PUBLICATIONS
Publications
Our publications feature a combination of our own writing and pieces from changemakers who are working in the area of sustainable population advocacy from a justice-oriented framework for people, animals, and the planet.
Population: The fear of limiting people and our things
Here’s a question almost no one wants to talk about: What is the sustainable size of the human population, at what level of aggregate consumption? Why are so many people afraid to discuss something so essential?
Choosing a planet of life
One of the commonplaces of environmental writing these days is a population forecast of 10 billion (or more) people by century’s end. Indeed, this projection is endlessly repeated, as if it were as inevitable as the calculable trajectory of an asteroid hurtling through space.
Overshoot and the incredible shrinking planet
Let’s start with a thought experiment. Suppose you and your close family and friends, perhaps 150 people in all, were confined to an isolated island – let’s call it Esperanza – characterized by landscapes and soils that were representative of average arable land in the United States and that, henceforth, you would have to be food self-sufficient – you have no access to trade goods.
“Green growth” and population denial doom our climate efforts
As the warmest year on record draws to a close, delegates from around the world just reached agreement, after 30 years of meeting on climate change, to transition away from fossil fuels. The legally nonbinding consensus to shift to renewable energy technologies came after delegates arrived via private jet in Dubai, the capital of one of the largest oil producing nations…
Wealth never sleeps
I am congenitally cheap. There is Scottish blood in my veins, which may explain why our family crest reads: “Fix it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without.”
Reproductive autonomy is fundamental to conservation
Overconsumption has brought us the climate crisis, the Sixth Great Extinction, expanding desertification, and the depletion of fresh water supplies across the globe. But it is humans, at this point eight billion of us, who are doing that consuming. It should not be controversial that our profound state of ecological overshoot is a product of both our population and our consumption.
The left’s population denialism
There is an unfortunate trend among some of our allies on the Left of denying the relevance of our growing human population to the mounting environmental crises that pose an existential threat to our species and most others on Earth.
The environment & animals don't care about our discomfort with these topics
At a time when our collective human footprint is wreaking havoc on the planet, the fact that humanity is choosing to still feed itself with a diet that includes animal products is exacerbating and multiplying our damaging impact, with animal agriculture being a leading driver of biodiversity loss, deforestation, water use and water pollution.
Pope Francis’ not-so-divine intervention
Pope Francis’ recent comments calling those who are choosing to forego procreation to be selfish fly in the face of our fight for social, reproductive, and ecological justice.
We need to talk about overpopulation
Nandita, you have become committed to exploring the impacts of pronatalism and have been embedding the issue of human population growth ever more deeply into humane education. What inspired you to devote so much thought and time to this particular issue?