Are There Too Many of Us on Our Planet? Yes! by Nandita BajajThe Overpopulation Podcast, produced by non-profit organization Population Balance, discusses how our expanding population impacts human rights, animal protection, environmental sustainability, and individual and collective solutions. This episode interviews Nandita Bajaj, an Indian-Canadian woman who researches pronatalism and human supremacy and their impacts on reproductive, ecological, and intergenerational justice. In this podcast, Nandita argues that both overconsumption and overpopulation are connected issues, and that it is destructive to humans and the living world to see unequal consumption as justification to render overpopulation not an issue. This source adds unique perspective on why overpopulation is not only a major problem, but why we must bring it back into the discourse surrounding overconsumption and the human footprint.
Nandita approaches overpopulation from a justice-oriented perspective, reinforcing that overpopulation is an ethical dilemma that is intimately connected to overconsumption. Nandita counters the idea that unequal consumption is the culprit for climate change and abject poverty in the global south, but that it is rather a mix of population growth and materialism. She further argues that not stabilizing the population through humane methods is a human rights issue and encourages more environmental degradation. I recommend this source because it provides a unique perspective on the ethical dilemma of overpopulation; it recognizes that the human population is far above its carrying capacity but does so with a strong concern for human rights, animal protection, biodiversity, and reproductive justice. - Annotation by Anonymous, Spring 2023