We have it in us to create a more beautiful, regenerative future that allows both humans and nonhumans to flourish. Dr. Sarah Bexell, professor of social work and co-founder of the Center for a Regenerative Future at the University of Denver, joins us. Highlights of our conversation include:

• Why captive breeding programs for endangered species are both cruel and ineffective;
• How the mental health of both conservation professionals and animal rights activists is deeply impacted by the ongoing suffering of both wild animals and farmed animals;
• How ongoing ecological destruction is causing eco-anxiety and eco-distress in students and some of the more effective classroom approaches to address it;
• How environmental justice differs from ecological justice and why we need to address both if we hope to create a more just, regenerative future;
• How Sarah helps students become aware of the role that human overpopulation plays in humanity’s ecological overshoot and helps make the classroom a comfortable place to discuss it.

See episode website for show notes, links, and transcript:

https://www.populationbalance.org/podcast/sarah-bexell-2

OVERSHOOT | Shrink Toward Abundance

OVERSHOOT tackles today’s interlocked social and ecological crises driven by humanity’s excessive population and consumption. The podcast explores needed narrative, behavioral, and system shifts for recreating human life in balance with all life on Earth. With expert guests from wide-ranging disciplines, we examine the forces underlying overshoot: from patriarchal pronatalism that is fueling overpopulation, to growth-biased economic systems that lead to consumerism and social injustice, to the dominant worldview of human supremacy that subjugates animals and nature. Our vision of shrinking toward abundance inspires us to seek pathways of transformation that go beyond technological fixes toward a new humanity that honors our interconnectedness with all beings.

Hosted by Nandita Bajaj and Alan Ware. Brought to you by Population Balance.

Learn more at populationbalance.org

Ecological overshoot is the second largest risk to humanity. Not reacting to it is the biggest. Mathis Wackernagel, co-creator of the ecological footprint and co-founder of the Global Footprint Network, joins us. Highlights of the conversations include:

• How ecological footprint is calculated as a measure of how much of nature’s regenerative capacity humanity is using;
• Why the estimate that we’re using the natural regenerative capacity of 1.7 Earths is an underestimate of humanity’s actual ecological overshoot;
• Why shrinking our ecological footprint needs to be framed as an opportunity for resource security, not just noble and charitable but absolutely necessary if humanity hopes to end overshoot more by design and less by disaster;
• Why international development schemes that emphasize GDP growth and not resource security won’t work for the ¾ of humanity stuck in the ‘ecological poverty trap’ of depleted resources and insufficient income to buy those resources from other countries;
• Why countries not putting resource security at the center of their economic development plans is suicidal;
• Why peoples’ motivation to end ecological overshoot will be driven by desire, agency, and curiosity - not by trying to command and control peoples’ behavior.

See episode website for show notes, links, and transcript:

https://www.populationbalance.org/podcast/mathis-wackernagel

OVERSHOOT | Shrink Toward Abundance

OVERSHOOT tackles today’s interlocked social and ecological crises driven by humanity’s excessive population and consumption. The podcast explores needed narrative, behavioral, and system shifts for recreating human life in balance with all life on Earth. With expert guests from wide-ranging disciplines, we examine the forces underlying overshoot: from patriarchal pronatalism that is fueling overpopulation, to growth-biased economic systems that lead to consumerism and social injustice, to the dominant worldview of human supremacy that subjugates animals and nature. Our vision of shrinking toward abundance inspires us to seek pathways of transformation that go beyond technological fixes toward a new humanity that honors our interconnectedness with all beings.

Hosted by Nandita Bajaj and Alan Ware. Brought to you by Population Balance.

Learn more at populationbalance.org

ANNOUNCEMENT

Hello everyone, here we are in 2025 and we have some important news to share. Last year was a really challenging year – we grappled with new climate records, we saw worsening global conflict, and we saw an upsurge in regressive pronatalism. And the year ahead looks like it will include much of the same—which means that all of us will have to remain steadfast, and become even bolder in our work to fight back and advocate for life-affirming alternatives.

PODCAST NAME CHANGE

As part of that commitment, we’ve decided to rename the podcast. It’s been called the Overpopulation Podcast since 2016, yet in recent years we have increasingly explored subject-matter that goes well beyond the problem of overpopulation. We’ve delved into the injustice of pronatalism, the fallacy of pursuing endless economic growth, the inadequacy of technological solutions, and the hubris of human supremacy on a planet of unbounded natural wonders and riches. All these are facets of our perilous state of overshoot, wherein modern humanity’s demands on Earth’s natural systems outstrip their ability to recover and regenerate.

Overshoot has increasingly been the underlying target of our podcast, and it’s driven by more than excessive human numbers. Although overpopulation will remain a central theme, it is time that the podcast name reflects the full scope of our concerns. We will continue to bring you the same caliber of guests and range of topics as always—with the drivers of overshoot, and pathways out of this predicament, the common unifying theme.

ARTWORK

We also have new artwork. The design juxtaposes an impoverished biosphere that is the result of continued overshoot and the Earthly abundance that is possible if we reverse overshoot by downscaling the human enterprise. The exponential growth curve at the root of our predicament separates these two realities.

OVERSHOOT | Shrink Toward Abundance

OVERSHOOT tackles today’s interlocked social and ecological crises driven by humanity’s excessive population and consumption. The podcast explores needed narrative, behavioral, and system shifts for recreating human life in balance with all life on Earth. With expert guests from wide-ranging disciplines, we examine the forces underlying overshoot: from patriarchal pronatalism that is fueling overpopulation, to growth-biased economic systems that lead to consumerism and social injustice, to the dominant worldview of human supremacy that subjugates animals and nature. Our vision of shrinking toward abundance inspires us to seek pathways of transformation that go beyond technological fixes toward a new humanity that honors our interconnectedness with all beings.

Hosted by Nandita Bajaj and Alan Ware. Brought to you by Population Balance.

Learn more at populationbalance.org