WEBVTT

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I grew up in the 1960s,

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watching those TV commercials
with those starving kids in Africa

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who stared vacantly at the camera
with sad eyes and distended bellies.

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And in sixth grade,

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my glee club teacher, Mr. Collins,

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had us change the words
in this song we were singing -

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(Singing) "Three billion
people in the world" -

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to

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(Singing) "Four billion
people in the world."

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And I was shocked.

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I couldn't believe
that the population was so big.

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And I was even more shocked

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because no one else in the class
seemed at all disturbed by this fact.

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A couple of days later,
I told my friend Suzy Hollander

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that because there seemed to be
too many people in the world

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for it to handle,

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that I wasn't going to have any kids.

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And she looked at me, and she replied
that she was going to have three.

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And I felt pretty alone in my beliefs.

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And 37 years later,

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I still feel pretty alone in my beliefs,

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and I'm still shocked that not more people
are disturbed by population growth.

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And I think it's because as a species
we've decided not to talk about it,

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to kind of tuck it away.

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So I'm here to untuck it.

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Modern man first showed up
on earth 200,000 years ago.

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And by 1850,

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we had reproduced so successfully,

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there were 1 billion people on the planet.

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That means it took 200,000 years for us
to put the first billion people on earth.

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The next billion came in 100 years.

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200,000 years to get to the first billion;

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100 years to get to the second billion;

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now, we add 1 billion people
to the planet every 12 years.

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And in 2011, the world population
reached 7 billion people.

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Now, this surge in growth

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came about because of improvements
in agriculture and medicine,

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because as a species,
we are a biological success story.

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Survival of the fittest -
we have survived!

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And we're also a religious success story:

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we have gone forth and multiplied.

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(Laughter)

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But now we have to stop,

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or it will be our downfall.

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And just to give you an idea
of how fast population grows:

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Bangladesh had a hurricane
that killed 139,000 people.

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How long did it take Bangladesh to replace
those deaths with 139,000 new births?

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Two and a half weeks.

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Now, the world population
is growing at just 1% a year,

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which might not sound like very much,

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but 1% of seven billion
is actually a big number.

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It means that every day
we add 220,000 people to the planet -

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every day.

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And this is unsustainable,

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which means that at some point,

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the world population
is going to stop growing.

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The question is how?

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Will it stop growing because of famine,
disease, a war over resources?

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Or will it stop growing because
people choose to have smaller families?

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And by "smaller families,"
I mean one-child families.

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This is where people start getting nervous

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talking about overpopulation
and population issues

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because they're scared

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that I'm going to take away
their rights to have children.

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But I don't want
to take people's rights away;

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I want to give people rights.

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Forcing people to have
fewer children does not work.

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In fact,

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the fastest and most efficient way
to stabilize the world population

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is to send girls to school
and to empower women

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and to give everyone access to
and education on birth control.

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And those are good things.

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And as a culture,

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we need to emphasize the benefits
of having a one-child family

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so people will choose to have fewer kids.

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Because for thousands of years,

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we've been inculcated with this ethic
that big families are happy families

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and only children are lonely children.

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Couples like myself and my husband, Ian,
who have chosen not to have kids

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were child-less instead of child-free.

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And myself, several times,
I have been accused of being selfish

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because of my decision
not to have children.

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And all this made sense

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when it was important for us
to procreate for our survival.

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But now?

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For our survival,
we have to not procreate.

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And we have to change and rewire
our biology and our culture

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to recognize the benefits
of a one-child family

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because right now,
mostly what we see is the negatives.

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For example,

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when a country's population falls,

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there's all this economic doom
and gloom in the media

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because capitalism
is based on eternal growth.

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Capitalism depends upon
more and more consumers.

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So yeah - when population lowers,
the economy will suffer.

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But it will suffer less

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than if there's no more oil
and food and water

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because there are 10 billion people
on the planet in 40 years,

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which is what the UN is projecting.

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Now, you might be thinking,

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"Okay, this population issue
sounds troublesome.

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But we should be having the babies.

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We're smart and we're educated
and we listen to TED Talks

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and we can afford kids and heck -

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our offspring, they might save the world!"

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Even my mom says,

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"Oh Alexandra,
you'd be such a good mother!

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And your kids, they'd be wonderful!"

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And they might be wonderful,

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but they would also be wasteful

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because North Americans
use 32 times the resources

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as someone from a developing country,

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so it's even more important
that we have smaller families.

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For example,

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someone in the United States, on average,
uses 176 gallons of water a day

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compared to the average person
from Africa who only uses 5 gallons a day.

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And it's not just vis-à-vis
poor countries either.

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We here in the United States,

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we use twice the energy as someone
from France or England or Japan.

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There are a lot of countries
that have a higher fertility rate

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than we do here in the United States,

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but we all have to aspire
to a one-child family,

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especially those of us living here.

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Maybe you're thinking,

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"Well, don't worry, Alexandra -
technology will save us."

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Yes, it's possible that we might be able
to eke a few more years of resources

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because of some new
inventions or technologies.

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But in the end, even if we can
feed and house 14 billion people,

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what would their lives be like?

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The population is going to
have to stop growing at some point,

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so why not stop now

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instead of wishing that some
invention or technology will save us

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that doesn't even exist yet
and we're not even sure works?

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So for everyone to have quality of life,

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the number of humans on earth
needs to go down.

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And I believe that it needs
to go down to 2 billion people,

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which sounds radical

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because there are 7 billion people
on the planet today.

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But it's actually the world population
of just 80 years ago.

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So let's change our idea
of what the ideal family looks like -

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one is a beautiful number.

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And let's not be afraid
to talk about overpopulation.

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Because it is not about
taking rights away from people;

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it is about giving opportunities to women,
children, and future generations.

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And lastly, let's be part of the solution

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and choose, from now on,

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to bring forth no more
than one child ourselves.

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Thank you.

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(Applause)