World Population Day has passed but its legacy continues! In part B of our world population day special, PGAP travels (virtually) to the USA to speak with Dave Gardner from World Population Balance and to Portugal to talk with population sustainability academic João Abegão. We are also serenaded by the song 'Let's Hang Out' by child-free comedian Jude Perl.

Dave Gardner speaks with Michael about World Population Balance's excellent campaigns during 2020 that encourage and empower people to choose smaller families. Also discussed was the launch of the World OVERpopulation Day website, GrowthBusters and Dave's great work on The Overpopulation Podcast.

João Abegão discusses the background behind the making of the Overpopulation Atlas - this is perhaps one of the most spectacular and dedicated post-grad projects ever! As one of the youngest advocates for population sustainability on, João has also addressed the UN as part of a panel discussion on population at the COP25 in Madrid. 2019., which is very impressive.

In between interviews, we play a live performance of 'Let's Hang Out' from comedian, musician and thought provoker Jude Perl. Jude performed live as part of SPA's Tough Crowd series with Australian comedian and national treasure Rod Quantock (see here). The song's clever message is very relevant to world population day - it will all make sense by the chorus!

Special Guests: Dave Gardner and João Abegão.

*Think we can go post-growth without a slow-down in population? *

Regardless of what our personal views are in regards to population, hopefully most of us can agree that empowerment of women, choice and agency in regards to family size and worldwide access to affordable family planning and contraception services is a moral imperative. These are essential human rights no matter where we happen to live on the planet. Once these are in place, it so happens that people tend to have smaller family sizes, which is a better outcome for families, for communities and for the planet.

World Population Day is "celebrated" on 11 July, and this year’s goal is to raise awareness of women’s and girls’ sexual and reproductive health needs and of their vulnerabilities during the pandemic.

In the first episode of our 2 part world population special, PGAP interviews -

• Terry Spahr, director of 8 Billion Angels – a feature length documentary that explores the environmental consequences of collective human impact in the USA and India – and why family planning is one essential solution to the many problems that we face on a global scale. Terry is also director of Earth Overshoot.

• Robin Witt and Georgia Burford from CHASE Africa. CHASE works on the grass-roots level in Kenya by partnering with local community to provide quality family planning and health education.

At PGAP we are in awe of the tireless dedication, passion and love of the environment that is so evident in all three of our incredible guests – for a cause that is so often contentious and misunderstood by the broader community. It is time we work together to unpack these misconceptions!

In the episode we also play the audio excerpt from our new video ‘Meet The Patrons of Sustainable Population Australia.’ This is a talking head compilation of the video interviews of SPA’s patrons. Included in the excerpt is National President Sandra Kanck who is joined by Dr Katharine Betts, Dr Paul Collins, Professor Ian Lowe and Professor Bob Carr.

We also play the track ‘Blind Freddy’ from South Australian band ‘RockPool’. RockPool are band of dedicated environmentalists and ‘Blind Freddy’ explores the issues of the endless growth of human impact and human population. The perfect theme the podcast series and this episode!

Stick around for World Population Day (part b) when we interview Dave Gardner from World Population Balance and Joao Abegao, academic based in Portugal.

Special Guests: Georgia Burford, Robin Witt, and Terry Spahr.

What is the steady state economy? Why is it better than the growth economy we already have?

For the first episode of Post-Growth Australia Podcast, host Michael Bayliss is joined by Jonathan Miller (Steady Sstate ACT, a chapter of the Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy [CASSE]) and Martin Tye (Australian Regional Communities Chapter, CASSE) who explain why the steady state economy is every bit as interesting and dynamic as what we have now, just MUCH better for the future of the planet.

Michael also plays the audio excerpt from the popular short animation ‘The Endless Growth Paradigm’ and a hot new single from a hot new environmental music project – ‘The End Of History’ as performed by ‘Counting Backwards’

To find out more about Steady State ACT, visit its website here

To find out more about The Centre for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy (CASSE), visit here. You can also sign the petition that Martin discusses in his interview here .

In this episode, we played the audio excerpt from the short animation ‘The Endless Growth Paradigm.‘ By clicking on the hyperlink you can see the video in full, even if you don’t agree with all of the message I think we can all agree that this is some stunning art work.

We played ‘The End Of History’ which was the first ever single release performed by ‘Counting Backwards.’ The group is a Melbourne based project who focus on environmental and existential themes. The song was released to raise funds for Extinction Rebellion. It would be lovely if you could visit and support this project further on their Bandcamp page – we will need local music in the new post-growth society so in the meantime our local musicians need all the support they can get!

Special Guests: Jonathan Miller and Martin Tye.