By Nandita Bajaj, Rob Dietz, Resilience
Bringing up the Earth’s growing human population (and its associated impacts) is not something you typically do in polite circles. If you do introduce the topic of overpopulation, even among staunch environmentalists, you risk being called all sorts of undignified names. It’s true that some past policies for limiting population size were ruthless and reprehensible in their use of authoritarian methods and application of harm-causing approaches. But given the scary progression of global warming, habitat loss, resource depletion, and species extinctions, shouldn’t there be room for contemplating a sustainable human population size that can be achieved through socially just and equitable policies and cultural evolution?
In this interview with PCI Program Director Rob Dietz, Nandita Bajaj shares how you can talk about population effectively and compassionately. As the executive director of Population Balance and the co-host of the Overpopulation Podcast, Nandita has become an articulate advocate for confronting the pro-natalist and patriarchal cultural landscape. You can learn from her experience to help start conversations that endorse a culture of choice, justice, and empowerment when it comes to population and other issues of the Great Unraveling.
Recent writings by Nandita:
- Nandita Bajaj, “Making More Babies to Drive Economic Growth,” Counterpunch, June 4, 2024.
- Nandita Bajaj, “A Re-Commitment to Reproductive Autonomy and Responsibility Will Help Secure a Socially Just and Ecologically Sustainable Future,” in Revitalizing Population and Development in the 21st Century: International Conference on Population and Development 30 Years On, Report from the Population Institute (2024)
- Nandita Bajaj, “The Rise of Pronatalism,” Counterpunch, October 6, 2023.
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Previously Published on Resilience and reprinted with permission
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