Nandita also shares with PGAP her visions for the future of World Population Balance, her perspectives on the challenges of inclusion and diversity within the population sustainability movement, and her experiences growing up in the world’s second most populous country India.

I find it incredible that in 1 year, 24 episodes and 34 interviews I haven’t yet had the ‘vegan chat’ with any of my guests on PGAP. This all changed with Nandita! To celebrate this milestone, I play the song ‘Abolicion’ from the Peru/Melbourne pop-punk project, Futuro Vegan Pop. The lead brains behind this musical project, Pedro Allemant, is a long-time friend of yours truly and a total inspiration in the animal activism sphere. I even played keyboards on a couple of Futuro songs back in ye days afore the COVID when we never ‘ad it so good.

I also share my interview on Australian Talk Back radio following the excitement, confusion and hostility in the mainstream media after Population Matters ‘Change Champions’ awards the other week. The media weren’t that interested in the Women’s Champion award that went to Wendo Aszed in Kenya, or Kohinur Khyum Tithila from Bangladesh who received the Media award. Rather, they were far more preoccupied with the special award given to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex who received a ‘special’ award for stopping at two children. Anything to do with Harry and Meghan has a peculiar effect on our collective psyche, and it raises the question, is it better to avoid the royals and receive little attention, or include the royals and receive a lot of mostly hostile media attention? A philosophical musing indeed that still troubles me…

Too much podcasting barely enough for you? Want to explore more of the adventures (or in my case misadventures) that were raised during this episode? GLAD YOU ASKED! This is a fancy way of saying I'm about to bombard you with a bunch of links. It's all in the phrasing...

Find out more about World Population Balance here.. If you haven't heard it yet, their The Overpopulation Podcast is a class act.

WPB launched an online panel discussion: “Pronatalism and Overpopulation | Challenging The Social Pressures to Procreate” on the 07th of July for world population day, which Nandita discussed with me. On the day it was a bit late for Australian clocks, but the highlights can now be seen on WPB YouTube channel here.

My interview with Tom Elliot on Melbourne’s 3AW Drive talk back radio is immortalised for all here. It doesn't include all the callers afterward who called me a moron, which is always such a shame.

If you are interested in finding out more about Population Matters’ ‘Change Champions’ award, you can find it here.

Interested in what Sustainable Population Australia had to say about World Population Day and why they believe the world cannot support another 2 billion people by 2050? This and more on their media release here.

SPA's very own Dr. Jane O'Sullivan is very popular. Firstly she was interviewed on the award winning ‘This Sustainable Life’ podcast hosted by Joshua Spodeck. Jane debunks the ‘ageing population crisis’ myths with Joshua as they explore SPA’s discussion paper ‘Silver Tsunami or Silver Lining’ in which Jane was lead author.

She was also a presneter at the World Population Day presentation and panel discussion –_ "What is a sustainable population? Why, when and what should we do about it?"_ This event was organised with Scientists Warning Europe, and a video of Jane's talk and the SWE media release can be found on the SPA website here.

Find out more about Futuro Vegan Pop here

You may be interested in listening to PGAP's last world population day special episode with SPA's John Coulter here. Last year we interviewed WPB's then ED Dave Gardner for our 2020 world population day special.

Special Guest: Nandita Bajaj.

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.

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.