I grew up in the 1960s,
watching those TV commercials with those starving kids in Africa
who stared vacantly at the camera with sad eyes and distended bellies.
And in sixth grade,
my glee club teacher, Mr. Collins,
had us change the words in this song we were singing -
(Singing) "Three billion people in the world" -
to
(Singing) "Four billion people in the world."
And I was shocked.
I couldn't believe that the population was so big.
And I was even more shocked
because no one else in the class seemed at all disturbed by this fact.
A couple of days later, I told my friend Suzy Hollander
that because there seemed to be too many people in the world
for it to handle,
that I wasn't going to have any kids.
And she looked at me, and she replied that she was going to have three.
And I felt pretty alone in my beliefs.
And 37 years later,
I still feel pretty alone in my beliefs,
and I'm still shocked that not more people are disturbed by population growth.
And I think it's because as a species we've decided not to talk about it,
to kind of tuck it away.
So I'm here to untuck it.
Modern man first showed up on earth 200,000 years ago.
And by 1850,
we had reproduced so successfully,
there were 1 billion people on the planet.
That means it took 200,000 years for us to put the first billion people on earth.
The next billion came in 100 years.
200,000 years to get to the first billion;
100 years to get to the second billion;
now, we add 1 billion people to the planet every 12 years.
And in 2011, the world population reached 7 billion people.
Now, this surge in growth
came about because of improvements in agriculture and medicine,
because as a species, we are a biological success story.
Survival of the fittest - we have survived!
And we're also a religious success story:
we have gone forth and multiplied.
(Laughter)
But now we have to stop,
or it will be our downfall.
And just to give you an idea of how fast population grows:
Bangladesh had a hurricane that killed 139,000 people.
How long did it take Bangladesh to replace those deaths with 139,000 new births?
Two and a half weeks.
Now, the world population is growing at just 1% a year,
which might not sound like very much,
but 1% of seven billion is actually a big number.
It means that every day we add 220,000 people to the planet -
every day.
And this is unsustainable,
which means that at some point,
the world population is going to stop growing.
The question is how?
Will it stop growing because of famine, disease, a war over resources?
Or will it stop growing because people choose to have smaller families?
And by "smaller families," I mean one-child families.
This is where people start getting nervous
talking about overpopulation and population issues
because they're scared
that I'm going to take away their rights to have children.
But I don't want to take people's rights away;
I want to give people rights.
Forcing people to have fewer children does not work.
In fact,
the fastest and most efficient way to stabilize the world population
is to send girls to school and to empower women
and to give everyone access to and education on birth control.
And those are good things.
And as a culture,
we need to emphasize the benefits of having a one-child family
so people will choose to have fewer kids.
Because for thousands of years,
we've been inculcated with this ethic that big families are happy families
and only children are lonely children.
Couples like myself and my husband, Ian, who have chosen not to have kids
were child-less instead of child-free.
And myself, several times, I have been accused of being selfish
because of my decision not to have children.
And all this made sense
when it was important for us to procreate for our survival.
But now?
For our survival, we have to not procreate.
And we have to change and rewire our biology and our culture
to recognize the benefits of a one-child family
because right now, mostly what we see is the negatives.
For example,
when a country's population falls,
there's all this economic doom and gloom in the media
because capitalism is based on eternal growth.
Capitalism depends upon more and more consumers.
So yeah - when population lowers, the economy will suffer.
But it will suffer less
than if there's no more oil and food and water
because there are 10 billion people on the planet in 40 years,
which is what the UN is projecting.
Now, you might be thinking,
"Okay, this population issue sounds troublesome.
But we should be having the babies.
We're smart and we're educated and we listen to TED Talks
and we can afford kids and heck -
our offspring, they might save the world!"
Even my mom says,
"Oh Alexandra, you'd be such a good mother!
And your kids, they'd be wonderful!"
And they might be wonderful,
but they would also be wasteful
because North Americans use 32 times the resources
as someone from a developing country,
so it's even more important that we have smaller families.
For example,
someone in the United States, on average, uses 176 gallons of water a day
compared to the average person from Africa who only uses 5 gallons a day.
And it's not just vis-à-vis poor countries either.
We here in the United States,
we use twice the energy as someone from France or England or Japan.
There are a lot of countries that have a higher fertility rate
than we do here in the United States,
but we all have to aspire to a one-child family,
especially those of us living here.
Maybe you're thinking,
"Well, don't worry, Alexandra - technology will save us."
Yes, it's possible that we might be able to eke a few more years of resources
because of some new inventions or technologies.
But in the end, even if we can feed and house 14 billion people,
what would their lives be like?
The population is going to have to stop growing at some point,
so why not stop now
instead of wishing that some invention or technology will save us
that doesn't even exist yet and we're not even sure works?
So for everyone to have quality of life,
the number of humans on earth needs to go down.
And I believe that it needs to go down to 2 billion people,
which sounds radical
because there are 7 billion people on the planet today.
But it's actually the world population of just 80 years ago.
So let's change our idea of what the ideal family looks like -
one is a beautiful number.
And let's not be afraid to talk about overpopulation.
Because it is not about taking rights away from people;
it is about giving opportunities to women, children, and future generations.
And lastly, let's be part of the solution
and choose, from now on,
to bring forth no more than one child ourselves.
Thank you.
(Applause)