Progressive Pathways for a Smaller Population
Population dynamics are deeply connected to environmental sustainability and social justice. That's the message of Pam Wasserman and Hannah Evans from Population Connection - the oldest grassroots population organization in the U.S. Highlights include:
The origins of Population Connection and its evolution from ZPG (Zero Population Growth) to a broader mission addressing the intersections of population, environment, and social justice;
How their K-12 education program trains thousands of teachers annually to teach students the importance of population dynamics within the broader issues of environmental sustainability;
The connections between population growth, resource consumption, and climate vulnerability, and how addressing reproductive health and gender equality is key to mitigating these challenges;
Insights into the challenges of discussing population in today’s polarized political climate and how depopulation panic gets in the way of meaningful dialogue;
The impact of global partnerships and advocacy efforts, including family planning initiatives and tackling patriarchal norms for the sake of community empowerment and environmental protection.
MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
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[00:00:00] Hannah Evans: Each additional human carries with them a carbon footprint that is measured over the course of a lifetime. And some people more than others, yes, but if we look globally, we can see that the vast majority of our global population resides in countries that are industrializing as well. So as these emerging economies continue to grow, so too is the demand for climate sensitive and resource intensive natural resources. There's no excuse not to be talking about it.
[00:00:27] Pam Wasserman: What I found disappointing, too, is how the major environmental groups have backed away. You know, Sierra Club had an active population program. Audubon had an active population program. They're not doing any of that anymore.
[00:00:39] Alan Ware: In this episode of the Overpopulation Podcast, we're joined by Pam Wasserman and Hannah Evans from Population Connection, a U. S. nonprofit that advocates for population stabilization through education, policy change, and grassroots action.
[00:00:55] Nandita Bajaj: Welcome to the Overpopulation Podcast, where we tirelessly make ecological overshoot and overpopulation common knowledge. That's the first step in right- sizing the scale of our human footprint so that it is in balance with life on Earth, enabling all species to thrive. I'm Nandita Bajaj, co- host of the podcast and executive director of Population Balance.
[00:01:18] Alan Ware: I'm Alan Ware, co- host of the podcast and researcher with Population Balance. We are proud to be the first and only nonprofit organization globally that draws the connections between pronatalism, human supremacy, social inequalities, and ecological overshoot. Our mission at Population Balance is to inspire a narrative, behavioral, and system change that shrinks our human impact and elevates the rights and wellbeing of people, animals, and the planet.
[00:01:47] And now on to today's guest, Pam Wasserman is Senior Vice President for Education at Population Connection, where she oversees all aspects of the population education program, including curriculum development, teacher workshops, program outreach and strategic planning. Hannah Evans works as a senior analyst at Population Connection, where she investigates the ways in which population dynamics intersect with global, social, political, economic, and environmental systems, and advocates for integrated developmental solutions that simultaneously combat climate change and societal injustices.
[00:02:23] And now on to today's interview.
[00:02:25] Nandita Bajaj: Hi, Pam. And hello, Hannah. It's so great to have you both here.
[00:02:30] Pam Wasserman: Hello.
[00:02:30] Hannah Evans
[00:02:31] Thanks so much, Nandita . Great to be here.
[00:02:33] Nandita Bajaj: And we are so excited to learn more about Population Connection's unique offerings, and your personal experiences as sustainable population advocates. Now, Population Connection, is it the oldest population organization?
[00:02:48] Pam Wasserman: I think it may be. We started as ZPG, Zero Population Growth, going back to 1968. Paul Ehrlich was one of the founders. I mean, it was started in Palo Alto because he was at Stanford. And then in the early 70s, it moved to D. C. and became a national organization. So, I think it may be the oldest. I don't think any of the other organizations were around quite that early.
[00:03:13] Nandita Bajaj: Wow. Yeah. So, Population Connection is the oldest and the largest grassroots population organization in the U. S. and we really appreciate the many areas of focus that you guys have in raising population awareness, including your extensive K to 12 education program, which we'll be talking about today, as well as your family planning initiatives both in the U. S. and overseas. Can you both start by sharing a bit about your journey and what motivated you to become involved in the field of population studies and advocate for population stabilization and ultimately reduction?
[00:03:53] Pam Wasserman: Sure I can start. My involvement goes back to the late eighties and I think I was interested in reproductive health, women's issues, going back to high school.
[00:04:04] And then when I was in college, I had a chance to volunteer at a women's clinic in Providence, Rhode Island, where I was going to school and then did a semester in London and worked for Marie Stopes International, one of their clinics. And I think I didn't know much about population issues until I started looking for work after school.
[00:04:23] And I was looking at some of the groups like Planned Parenthood and then Population Institute came up as having a fellowship. And so I jumped on that and I saw that population combined my interest in the reproductive health issues with the environmental issues. And I thought, oh, this is really interesting.
[00:04:41] This is an area where I can find a lot of things to keep my interest for a long time. And so after that fellowship, something opened up at ZPG. I started at the ground level as an executive assistant, which was great because I saw all aspects of the work at the organization, but I was most drawn to the K 12 education program, so started doing that in 1989 and have been working with that ever since.
[00:05:06] Nandita Bajaj: That's incredible, Pam. It's actually wonderful to see how far back your history with the population and environment connection goes and that you've been kind of the steady pillar for the organization for decades.
[00:05:19] Pam Wasserman: I think I'm the longest serving staff member in the organization's history, which makes me feel very old. And I just think that because we deal with so many issues, social issues, and environmental issues, there are so many aspects to working in the population field that there's always new things for me to learn, which is great.
[00:05:38] Nandita Bajaj: Wow. Well, thank you and congratulations for holding that title. Hannah?
[00:05:43] Hannah Evans: Yes. So I have been working for Population Connection for about six years and I came into this work more from an environmental lens. I've always been really interested in environmental conservation and always thought of myself working in the nonprofit sector or in academia in some way on some sort of environmental issue. I was also really interested in international relations and studies, and so after majoring in college in geography and political science, I was able to go and travel throughout Latin America and work for a couple of different organizations there on various forms of development. And from there became very interested as well in social justice, realizing that environmental conservation is very much predicated on social justice in many ways, and people being able to transcend poverty and live better, more autonomous lives. So I came back to the United States, went to grad school, studied geography again, this time looking at political ecology. And ultimately, after grad school, began working as an adjunct professor in the department of women's studies and gained a little bit of educational experience there, kind of gained an interest in teaching and then began working for a couple of different nonprofits on food security issues and other sort of developmental initiatives throughout Southern California.
[00:07:13] And I came across this organization somewhat randomly. I was just looking for different positions out of grad school. I had some previous knowledge and experience in population studies just from school, but no hands on experience. And so I thought that this was just an interesting opportunity to learn and I became very curious about the organization overall.
[00:07:35] So yeah, I've been able to really enjoy my experience here and I've learned a lot, especially in the realm of reproductive rights and sexual and reproductive health. And I love the sort of integration of people, health, and the environment. It's kind of an approach that I really value and have come to really embody myself in terms of my own values and ideals.
[00:08:01] Nandita Bajaj: That's really great. And it's wonderful to have someone within the field coming with a background in geography and ecology because you may have found that people who are maybe only coming to this issue from a gender studies perspective without the connection to the ecological justice aspect sometimes aren't able to see the same connections. But it's easier coming from an ecological preservation perspective and seeing the feminist connections because they are so deeply intertwined.
[00:08:37] Hannah Evans: Yes, definitely. I agree.
[00:08:39] Alan Ware: Yeah, I thought it was interesting that your political ecology master's degree was looking at globalization and the socioeconomic inequalities that you see with that.
[00:08:49] So the political Inequalities, imbalances that happen through humans and the environment and how resources are extracted from some humans and some environments and how unfair that exchange can be. And I wasn't very familiar with political ecology, but I looked it up a little bit, looking at the fact that was your master's. So that must give you an interesting background.
[00:09:13] Hannah Evans: Yes, absolutely. I think it's really helped me a lot in this work to kind of give some foundation for how and why people are interacting with their environments in certain ways. I think using a political ecology lens, we can, instead of just view population growth as inherently bad because people are bad, we can instead look at the broader systems under which people are operating and sort of subject to and realize that people are interacting with their environments as a consequence of needing to survive, which has a lot to do with economies, socioeconomic status, poverty, and so on. So it really allows for a more sort of nuanced and integrated approach to understanding population, which I think is very important because it's such a complex and sensitive topic.
[00:10:01] Alan Ware: Yeah. And you've written that when you initially began working with Population Connection, you thought that only talking about global reproductive rights and advocacy should be sufficient, that there should be no real need to get into the potentially divisive, uncomfortable discussions about population directly.
[00:10:18] But then you describe how you began to see addressing population directly as being absolutely essential. So what kind of information and experiences changed your mind on that?
[00:10:29] Hannah Evans: Well, majoring in geography, I had already some previous knowledge and schooling around population and environment studies, as well as demography. And in those classes, we would have discussions about, like, the history of the population movement and the ethics surrounding population stabilization. And if that's even something that we should be approaching or moving towards and 1 thing, we really discussed at length as well was. the alarmism of the early population movement in the 1960s and 70s and the sort of negative impact that it ultimately had in terms of policy and language and how we talk about the issue and how we look at population growth now.
[00:11:10] And so whenever I started working for a population connection, again, I was just kind of curious. I wouldn't say I thought one way or another, but I was really interested, I think, to learn more. And of course, as I started working here, I became more familiar with the kind of pro and counter arguments that are either for or against talking about population growth.
[00:11:30] Ultimately, like to be honest, some of the arguments in favor of talking exclusively about reproductive rights really resonated with me. Like for one, I know that it's a very sensitive subject, especially being a white middle class American woman who has had access to education and other resources. I also believe that reproductive rights and family planning should be universally achieved and are worthy of being achieved simply because they are human rights, right?
[00:11:58] We don't need to bring in the environment or any other sort of aspects of this conversation. And so with that, I began thinking about, okay, so what would it be like not to include population in talks about the environment? And that also just didn't really make any sense, right? We know that human impacts are causing climate change, as well as a whole host of like other environmental issues from things like land use change.
[00:12:20] And so I was like, okay, I'm to degradation, to habitat destruction, to air and water pollution, to species extinction, the list goes on. And we also know that we're running like ecological deficits where we're using resources faster than the earth's ability to regenerate them. And at the same time, we have a global population that's increasing by about 70 million people per year.
[00:12:44] And I think also it's very, Important always to name the massive impact that corporations have had and continue to have in producing waste and in producing carbon emissions and really being ultimately like the underlying driver of the climate crisis. But also, humans are impacting the planet. Each additional human carries with them a carbon footprint that is measured over the course of a lifetime.
[00:13:11] And some people more than others, yes, but ultimately, why aren't we talking about this as well? If we look globally, we can see that the vast majority of our global population resides in countries that are industrializing as well. So as these emerging economies continue to grow, so too is the demand for climate sensitive and resource intensive natural resources and other commodities like food, like animal products, right?
[00:13:36] It's interesting to me that historically our global population started to soar during the industrial revolution. which is the same point in time that global CO2 emissions from fossil fuels and land use change began to rise, which is also the same time that global average temperatures began to rise. So when we look at it, our global population is growing out of control, and that's really the result of the imbalances in our systems that have created a whole host of social, economic, and environmental issues that have become increasingly imminent, I think, and hopefully now impossible to ignore.
[00:14:12] So to me, whenever we talk about population, we're also necessarily talking about the broader systems in place that produce inequality and also destroy the environment. And whenever we don't talk about people, whenever we exclude people and populations from conversations about the environment, we miss this opportunity to kind of talk about these broader issues that are driving these crises.
[00:14:36] Because if we don't include people, then we treat. issues as though they are separate from one another, when in fact they are highly interconnected. So it's really about approaching population from this perspective. And the question ultimately becomes, how can we talk about population in ways that promote human rights and social justice?
[00:14:56] And what does that look like?
[00:14:58] Pam Wasserman: I was just going to jump in and say, I was around when we changed our name from ZPG to Population Connection. And everything that Hannah just described indicates why we made that change, because we didn't want people to just think about a number. We wanted them to think about how population is so interconnected with all of these environmental and social issues that we deal with.
[00:15:21] So, it was just more descriptive of all the work that we do.
[00:15:25] Alan Ware: Right, yeah, and what we're seeing increasingly with a kind of depopulation panic with all of the more growth obsessed politicians, economists, a lot of mainstream media, but that global cultural goal of growth is so powerful that it's also connected to that, and we're seeing a lot of pronatalist government policies and other policies that are trying to restrict it.
[00:15:50] In different ways, people's rights to choose smaller families, and we're concerned that in the future decades, we could see more of that pronatalist push governed and backed by this growth imperative that seems to be almost globally, culturally free. the imperative. And I was just thinking, just since 1968, when you were founded, yeah, we've doubled the world population, which is incredible to double the population of a species like ours within not even a human lifetime.
[00:16:20] So it really is incredible. And of course, we've heard from people like Bill Reese, who came up with the ecological footprint analysis, talking about what an anomalous period that we're in. And, uh, sometimes people forget that population connection, how anomalous that population explosion has been, and that we've never tried to support a planet with this many people for any period of time.
[00:16:45] We've only been 8 billion for a few years and we've doubled in the last 50. So it's, yeah, I appreciate that you have that in your name, population connection, because it is connected to so many other elements of our predicament. So, Pam, as we were talking earlier, you've been working in population fields since the late 80s, so you have no doubt seen significant changes in public perceptions and awareness of overpopulation over the years.
[00:17:13] What would be some of those you would highlight?
[00:17:15] Pam Wasserman: Yeah, I would say there's some positives and negatives in the changes over the years and also the political climate. So when I started working in the field in 87, Reagan was president, the global gag rule was in place, and we've seen that ping pong back over the years depending on the administration.
[00:17:35] I would say one of the positives I've seen over the years is just people more comfortable talking about reproductive health and rights and family planning and family size. So that's great, but I would guess that many of your listeners are familiar with the ICPD in Cairo in 94, the International Conference on Population and Development, where there was a very strong statement put out about women's empowerment and autonomy and reproductive health and rights.
[00:18:04] But the idea of population issues was de emphasized and the UN has continued to de emphasize that over the last few decades. So that's difficult as an organization that's trying to continually increase funding for international family planning and fill these gaps where there are unmet need. So that's been a little frustrating to see in all the years I've worked on this that we're still fighting some of those same fights.
[00:18:28] I would also say that the discourse around population kind of changes along the political spectrum. There was a time when I first came on board, we had a number of board members who were Republicans and there were a number of Republicans in Congress who were very supportive of the work we were doing, of international family planning funding.
[00:18:49] That's not the case anymore. It's very binary. So trying to bring people together across the political spectrum has become much more difficult. I would say at the same time, what's happened in more recent years on the left is like, it becomes taboo to talk about population because even just the conversation of it, and you can get called racist or neo colonialist or whatever it is.
[00:19:13] It becomes harder to get people to see that we're trying to make the case that we as a global community, we're all in this together. And this is something that when we think about our ecosystems, this is affecting everybody and we're not assigning blame, but there's that perception that's out there that can shut down the conversation, which is unfortunate.
[00:19:33] So I've seen some things get easier to talk about over time with different audiences. Some things get more difficult to talk about in the work that I do. in K 12 education, we really try to align our materials with what teachers are supposed to be teaching anyway, based on their content standards or their states.
[00:19:53] And this varies a lot from state to state, but there's a lot of environmental content where it's easy to show connections, whether it's in the life sciences and geography. So that becomes a little bit easier over time when it's built into the curriculum. And I think environmental issues, especially climate change in recent years, has become not just acceptable, but mandatory in a number of states.
[00:20:17] At the same time, I had one of our teacher trainers just this week, we were working on a proposal for a presentation she's going to do at a conference, and she wanted to do some climate change activities. This is in Florida. And she said, oh, but you can't use the term climate change. You can use climate science or just climate or so we're such a patchwork in this country as far as how the conversation goes.
[00:20:41] I guess I would say that. What I found disappointing too is how the major environmental groups have backed away until maybe 10 years ago. You know Sierra Club had an active population program. Audubon had an active population program. They're not doing any of that anymore. So, I think when you talk to people privately who work in those groups, they will definitely acknowledge that population is a factor in the work that they do, but they're just not comfortable engaging with it right now.
[00:21:10] The mainstream media has not been very helpful with this of late because I can't tell you just the number of, uh, articles from the mainstream media on the population bust, and even saying that the population is declining, which it is not. So, there's falsehoods, there's misperceptions. I'm curious whether we're going to get some pushback from the teachers in our workshop saying, you're talking about, you know, population pressures.
[00:21:35] I don't know why you're talking about this because everything I'm reading suggests that this is an old problem that's been solved, and in fact, maybe the problem is the opposite. So it'll be interesting to see how that unfolds in the next couple of years.
[00:21:49] Hannah Evans: And just to add, It's interesting because I have been able to speak to so many different universities and students and professors and I get overwhelming kind of resonance with this message that we need to be talking about population and the environment and climate change and that it makes sense to look at fertility rates and where they are high and where they are low and what the precursors for development are and what Consumption means in different places of the world.
[00:22:17] And so it kind of becomes a question of, so where are these conversations happening that are so against talking about population? Because also in our experience, we are working with many different global partners across the world in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and other regions. And this sort of rhetoric against talking about population growth in places like Uganda or even Kenya or even Nepal.
[00:22:44] They just don't understand what the hesitation is with talking about population growth and to them living in a hyper crowded, ever growing society where they're really seeing the impacts of population pressures, it makes complete sense to draw attention to this. So really, I think where These kind of negative opinions are formulated and are circulating are in sort of Western academic circles that then permeate into the mainstream media, but they're not necessarily representative, of course, of the whole.
[00:23:18] And they're certainly not addressing the issue at hand. Seems to be a reproduction of perhaps an old and maybe historically relevant issue, which is to say that we don't want to repeat the issues of the past related to coercive population policies and need to be careful about language and things like that.
[00:23:39] But it's. at this present point in time where we're facing so many imminent threats posed by climate change and our growing global population and the need to produce more food and energy. There's no excuse not to be talking about it.
[00:23:52] Nandita Bajaj: That is such a crucial observation that again, we resonate with in our experience of talking to people.
[00:23:58] In densely crowded communities, be it within industrialized nations or in more industrializing countries is, we talk to any of the people and they're like, of course, we're overpopulated. Please, like, can you help educate our politicians and our religious leaders? And it's, it's Just exactly as you said, these opinions are being formed in the left progressive academic circles in the West and now are being exported to the progressive left in different countries who happen to also be privileged or have attended Western institutions are bringing those narratives to their own countries.
[00:24:38] And in the end, it's still the most marginalized people within those countries who are actually bearing the worst impacts of crowding, joblessness, homelessness, so many of these issues. They are bearing the brunt of it.
[00:24:55] Pam Wasserman: As though we know what's best for other people, right? Yeah.
[00:24:58] Hannah Evans: Yeah. It's not about implementing population policies as it maybe was previously.
[00:25:05] Like, whenever we're talking about population and the benefits associated with slowing population growth, this is about realizing gender equality. This is about realizing better and even universal access to health care and education. This is about helping people transcend poverty and live more autonomous lives with higher standards of living.
[00:25:27] This is what we mean whenever we talk about slowing population growth. It's about development.
[00:25:32] Nandita Bajaj: Yeah, well said just moving back over to you, Pam, population connection has been running a program of population education for K through 12 teachers in the US and has over 300 lesson plans and all the subject areas of language, arts, math, science, And you've been leading the project for several decades.
[00:25:56] Could you give us a brief overview of the program and some examples of some of the most effective lesson plans in your opinion? Absolutely.
[00:26:06] Pam Wasserman: Yeah, and we're actually coming up on our 50th anniversary of the program. We started developing curricula for the classroom in 1975. And over the years, what's become a larger part of our program is professional development.
[00:26:22] Not just having curriculum, but going to teachers, whether it's at conferences or their school districts or the pre service classes where we're working with future teachers in their university classes as they're preparing to get their certification. So in any given year, we do about 500 to 600 of these workshops that we facilitate.
[00:26:44] And in addition to our staff that's based in D. C., we also have volunteer trainers all over the U. S. and Canada who are themselves experienced educators who have used our materials with their students and now want to share it with other teachers. So in a typical year, we work with about 10, 000 educators through these workshops.
[00:27:07] And then we have lots of our materials to download from our website. They are designed to be age appropriate, so depending on the grade level, like I would say the elementary students, it's understanding the basic web of life and caring capacity in nature. It tends to be primarily environmental education.
[00:27:27] And then through middle and high school, we bring in more of the social studies topics too. So I would say science and social studies are the primary areas where you can align population curricula with these state standards. And there are actually two high school classes, two AP classes, Advanced Placement.
[00:27:48] One is called AP Environmental Science and one is AP Human Geography. that devote entire units to population. So while many of our workshops obviously are taking place during the school year, we're doing a lot of these summer institutes for AP teachers who teach those two courses. The curriculum we do, we emphasize hands on learning.
[00:28:10] So they are games, role playing simulations. different kinds of modeling. So, you know, students who are visual learners can really understand the concepts. And one of the most impactful tools we have is actually a tool we've had since the 70s, believe it or not, which is our world population dot video, which shows the history of world population growth with an animation that takes less than six minutes.
[00:28:35] We love it. Yeah, it's always popular. I mean, we've done different editions of it, obviously, over the years, and we're always updating the data. But I think When people see how quickly we've grown from, you know, 1 billion to 8 billion, that's when the light bulbs sort of go on. And thinking back to how in human history, it's just a blip how quickly the population has grown.
[00:29:01] So I think the visuals like that are really great ways for students to start. getting interested in the topic. And then we get more into the making the connections between a host of environmental issues, whether it's climate change, biodiversity, air and water pollution, so forth, land use, water use, and then the social issues which come into play, especially in the high school curricula, looking at.
[00:29:24] women's status around the world, public health issues, education. We do approach it as the PHE framework, but I would say the one difference is that for us, the H, we're not doing health education or sex education. There are some great programs out there, but the health aspect is understanding how the connections play out and understanding how environmental conditions affect human health, the role that reproductive health plays in ecology and just equity issues.
[00:29:54] So we cover a lot, a lot of different territory, and it depends on. what the age of the student is and what subject area we're addressing.
[00:30:03] Nandita Bajaj: Yes. I'd love to put a plug in for your programs because my, my husband who's a geography teacher has used some of your resources and really loves it, finds it really comprehensive.
[00:30:15] And he uses the population dot video in his middle and high school classes. And I use it in my graduate course and the response across the age group is just. exactly the same. It's very, very powerful.
[00:30:30] Pam Wasserman: It is. And about eight years ago, we developed an interactive website so that after watching the video, students can kind of drill down and find out what was happening in different points in time in different places in the world as the population was growing.
[00:30:45] So we bring in a lot of world history into that, which is great. The other thing I wanted to mention too, and you might want to put a link in on this is our international student video contest. which we started, it was just going to be a one time event when world population was turning to seven billion back in 2010.
[00:31:05] And it was so popular it's become an annual event for middle and high school students. And it's usually assigned by their teachers. Some students find the contest on their own, but we get in something like 2, 500 entries every year from all over the world, and we pick different topics each year, but they have to show how it's connected to population.
[00:31:27] They have to come up with sustainable solutions, and they all have to do it all in one minute, which is, it's a big task, but. The students really enjoy the challenge, which is great, and it's one way we try to reach the students directly, but most of our work is with the K 12 teacher community.
[00:31:45] Nandita Bajaj: I have to say, both as a former high school teacher, but also just someone who really like sees the role that education plays in helping ground students in essential knowledge and also seeing how much the population issue is not covered across the different areas.
[00:32:05] It is such a wonderful offering that Population Connection is making available for educators. Equipping them with how to bring it into the classroom. The teachers are busy. They are already working on their subject knowledge. And I think it's just absolutely amazing that you guys offer this. And having said that, do you find that teachers are the primary gatekeepers or adopters of the curricula?
[00:32:33] And do you ever get any pushback based on different values that teachers themselves are bringing into the classroom? That's a good
[00:32:42] Pam Wasserman: question. The teachers are the primary gatekeepers because what gets adopted at the school district level or what textbooks are going to be used, but the teachers are choosing the supplemental materials that they're going to be using in their classroom.
[00:32:57] You know, when we do workshops at conferences, say, teachers are choosing our session over other sessions, so they're obviously interested, but when we go into, you know, a school district professional development program that they're required to attend, or we're in one of their university classes that they show up and we're the guest speaker that day, it may not be something that they're as interested in or had heard of.
[00:33:20] I wouldn't say we get a lot of pushback. I mean, we do get questions, and I think that sometimes teachers are wondering how best to use our lessons in their very diverse classrooms, you know, students coming from different backgrounds, and so we do address that, but I think we'd be asking for trouble if we were trying to get our materials adopted school district wide because That's when it becomes political.
[00:33:47] But I think when teachers are looking for good materials to meet the standards that they need to teach and that are going to be motivational, it's not just students reading something and regurgitating on a worksheet, it's doing something motivational that they'll remember. Maybe they'll go home and talk to their parents about what they did in class that day.
[00:34:09] We've had a lot of success. And even in areas where you think we might not. Texas is an interesting example. In the Texas curriculum in ninth grade, like all the students, take world geography. And geography is an area that, you know, has fallen by the wayside in a lot of school districts, but it's an important part of the Texas curricula.
[00:34:31] and population is a big part of that. So we do a lot in Texas. Florida, which I mentioned, where they can't say climate change in the classroom, that AP Human Geography course is very popular there, and it's expanded over the years. So we try to find our inroads where we can, and sometimes it's surprising to see where we're the most popular.
[00:34:53] Alan Ware: Yeah, and I wonder, you must have plenty of lessons on exponential growth in there.
[00:34:58] Pam Wasserman: We do, and so I mentioned science and social studies as being a natural fit, but we do a lot with math teachers too. And what math teachers really enjoy, and it's sort of part of the National Council of Teachers of Math position statement going back a number of years, is the importance of bringing in real world data sets.
[00:35:17] So students can see how math is relevant to their lives. It's not just these hypotheticals. And we've had a lot of success with math teachers enjoying the way we can provide them with these interesting lessons, but still work on the math skills like understanding the exponential growth and all sorts of math applications.
[00:35:39] Alan Ware: Yeah, I didn't go far in high school or college in math, but it was embarrassing to be in my 20s and realize that a 2 percent growth rate is doubling in 35 years and 3 percent in 20 something.
[00:35:53] Pam Wasserman: Well, and you know, I think that if I were the decider on what a good progression in math curriculum would be in high school, I would definitely make a statistics course part of that, right?
[00:36:03] Like students, they have to show they've had calculus to get into certain colleges, but you know, unless you're going into a STEM field where you're going to use that, what would be more helpful to you in just understanding a lot of issues in life would be a good statistics class.
[00:36:19] Alan Ware: Well, absolutely. Yeah, there are some math professors and advocating for just that.
[00:36:24] Statistics is used so much more widely in society than rocket math from the 50s or whatever, which I've heard. I mean, you could have great lessons on the World Bank thinks we're going to, that 3 percent global GDP growth. Is what we should be aiming for and that that's perfectly reasonable and you could look at well materials seems to correlate almost 100 percent with GDP growth material growth.
[00:36:46] Are we really going to double the material use of humanity in 25 years if we keep growing at 3 percent and then let's double that again. How realistic is that class?
[00:36:57] Pam Wasserman: Or economists thinking that we need to continually be building the population because of the labor market. And so I think to be informed citizens, we need to be better at that kind of math
[00:37:08] Alan Ware: for sure.
[00:37:08] So you've both referred to the PHE approach or population health and environment and how they're all connected. You've talked about in recent years, population connection has been giving grants to partners in the global south through its global partners program. So what are some examples of the effectiveness of that PHE approach through the Global Partners series that you've been seeing?
[00:37:32] Hannah Evans: PHE is a really effective and interesting approach to development that I think we've been sort of indirectly discussing throughout this podcast. Um, but ultimately it's an approach that conserves biodiversity while at the same time working to improve environmental health conditions for local people.
[00:37:55] And oftentimes this involves as well, the integration of reproductive rights and sexual and reproductive health into community development platforms alongside environmental conservation efforts. So this is an approach that really seeks to address social, economic, and environmental issues within communities in ways that provides more of a holistic platform for development.
[00:38:21] We at the moment are proud to have 20 global partners that we're working with, and many of them work on issues related in some way to our mission, which is pretty broad. So, not all of them are working specifically or exclusively in, but I think because is more of a platform that just recognizes integrated development strategies.
[00:38:45] I think many of them are working in this space as well. One prime example of an organization we partner with that's utilizing a very successful PHE method is called Women for Conservation, and they work throughout Columbia. And they're also, I think, just starting to work on several initiatives in Nepal as well.
[00:39:05] But they work in the PHE space to help protect unique biodiversity and rural areas of Columbia. And they do so through empowering women through family planning services, through conservation education and through sustainable livelihoods training. So women are not only given access to family planning and reproductive health within communities, but they're also oftentimes being trained as leaders within their communities and kind of.
[00:39:33] stewards of the land and protectors of natural resources and ways that allow them to simultaneously work to protect the environment, but also transcend some of the cultural norms that would otherwise kind of prevent them from assuming any type of leadership role within their communities. So we work with another organization called RUDOK, which is Unity for Women's Empowerment in Nepal.
[00:39:55] And they've done a lot of really amazing work recently in the space, particularly of girls empowerment and gender equality. They work also on programs that infuse environmental conservation, healthcare, and women's empowerment. One of their initiatives recently is to work to draw attention to child marriage and also the Chaudhary practice, which is a cultural practice in many areas of Nepal that excludes women and girls from participating in any type of social activity during their menstruation cycles.
[00:40:32] Oftentimes they are put into different sort of makeshift sheds that they have to live in over the course of their cycles. That is very dangerous, oftentimes cold. And, um, they're not also allowed to participate in school and things during this time. So it's a very harmful practice. Um, and this is an organization that's working to through education and outreach and women's empowerment helped you offset and hopefully ultimately eliminate this practice from.
[00:41:00] community cultures.
[00:41:03] Alan Ware: That seems like a powerful approach to use. And Hannah, you've also been teaching an online course that makes the connection between population and climate change. And what are you seeing as some of the most compelling evidence you've learned in teaching that course that makes that population climate change connection both for you and your students?
[00:41:22] Hannah Evans: Well, I think that whenever we really look at all of the information available to us, it's undeniable. But there's very many links, direct links between population and climate change. I think it's important just to kind of make sure that people understand that this is a very complex and multifaceted issue.
[00:41:43] But there are many different clear facts and statistics that link population and climate change. We know that for most of human history, as we've been talking about, people really have little effect on the environment. And that really changed with the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, where around 1750, uh, growing and industrializing populations really ramped up the burning of fossil fuels.
[00:42:09] We transformed the way that we produce. food and energy to be completely reliant on fossil fuels. And that ended up emitting a lot of greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. And over the years, since then, we've really kind of institutionalized this reliance on fossil fuels, coal, oil, and then natural gas.
[00:42:30] And we've done so while also like clearing forests and destroying natural ecosystems. So over the past 270 years, humans have released enough greenhouse gases into the atmosphere to raise the average global temperature by about one degree Celsius. This is just a fact of life that we know, right? And most of this warming has come from the mid 1900s, during which time our global population has also doubled.
[00:42:59] We also know that since 2023, the global population has surpassed 8, 000, 000, 000 people and also that we're running many ecological deficits where we are using resources faster than the earth's ability to regenerate them. We know as well, that we're going to add 1, people to the planet by 2030. Probably by 2040 and an additional 1, 000, 000, 000 people more by 2060.
[00:43:23] So it's undeniable that demographic trends are really influencing and interacting with climate change in those ways. And I think another. Important aspect of this conversation is that of climate vulnerability, which is to recognize that the populations that are growing the fastest are growing very quickly and have high total fertility rates or the amount of children a woman has throughout her lifetime because of lack of access to resources.
[00:43:52] Because of really low levels of gender equality, and because of an overall lack of access to particular resources, like health care and education. So, this means that the populations that are growing the fastest are also the most vulnerable to climate change in part, because of geography. And in part, because of this sort of institutionalized poverty, that's sort of disallowing broader access to resources.
[00:44:18] So, there's that connection as well, from more of a justice lens.
[00:44:21] Alan Ware: We've definitely emphasized that population decline in a time of climate disruption could be a very good thing to have that many fewer people in the way, vulnerable to all kinds of climate catastrophes when 40 percent of humanity lives within 60 miles of the coast, the sea level rise, the climate refugees.
[00:44:43] All of that, it would seem to us would be so much easier with a smaller human population instead of growing it at 80 million a year still.
[00:44:52] Hannah Evans: And I think we're really at the precipice here of a big transition into something new and unforeseen. This is unprecedented. A lot of what we're seeing with the aging populations, with the changing demographic structures, and it's going to introduce a lot of different changes to our society as it should.
[00:45:12] I mean, we cannot continue doing things the way that we've been doing them. We know that all of that is entirely unsustainable and unjust, but I think that there's this real fear. People are really holding on to what they think is maybe safe or comfortable or what they know, but ultimately the only answer is to just move forward and to just release the resistance and move forward consciously.
[00:45:35] Nandita Bajaj: Yeah, we couldn't agree more. And in addition to the different PHE partnerships that you have, and then the education program that we talked about, Population Connection also runs a separate advocacy arm by the name of Population Connection Action Fund. Can either of you give us a brief overview of your political advocacy work?
[00:45:56] Sure. So,
[00:45:58] Pam Wasserman: we've been a 501c3 since the organization was founded. But over the last 10 years, you know, we really wanted to be able to take a little bit more political stance. So we started a 501c4 organization, the Action Fund, so that we could endorse candidates who want to advance our mission. And a lot of our legislative work focuses on trying to increase the U.
[00:46:23] S. contribution to international family planning, to try to narrow that gap of unmet need around the world. So that's something we've been working on for many years. Some years we just kind of hold down to it, you know, we're only able to get what we've been getting, but we're always trying to increase that amount because there's so much more funding that needs to happen to meet that need.
[00:46:47] We also support domestic programs Title X here in the United States for domestic family planning. We work in coalition with other groups on abortion rights and, you know, that's become more important than ever since the DOPS decision. So there's a lot of work to be done. And then we don't just do work on Capitol Hill with our legislative team.
[00:47:10] We also have a field team that is working on college campuses. We're targeting specific. Congressional districts and states for this cycle where there are perhaps vulnerable candidates who we need to have their voice in Congress. So getting a lot of young people engaged is part of what that Population Action Fund does as well.
[00:47:34] I don't know if you want to add to that, Hannah.
[00:47:36] Hannah Evans: I think you encompassed a lot of it. The other thing we work on are just different policies related to the ways in which international family planning is distributed and the stipulations under which it's it's given. So, we work on the global gag rule, or the Mexico City policy, which is a policy that has been around since.
[00:47:57] The Reagan era and has been adopted or rescinded depending on who's been in power every four or so years since Reagan. It's not currently in effect. So we're working now to pass the global her act, which would permanently repeal the global gag rule and make it impossible for any president to come in and reinstate the policy.
[00:48:21] And just to be clear, the policy really dictates and limits the way that USAID is distributed to organizations that receive family planning funding. It has a lot of very harmful limitations in terms of the way that language is used. And again, under what stipulations. Organizations and countries can receive aid.
[00:48:42] So, yeah, we work to rescind that policy and to implement policies that work to enshrine or further institutionalize reproductive rights.
[00:48:51] Nandita Bajaj: Yeah, it really speaks to this power imbalance game that the United States continues to have power over what happens in other countries, how it gets to dictate what values get.
[00:49:04] pushed through or held back. And it's great to see you guys are challenging some of those as much as you're able to. And on the point of unmet need for family planning services, there's so much misconception about what unmet need. actually means because people just think if you just make contraceptives available for free, that's what unmet need is.
[00:49:29] And we've had great conversations with different folks, including Bill Ryerson from Population Media Center to really help people understand that Some of the things you spoke about today, it's the really harmful patriarchal norms, the social norms that are more than physical barriers to contraceptives, they're psychological barriers that people have the fear of reprimand violence for using contraceptives, lack of availability of abortion services, myths around what happens if you use contraceptives.
[00:50:04] And so really like a lot of the family planning funding that you're pointing to goes toward confronting those harmful norms so that people do have more personal and reproductive autonomy. And having a political arm makes for a powerful change making agent.
[00:50:25] Alan Ware: So, Population Balance and Population Connection, we're both striving to shift the mainstream narrative around the role population plays in exacerbating both social and ecological injustice.
[00:50:38] And it can be a tough road to hoe, as we all know. What keeps you both inspired in your efforts to keep doing this work?
[00:50:47] Pam Wasserman: Well, sort of related to what Nandi just said about her husband. When I hear from teachers who are appreciative. for our materials. Um, I'm heartened when I see the thoughtfulness and ingenuity coming in from young people who submit these great videos to our contest.
[00:51:03] I know that I'm not alone out there, that there are people that care about this issue, and want to advance population literacy. And Hannah and I are really so grateful to work with such a great group of colleagues too, and just knowing that we're supported in our work. Sometimes I think like, oh my gosh, since I've been working on this issue, population has grown 5 billion to 8 billion.
[00:51:28] But also seeing the success, seeing the falling birth rates, that's a success story. I mean, despite what the media will, will tell you. I mean, it means that, More women have autonomy to make these decisions. They're able to get more years of education and that's better for everybody. So seeing the, the success that we've already had, but what we have to do then is convince people that you can't take your foot off the gas pedal.
[00:51:54] We have to keep funding these programs and keep seeing the success. And, you know, hopefully As the UN keeps revising their, their idea of when we're going to, to peak or stabilize, we can still affect that. It's not a given. That's why they come out with new projections every two years. So just showing people that there's been a lot of good work done, and we just want to continue on that trajectory.
[00:52:16] Hannah Evans: Yes, I agree with that. I feel very lucky and fortunate to get to work with such a great group of colleagues and for an organization that is really invested in change and open to new possibilities and opportunities to harness the power of declining populations and our mission more broadly and in international development.
[00:52:41] I love also to get to work with people like you, Nandita, who are also working in this space and you too, Alan, doing such important work in the way of pronatalism and population and really adding a lot to the discussions that we are working on as well. And what keeps me really Hopeful is getting to work with so many different students across the country.
[00:53:07] I'm always so impressed to get to hear their perspectives and learn about what they think and how they're approaching the world. You know, they came into a world at a time where things are really uncertain and increasingly imminent, and there are so many different intersecting threats and and yet they maintain a very, in my opinion and my experience, a very well versed, thoughtful, and hopeful view of the future.
[00:53:34] And I'm just happy to be able to get to work with them on kind of envisioning that and really seeing into what that may look like.
[00:53:43] Nandita Bajaj: Yeah, those are really great responses and something we definitely resonate with. You know, we've done separate collaborative workshops together, but it was so nice to be able to hear the details of the work you all have been doing for over five decades and how much impact you've had and how much broader you've become over these years.
[00:54:09] And we hope that this podcast will also encourage a lot of our educators and teachers to go and check out your materials and, you know, be inspired to reach out to you for your different workshops that you offer. We're really grateful for your partnership in this work and also for your time today to share your amazing work.
[00:54:33] Thank you so much.
[00:54:35] Alan Ware: Thank you.
[00:54:36] Nandita Bajaj: Well, I really enjoyed
[00:54:37] Pam Wasserman: it. Thank you for putting it together. Thank you so much.
[00:54:41] Alan Ware: That's all for this edition of the Overpopulation Podcast. Visit populationbalance. org to learn more. To share feedback or guest recommendations, write to us using the contact form on our site or by emailing us at podcast at populationbalance.
[00:54:55] org. And if you enjoyed this podcast, please rate us on your favorite podcast platform and share it We couldn't do this work without the support of listeners like you. And we hope you'll consider a one time or recurring donation.
[00:55:09] Nandita Bajaj: Until next time, I'm Nandita Bajaj, thanking you for your interest in our work and for your efforts in helping us all shrink toward abundance.
