Overpopulation: From 8 billion to 3 | Phoebe Barnard
Overpopulation: From 8 billion to 3 | Phoebe Barnard
Should we make the decision to have less children before it's made for us?
Appears in this episode
Phoebe Barnard is a biologist, global change scientist, and policy analyst with decades of experience confronting some of the most pressing problems of our time, bridging the gap between academia and government. She’s also CEO of the Stable Planet Alliance, a coalition of scientific, legal, social, health, media, policy, leadership, faith, culture, and grassroots organizations tackling the overpopulation and hyperconsumption problem.
Phoebe joins me to discuss overpopulation—its effects, our trajectory, and the difficult decisions we face as a species. She argues we must reduce our population to 3 billion in the next century if planet earth is to survive, and us along with it, warning that population reduction policies may be forced on citizens in the future if we do not choose for ourselves now.
We discuss the morality and politics of overpopulation, addressing the West’s all-too-recent history of eugenics and ethnic cleansing. We then explore population reduction as an intergenerational right: There may be less of us in the future, but those future people may be better off for it.
Overpopulation: From 8 billion to 3 | Phoebe Barnard
Long overdue, thanks for broaching the topic, and what a great conversation! Excellent to hear her criticism of the Sustainable Development Goals and the stress on rights rather than responsibilities, she cuts right through all the noise and distraction. One other controversial idea that I missed here is euthanasia. Decriminalising and making acceptable birth control and abortion is incredibly important, but in my opinion we should also take a good hard look at (literally) the other end of the equation and decriminalise and make discussable euthanasia.
On a side-note, on this topic you might also be interested in the book "Should We Control World Population?" by Diana Coole.