    Alexandra Paul 41:51

    I noticed that I said stabilizing the population instead of lowering it. But I think I do say in that talk, which I haven't heard in a long time, that two billion people is the optimum. And by the way, Nandita, some people believe it's one and a half billion. So that it's, I was actually being conservative when I said two billion.

    Nandita Bajaj 42:09

    Right.

    Alexandra Paul 42:11

    But the thing that's crazy is that all these newspaper articles, they're talking about, oh, population decline, and two billion was just ninty years ago. And my mom, that means that my mom grew up in a world of two billion, and she was happy. I mean, there were a lot of human injustices in that world, but in terms of environment, it was much better than it is today.

    Dave Gardner 42:32

    But you didn't have a flat screen TV.

    Alexandra Paul 42:34

    She didn't. And the economy, the GDP, was just not humming along Dave, as much as they want.

    Dave Gardner 42:40

    You know, so since, you know, we've added almost a billion people since you spoke those words, and maybe five hundred more people understand. If you're talking about overpopulation, you're not trying to tell many people how many children that can have.

    Alexandra Paul 42:52

    Ah.

    Dave Gardner 42:53

    I hope I'm being conservative in that.

    Alexandra Paul 42:56

    Well, I think that TED Talk, it hasn't gotten a ton of, I mean, it's been ten years. So it's gotten about five hundred thousand, or half a million views, which, you know, I'm grateful for that. But you know, probably if I'd done it on, you know, the sex life of an Instagram user, it would have gotten five hundred million. But I'm grateful for the people who have watched it. And I believe that the way I presented is convincing. It might wear off, but because there's so many pronatalist, as Nandita said, pronatalist assumptions in our society that just my ten minute TED Talk might not sway them, but hopefully it opened them up. And what we need is more messaging, like I said in there, so that people aren't so inundated with this idea that if you are child-less, you're going to be less happy. I say the word child, I consider myself child-free. But sometimes I don't say it around parents, because I think it sounds like I'm going, "I'm child-free!" Which I am doing that actually. But it makes them feel bad because they are child-burdened. And when I say that, I mean it's hard to raise a child. But our society refuses to talk about it. It wasn't til Brooke Shields had wrote her book about postpartum depression, that I think people began to understand, oh, postpartum depression happens to almost every woman. It's not unusual. It doesn't mean you're broken. But that's because society wasn't making that a conversation we could have because they were so afraid that then the aura of motherhood would would be tarnished.

    Nandita Bajaj 44:26

    Right.

    Alexandra Paul 44:26

    And I guess, maybe right, Nandita?

    Nandita Bajaj 44:29

    Yeah, no such such great points. And to your point, too, it's like we don't talk to people about the feelings of regret that they feel after becoming parents. That's such a taboo subject. You're demonized for even expressing that view. To say I feel, you know, I've sacrificed my career, I've sacrificed my relationship with my partner, or my freedom to follow through on a life passion. You're not allowed to say that because automatically people equate that with you somehow being a bad parent. But you could be an incredible parent and still feel a sense of regret, just like you would with so many other decisions in your lives. So, there is such a taboo around looking at parenthood as anything but the hallmark of happiness and fulfillment. And, you know, that's where I'm so grateful for the work you are doing in normalizing the child-free choice. And cutting through a lot of these pronatalist beliefs that not having kids is not fulfilling and extremely satisfying, and allows you to contribute to society in other incredible ways. Parenting is one incredible way. Not parenting is another incredible way, they don't have to compete with each other.

    Alexandra Paul 45:49

    Yeah, it's very antiquated for us to continue to think that we have to have more children to survive. And I think I say this in the TED Talk is that actually to survive, we have to have no children or fewer children, at least.

    Dave Gardner 46:02

    That was a good point.

    Alexandra Paul 46:03

    But our biology is very much pushing us and old ways of thinking like the more people we have, the stronger we are as a country, when really, in terms of war, we don't do hand to hand combat anymore. We don't need a large army. No country does anymore. So that's not a factor. Our tribe doesn't need to be bigger in size than the other tribe to be happier, more powerful, or whatever metrics society values as success.

    Dave Gardner 46:30

    There's another aspect of overpopulation awareness and action where I really feel you were a thought leader back in 2011. Let's go back to your TEDx Talk.

    Alexandra Paul 46:39

    Now, you might be thinking, okay, this population issue sounds troublesome. But we should be having the babies. We're smart, and were educated, and we listen to TED Talks, and we can afford kids, and heck, our offspring, they might save the world. Even my mom says, "Oh, Alexandra, you'd be such a good mother, and your kids, they'd be wonderful." And they might be wonderful. But they would also be wasteful. Because North Americans use thirty-two times the resources is someone from a developing country. So it's even more important that we have smaller families.

    Alexandra Paul 47:19

    Well, by the way, my mother has no grandchildren, my brother had a vasectomy when he was twenty-one, and my sister doesn't have children either. So she used to be sad about that. But now she sees that we have much more time for her, because we can go up and help her. And when she needs us, for example, when she really needs us, she's holy, she's eighty-five and very independent. But when she does need us, I can leave and take care of her. And apparently, that's the nature of my job. But also, I don't have children, which really keeps parents not able to travel to take care of their own parents. So it did, where did you think that I was hitting on, tell me what what struck you, Dave, as a point that was important in that in that?

    Dave Gardner 48:04

    Well, it was that you were bringing up that, you know, why we, in the overdeveloped world, need to be thinking about this because so many people to this da assume that if you're advocating doing something about overpopulation, well, you're advocating for someone over there to be doing something different, because we're not having that many babies here in the overdeveloped world, but you've made a good point of bringing up that subject. And I think that addresses some of the fear. You know, that sort of keeps people from having the conversation, because they're afraid that it is, has these racist overtones. That we're not looking in the mirror.

    Alexandra Paul 48:39

    And it's important that we don't have those racist overtones, because it's a very valid point that the, I think it, I came to this sensitivity because the United Nations had a big meeting, and I don't remember what it was, an environmental meeting, in sometime in the nineties. And the less developed countries really pushed back on any kind of population work by the developed countries because they were saying, "Hey, developed countries," this is when we were starting, just starting to understand about climate change, "You all are doing so much damage." And then what happened, unfortunately, was that the conversation got really watered down then because nobody wanted to offend anybody. And I think they did talk about women and women's rights, but they didn't really get to the whole conversation, because population is really complicated. It's not just about women. Women are a really important part of it, but everybody's involved. All those men and their sperm, they're involved too. And all countries have different responsibilities. So unfortunately, yeah, that's what happened to the conversation, was everyone wanted to make sure they weren't racist, which I spent a lot of time thinking about that too, and wanting to make sure that I'm not racist as a white American. And what happened was, is that the conversation stopped.

    Dave Gardner 49:58

    Cairo 1994, yeah.

    Alexandra Paul 50:00

    Thank you.

    Nandita Bajaj 50:01

    Yeah.

    Alexandra Paul 50:01

    Yeah.

    Dave Gardner 50:02

    Yeah. So you did a good job of, you know, unfortunately, that fear is there, that sensitivity is there. So it's just that much more important that the way you communicate about the subject makes it really clear. And a lot of people wonder why, well why does World Population Balance do billboards in North America? Why aren't you guys putting up billboards in Africa? Well, there's a lot of work for people in North America to be doing.

    Nandita Bajaj 50:27

    That's right.

    Alexandra Paul 50:28

    That's very right, yes.

    Nandita Bajaj 50:29

    Yeah. And it's so good that you bring up, Alexandra, the complexities of overpopulation too. And our need to really educate within our own sphere of influence. Because there are so many different pressures that people experience to have kids. Pronatalism shows up in so many different ways. It can be religion, it can be patriarchy, it can be what's considered the norm. And so the one message, kind of, doesn't fit everyone. And that's why it's so important that we do acknowledge that world population does need to go down, and that we have a role to play in educating people, you know, within our own sphere of influence here, but also supporting efforts in the most appropriate way possible in developing countries where women, and men, and people are being oppressed. You know, to not talk about overpopulation in developing countries I think is also unjust, because we then assume that people want to be exactly that way and we shouldn't be pointing fingers, but people aren't living great lives in that kind of a way. And while it may not be our place to suggest how to do that, it's important not to assume that it's here or there. I mean, it really, overpopulation is a global issue. And I'm really glad that we are focusing our messaging here, where we understand the culture, you know, of of North America for the most part.

    Alexandra Paul 50:46

    Showing the benefits of a small family, I think helps everybody.

    Nandita Bajaj 51:42

    Yeah.

    Alexandra Paul 51:42

    No matter what country you are in. And of course, as America goes, the rest of the world does want to follow. So if we have this ethic, that'd be easier to spread around the world. And it'll be unique to each area. I had somebody when I spoke, I think I was at LA College. This was a long time ago, and a man in the back stood up and said, "I'm Armenian, and my people, there was a genocide. I feel like I should be able to have as many children as I want, because my people were killed." And that is true, there was a terrible genocide that killed a lot of Armenians. And I said, "I am a white, middle class American. I cannot talk to you about that, because that's your experience. So for me to start telling you, well you shouldn't have..." I'm so far away from that experience. But I will say that the kind of tribalism that we have, which is my people versus your people, is contributing to a lot of population problems in the world. And that maybe if we start looking at the fact that people, even if there are fewer of them, they don't have to get back to what they were in terms of numbers, necessarily. I'm sure, actually that because the Armenian genocide happened, I think it was in the twenties. But why are we thinking about human numbers? Why not quality of life? Why do we always go to that? Well, we've got to have as many peoples we used to have. It's such an interesting human thing. Maybe the healthier thing for all societies is not thinking about human numbers, but thinking about the quality of life of each of those humans, and what each of those humans have. And I wish that all Armenians will have the beautiful life that they maybe had before that if that's how it feels that they don't have it now. But I don't think just getting up to more numbers is the answer. It is hard when you're me and you're a dominant group to, it gives me the insulation to talk about this issue because I have white privilege. But on the other hand, it also means that I just I can't tell everybody how I think they should go, I can only talk about the issue as a whole. It's one of the reasons I don't actually know a lot about US facts and figures. Because I look at the world population as a whole. So numbers in the US are not as important to me as the mindset in the US that we have. It's a really complicated issue, this issue, because it deals with the just basic humanity. Yeah. What do you all think about that? I mean, Nandita, you are not a white American. So you you have a different point of view about how maybe you can you speak about this.

    Nandita Bajaj 51:42

    I mean, I've I grew up in India until I was seventeen. And then I've been here for the last twenty-three years, so.

    Alexandra Paul 53:52

    In Canada.

    Nandita Bajaj 54:25

    In Canada, right. So I do have similar privilege in terms of living in a wealthy country and having access to so much, and the autonomy and you know, the ability to speak openly about this subject. So I do consider myself privileged, but you know, some experience that I have being part of a fairly traditional culture, I mean, I've really, I moved here a long time ago, so I'm not an authority on, you know, my, my own culture, and how it's evolved now. But I know from my Indian family that it's still there, and friends who are Indian who live, you know, outside of India, that the pronatalism is still so very strong and hugely oppressive. The child-free choice is barely being recognized. And there's, you know, a handful of people who are doing research there, and people are starting to, you know, come out as child-free couples, but it's definitely not the norm. There's just this expectation that you are going to get married, you're going to have kids, in a way that that expectation may not be as alive here. You know, people do have the choice to have or not have kids. The pronatalism might hide it from them and make it seem like they don't have the choice, but they definitely have the right to exercise that choice. It's not to the same degree present and prevalent within my own culture, there's a lot of shame. If you don't have kids, you're kind of seen as, you know, an outcast, something is wrong with you. Your identity as a woman, as a mother, is challenged. Your identity as a wife, you know, is seen as lacking. You're, you know, so much a part of your, kind of, joint extended family with your in-laws that, you're not just, again, for the most part, I'm not speaking in generalities, but you're not just getting married to your husband, you really are entering a whole family that has expectations of you. So your life isn't just your own.

    Alexandra Paul 57:12

    Okay, that's interesting.

    Dave Gardner 57:14

    So one last subject I want to bring up, related to your TEDx Talk. Let me share the way you closed that out.

    Alexandra Paul 57:20

    So let's change our idea of what the ideal family looks like. One is a beautiful number. And let's not be afraid to talk about overpopulation, because it is not about taking rights away from people. It is about giving opportunities to women, children, and future generations. And lastly, let's be part of the solution. And choose, from now on, to bring forth no more than one child ourselves. Thank you.

    Dave Gardner 57:51

    A couple of things related to that. First of all, one is a beautiful number. It kind of makes me think of three dog night, but different, different approach to one, but I love that. One is a beautiful number. Certainly great that you talked about giving opportunities to women, children, and future generations. But I think what I really want to spend a minute on is that there are so many people who are just so afraid that you're trying to tell them how many children they can have. I have found it extremely difficult to just recommend. And yet I think it's fair to say that's what you did. You boldly went out there and basically said, "I recommend one-child families."

    Alexandra Paul 58:31

    I do. But let me tell you that I have my neighbor's having her second child, and I was like congratulations! And my husband's under my breath going, "What are you doing that for Alexandra? They're having another kid." I was like congratulations, when you due? And fawning. And so I do recommend one-child family, yes. But I can notice in my personal life, just because of the pronatalism that Nandita's talked about, is that it is difficult on a personal level. So if they already have a child, and they want a second one, sometimes what I'll ask is, "Do you want a second one because you want to have the opposite sex of what you have now? You want a boy and a girl?" And sometimes I also ask people if they've had three, and it's girl/girl, if they had the third because they wanted a boy? Or boy/boy and they wanted a girl. And it's so interesting because what Carter Dillard from Having Kids, soon to be Fair Start, he asked the question, why do we keep thinking about what parents want? I want a girl, I want a boy, I want three, I want a big happy family, and not think about these children and the world they're going to be growing up in. Well, yeah, that's that's basically what our culture leads with.

    Dave Gardner 59:44

    Yeah.

    Alexandra Paul 59:44

    Is what the parents want.

    Nandita Bajaj 59:46

    Yeah.

    Dave Gardner 59:46

    So you got a good round of applause so I'm assuming they didn't pick you up off the stage and march you up the hill and nail you to a cross or anything.

    Alexandra Paul 59:54

    No.

    Dave Gardner 59:55

    Was everybody pretty comfortable and you weren't shunned from the auditorium after that?

    Alexandra Paul 59:59

    No. And you know, I'm very much a people pleaser. And so I want people to like me, there's no doubt. I feel like I phrased that talk, this it just proves you can talk about human population, you just have to do it in a in a certain way, and make sure they're autonomous. When I spoke at San Diego State University, my mom was also on the same Zoom talk that Nandita was on. And my mother said, "I was just so happy that you told that story about-" basically I said that if someone asked me, "Does this mean I shouldn't have a lot of kids? I really want a lot of kids." I would say, "No, you if you want a lot of kids, you really want a lot of kids, go ahead, I'm not telling you how many kids to have." So I think it's really important that we let people make the decision but explain to them that if you love your children, that one way you can show love for future generations is to not overburden them with what you want, which is a happy family or two kids, a boy and a girl, or whatever you want. And really put into the equation what your kids are going to be experiencing.

    Nandita Bajaj 1:00:59

    Right.

    Alexandra Paul 1:00:59

    So I think autonomy. And studies have shown that if you let people make the decision themselves, and even think that they came to the decision themselves, they're more apt to come to the decision that you are pointing out, basically.

    Dave Gardner 1:01:15

    Yeah.

    Alexandra Paul 1:01:15

    So going with that philosophy, yeah.

    Nandita Bajaj 1:01:19

    I am kind of grappling with the messaging and, you know, what's the best bold solution to bring forward? And I loved Chris Tucker's interview we did recently where he talked about, you know, bringing down the fertility from 2.5 global to 1.5 by 2030. And that number 1.5 by 2030 really stuck. And it's, it's wonderful to be thinking in those terms. But the one child messaging, I know, you know, we've kind of received feedback about, you know, it brings back people to China's one-child policy immediately. That's what people think. But have you kind of received feedback on the limitations of messaging like that?

    Alexandra Paul 1:02:03

    I've gotten the feeling that people think I'm too direct with the word overpopulation, and the way I talk, I'm direct in that way. But I don't say, maybe I did, I say at the end, I said, those of us who haven't had kids yet, please consider, I mean, I thought I put it in a really soft way. But what my main point is, let's look at the benefits of having a one-child family because we don't talk about that. And if people really, if you get them talking about the benefits, they'll see that there's more time for themselves, less money spent on kids, better relationship with their spouse because they're less stressed. So many less pressures. Just a myriad of wonderful things that happen both personally in within the family structure, within the community, and then you can keep going out. And it still goes, the only people who don't want it are the big corporations and the capitalists.

    Nandita Bajaj 1:03:04

    Right.

    Alexandra Paul 1:03:05

    And I guess governments because they need workers, they want workers. And those are, I guess, politicians who still are under this old paradigm that the more workers we have, the more powerful our country is so we'll get on that list that says we're the number one country.

    Nandita Bajaj 1:03:20

    Yeah.

    Alexandra Paul 1:03:20

    Which doesn't measure other important values at all of their citizens.

    Nandita Bajaj 1:03:25

    Yeah. And I'm so glad that you're speaking about the benefits, because I think given the proclivity for people towards self-interest and what's good for them, because a lot of people don't respond to scarcity crisis, and you know, climate change, and universality of having a good life. But if we-

    Alexandra Paul 1:03:44

    Because they're so stressed in their own life, I mean people are really stressed. I'm I'm amazed that they can handle three kids and a full- these women, I mean, I talk with them because I'm a health coach, and they they are struggling.

    Nandita Bajaj 1:03:58

    Right.

    Alexandra Paul 1:03:58

    To be everything and what falls to the wayside? Their own health and wellbeing.

    Nandita Bajaj 1:04:03

    Yeah.

    Alexandra Paul 1:04:03

    Generally. So I understand why they might not be able to think about climate change, because they're too busy about thinking about how to get the kids to school and to get their work done. So yes, the self-interest thing is, is a really good way to look at it.

    Nandita Bajaj 1:04:17

    Yeah. And highlighting the benefits is is really the way to go. You know, one of the more I think, effective ways to go to reach to appeal to people's, you know, own interests.

    Alexandra Paul 1:04:30

    And also never, I really feel that we should never penalize anyone for having more children. We should just continue to incentivize just really so much emphasis on the positives. The government should be emphasizing the financial incentives to those who don't instead of penalizing those who do.

    Nandita Bajaj 1:04:48

    Right.

    Alexandra Paul 1:04:49

    Because that brings back the China and India and such and days of forced sterilization. So it's all about just spreading the love about one child, smaller families, and all that great stuff and making it cool, making it acceptable.

    Nandita Bajaj 1:05:04

    So Alexandra, among the many different types of activism that you're involved in, you know, sustainable population being one of them, you're a gay rights activist, animal rights activist, a lot of the things that I overlap in interests around, and I would love to hear more about your journey into animal protection - what got you started?

    Alexandra Paul 1:05:28

    When I was fourteen, I actually became a vegetarian because I read a book called Diet for a Small Planet, which talked about, and it was an environmental way of looking at vegetarianism. Vegetarian meaning no eating meat. And then a few years later for a book report, I did read a book called Animal Liberation, which was about the ethics of not exploiting animals. So that's when I stopped buying like shampoo, and I didn't wear makeup then, but that kind of thing. I became aware of the ethical, so I stopped wearing animals. And in my early acting contracts, when I was in the early eighties, they stipulated that no makeup that was put on me could be tested on animals. So it was hard to find. But every everybody, all the makeup artists were happy to do it. I just had to help them find the makeup. And so I never had a project in all the hundred projects that I've done, somebody say "No, were not going to." People want to do the right thing they just sometimes don't know how. So they were always excited. It was really interesting. And then finally, thirty-three years later, I gave up dairy. And it was the second, the third best thing I've ever done in my life. The first one was me stopping being bulimic, which was a challenge I had for twelve years, the second one was marrying my husband, and the third one was becoming vegan. All those three things just contributed to my happiness so much. And I changed as a person. You wouldn't think going from vegan to vegetarian and after, you know, not wearing animals for, I stopped wearing animals in my twenties, so no wool, leather, or silk, that I would have such a change by just giving up dairy. But I really did.

    Nandita Bajaj 1:07:02

    Incredible.

    Alexandra Paul 1:07:03

    I changed the way I looked at the world by becoming fully vegan.

    Nandita Bajaj 1:07:07

    Yeah.

    Alexandra Paul 1:07:08

    You know, finally I was completely aligned with my values. And yeah, and so in my late forties, I decided that I was going to just focus on helping animals and people and it was going to be population and animal rights.

    Nandita Bajaj 1:07:21

    And there's such a strong correlation between animals suffering and our growing numbers. Right? We are the biggest threat to animals. Do you try to bring this up in animal rights communities? What kind of feedback do you get if you talk about overpopulation in animal advocacy movements.

    Alexandra Paul 1:07:40

    I have spoken twice at the Animal Rights Conference, given a presentation, I helped put together a panel on human overpopulation and the link to the environment, and therefore animal habitat and such. But I don't I don't bring it up with my friends on a day to day basis. Most of my friends don't have kids actually. So I am surrounded by less conventional people anyway. But it is an important issue that the environmental organizations would refuse and still refuse to deal with. Animal rights organizations are by nature, more radical, so less fearsome - fearful, they're less fearful of dealing with issues that people get defensive about. People definitely get defensive if you say I'm vegan. You don't have to even, I don't tell people to be vegan. It's the same thing as having one kid. I'm not gonna tell you to be vegan, you've got to come to that - took me thirty-three years to go from being a vegetarian. Why would I judge you? No. But people always do get, not always, but a lot of people do immediately feel like you're judging them.

    Nandita Bajaj 1:08:49

    Just by your own actions, right?

    Alexandra Paul 1:08:50

    Just following, yes. But you know, when I drove electric cars before I started driving electric cars in 1990, same thing, people always thought that I was going to be mad at them for driving in an SUV. I'm like, "I'm just trying to clean my side of the street. I'm just trying to live my values. I don't have time to tell you what to do. It's too much."

    Nandita Bajaj 1:09:10

    Right.

    Alexandra Paul 1:09:10

    I'm - living in alignment with your own values every day is the hardest thing to do.

    Nandita Bajaj 1:09:17

    Absolutely.

    Alexandra Paul 1:09:17

    So I'm judging you.

    Nandita Bajaj 1:09:20

    And is it difficult for you to live in alignment with your own values with your career? Do you ever have to, kind of, compromise?

    Dave Gardner 1:09:28

    I was gonna say eat steak when the dining services serves it up?

    Alexandra Paul 1:09:33

    I've had to, and it has been actually with animals, I've been able to really navigate it well. You know, I was in Baywatch, put me in a scene at Marineland. And I asked them to please write me out because I didn't want to support that place. And they did. And a lot of it's because they knew already in my contract it said that I didn't want things to sign, so they knew I wasn't just being a diva. And I had a movie where they asked me to ride a horse and I don't ride horses because I don't believe that animals, any animal should be used for my own pleasure or transportation. And so I talked to the director before the movie started, and I was the lead so I had some sway. And I said, you know, I didn't tell him that I didn't want to ride horses, I said, "How are we going to shoot this stampede, horse stampede scene? Isn't it going to be really hard? Is there a way to do it where we don't have to do this?" And of course, then we used a motorcycle. And afterwards, he said, "Oh my god, it was so great that you escaped on a motorcycle rather than a horse." I mean it was so not realistic anyway. So a lot of times it works out for the best when you talk about your own values. But I am, Nandita, you know because I wrote to you yesterday in a moral quandary about pronatalism. I haven't ever spoken up about that in terms of my, and I have a movie offer that I said yes to because I was so excited about it because I love the script. And it's very progressive, LGBTQ, lots of you know, not just white people. And it's funny. And now because I'm taking your class Nandita, I realized, I don't know why I didn't notice it when I read the script, it is the most pronatal story practically that you can get. And I need to figure out what I'm going to do. I haven't signed a contract. So I need to talk to the director, and I need to talk to the director, I think and tell him why. Because I need to even, I have to say that it's much easier for me to say it when it's about animals.

    Nandita Bajaj 1:11:40

    Right.

    Alexandra Paul 1:11:40

    But when it's like, I really believe that we can't promote having twins and surrogacy and all that. And so I can't be in this movie. Oh my god, it makes me so nervous. I haven't I couldn't sleep last night-

    Nandita Bajaj 1:11:54

    Oh my goodness.

    Alexandra Paul 1:11:54

    Because I'm so worried about talking to the director.

    Dave Gardner 1:11:57

    So a rewrites not gonna cut it.

    Alexandra Paul 1:11:58

    No actually, a rewrite isn't gonna cut it. So, and I need to remember that, you know, I have to live my values. And I know it's going to be upsetting for him. And I've worked with him four times. No, this will be my fourth time. So you know, and I have to be honest, and I'm embarrassed that I didn't notice it before when I read the script, but the truth is, I have so many values coming at me. I was like, woah this is so great, and you've got gay couples and they're marrying and I forgot all about the baby thing. I don't know what I'm going to do. And if I do it, It'll have to just cop to being a human being that you know, there are so many things to weigh.

    Nandita Bajaj 1:12:39

    Yeah.

    Alexandra Paul 1:12:39

    But this might not be the only thing. I mean, it's a wonderfully progressive script in terms of LGBTQ and so there's so much good, but so I think I'm just going to have a conversation with him and see, but I think if it was an animal thing, I would say I'm sorry, I can't be in it. But I also would have said it right off because I would have it would have 'boing-ed' out of me, but I'm just so, I'm not used to looking at pronatalism until well, I started talking to you. So the messaging I just, yeah, I don't usually, I'm not usually in movies where, especially now because I'm fifty-seven, where I'm involved with, you know, baby things. I did do a TV movie a long time ago that was about four different couples having babies, it was called mixed blessings. And we shot it in Canada. And I took it because my character adopted and that was the whole thing is that I thought, but the rest of the movie was about the joys of baby-making, or not, that wasn't actually true. But there was a strong baby-making message.

    Nandita Bajaj 1:13:44

    Yeah.

    Alexandra Paul 1:13:45

    But I thought, well I'm this is good. But now I've changed my priorities. And I don't know if it's that I think it's, and this script is of course different. So it's not easy, it's nuanced, everything.

    Nandita Bajaj 1:13:56

    I'm just so incredibly inspired though how dedicated you are to consistently trying as best as you can to align your work with your values, which is not easy to do. And I really admire you for your dedication on this subject. And I just want to say, you know, a lot of my work on pronatalism was inspired by Laura Carroll, whose book we are currently reading in my course the Baby Matrix. So a big thanks to her for waking me up to that.

    Alexandra Paul 1:14:27

    And I read that book because it's assigned in our class. I although we'll be talking about it because there's some things I recognize in myself about, that she goes farther than I, actually, in some some areas, so.

    Nandita Bajaj 1:14:42

    I'm going to test you on it tomorrow. It's tomorrow night, our class, so you better be ready.

    Alexandra Paul 1:14:47

    Okay. I'm done, I finished it.

    Nandita Bajaj 1:14:51

    Great.

    Dave Gardner 1:14:51

    Well, not to be out done in praise for you, Alexandra. You're like my Jane Fonda. You've only been arrested I think five times so far for-

    Alexandra Paul 1:15:00

    No no, I've been arrested over twenty times.

    Dave Gardner 1:15:02

    Oh, over twenty times? Oh!

    Alexandra Paul 1:15:04

    Yeah, so I think maybe more than Jane Fonda, but I'm not sure. But she's she's amazing, so I don't, I'm not gonna compete with her because she's so amazing. I look up to her also.

    Dave Gardner 1:15:15

    Thank you for standing up for what you believe. Real quickly, can we just get the story on your podcast? You do a podcast called Switch 4 Good?

    Alexandra Paul 1:15:22

    Oh, thank you, yes. Switch 4 Good. It's Switch and the digit 4 Good. And it's a podcast about the benefits of a plant-based lifestyle. And we've been going for, we have a hundred and forty episodes. So we're branching out, it's not just about a plant-based lifestyle, but a healthy lifestyle. So we do branch out. But yes, thank you so much, Dave, you can find it on any podcast platform.

    Dave Gardner 1:15:47

    That's great. And we'll put links in the show notes to help people find all these, as well. Wow, great conversation, thanks. As we wrap up, Nandita, should we shed a little light on that course that you and Alexandra talked about?

    Nandita Bajaj 1:16:00

    Yeah, sure. Thank you, Dave, for that opportunity. This course is part of a much longer project that I undertook as part of my graduate degree thesis that I've been delving into for the last couple of years in humane education, working and researching the intimate links between pronatalism, anthropocentrism, and overpopulation, and their impacts on humans, animals, as well as the environment. And my sense, from both personal experience and having delved so deeply into pronatalism, was that overpopulation is considered a huge taboo. And I have a sense that part of that is that having children is considered to be a given. And therefore, any discussion about overpopulation is seen as an impingement on that choice. So my goal really from talking about the ties between pronatalism and overpopulation is just to shine light on how pervasive these social pressures around having kids are. And to a large degree, they've just come to be seen as part of our identity. And if we can decouple parenthood from our identity and normalize the conversation that parenthood is a choice rather than a given, I feel that the conversation around making smaller family choices becomes less charged.

    Dave Gardner 1:17:30

    Makes sense. And this is a brand new graduate level college course not actually available yet, but Alexandra is taking it as part of a test run or a pilot, is that right?

    Nandita Bajaj 1:17:39

    Yeah, that's right. Yeah, I'm just doing final tweaks on the course. I've got a small number of people taking it with me as a pilot course. But starting January 2022, it will be offered as a graduate course through Antioch University, in partnership with the Institute for Humane Education. And it'll be the first course of its kind that's talking about the link between overpopulation, pronatalism, how the decision to have biological children is not as personal as it seems. That there are far reaching impacts of that choice on other human beings, on the animals, as well as the environment, and how we can start to include the bigger picture, which is the state of our planet, in our minds, while we're making that, you know, very important decision. So I'm so excited about this course and I'm hoping that a lot of people will, you know, start to see things differently with regards to overpopulation and and having kids.

    Dave Gardner 1:18:48

    Wow, thanks for doing that work. It's just stunning that you have to work so hard to get our minds wrapped around this subject, but appreciate that hard work.

    Nandita Bajaj 1:18:56

    Thank you.

    Dave Gardner 1:18:57

    We do try to close each episode with an inspirational quote. And I've got a very appropriate one today, I think. It's from Seth Rogen, the well known actor and filmmaker. And he said this recently on the Howard Stern radio show, so rather than one of us reading it, let's just hear Seth Rogen from that show.

    Seth Rogen 1:19:15

    There's enough kids out there! Oh, there's so many. We need more people? Who looks at the planet right now, and thinks you know what we need? More people.

    Nandita Bajaj 1:19:24

    So nice to see someone in that position of influence taking a stand on this very important topic and also normalizing the child-free choice.

    Dave Gardner 1:19:34

    It's amazing that it gets so much attention. It just shouldn't be that big of an event when someone of note says, "Hey, we chose child-free and I'm pretty darn happy with that decision."

    Nandita Bajaj 1:19:45

    Exactly.

    Dave Gardner 1:19:46

    Yeah. Simple as that. Well, we'll include a link in the show notes to that moment, where Seth Rogen and Howard Stern talk about why Seth is glad to be child-free. And of course, we'll include links to everything that we talked about with Alexandra as well. That's it for this edition of the Overpopulation Podcast. Thanks again, Nandita, for that very important work that you and the staff of World Population Balance are doing. Visit worldpopulationbalance.org to learn more about how we can solve world overpopulation. While you're at the website, you can sign the Sustainable Population Pledge, listen to our podcasts, get on our email list, and importantly, become a supporting member - make a donation to support this work.

    Nandita Bajaj 1:20:27

    Thank you, Dave, also for your amazing partnership in this work. You can also find us on Facebook and Twitter. Write to us, we love hearing from you, and we often share your thoughts on the podcast. Our email is podcast@worldpopulationbalance.org. Recommend this episode or podcast to friends, family, colleagues, journalists, and elected representatives. And click subscribe or follow in your podcast app so you don't miss an episode. Until next time, I'm Nandita Bajaj reminding you that we can all make a dent in this movement by choosing small impact families, whatever family means to you.

More like this

Population Balance
Previous

Perspectives from Population Institute's New President
Next

Meet the New Executive Director of World Population Balance