Overdevelopment, Overpopulation, Overshoot

“Every problem facing humanity, from poverty to violent conflict over resources, is exacerbated by a ballooning human population – and so is every problem facing nature, including ecosystem loss, species extinctions, and climate chaos. But why is the demographic explosion and its effects ignored by policymakers and the media? Why do important people within the global environmental movement itself avoid the great challenges of the population issue?

“Isn’t it time to start talking about the equation that matters most to the future of people and the planet? Overpopulation + Overdevelopment = Overshoot…”

There are thousands of essays, articles and books dealing with population but “Overdevelopment, Overpopulation, Overshoot” provides a convincing new way of understanding the impacts of population size on human welfare and nature. Through well-chosen quotes, and stunning photographs, this largely visual presentation documents the realities and role of burgeoning human numbers on a broad variety of important areas including the destruction of wildlife and natural systems, air and water pollution, food insecurity and climate change. —J. Joseph Speidel

The 14 Photo Essays and accompanying quotations and text in Overdevelopment, Overpopulation, Overshoot, from Population Media Center, Population Institute and Deep Ecology Institute – the astonishing centerpiece of the Global Population Speak Out website – is a fitting, perhaps unprecedented tribute to the clear and present insanity of Homo sapiens. The concluding remarks, a poignant coda, of sorts, however attenuated in relation to the bulk of this lean and deeply disturbing photographic odyssey, is intended to intimate at least some redemptive qualities of the human spirit. But whether such biological attributes can collectively rise to the challenge of our historic flirtations with global suicide is the dangling modifier underlying this exquisitely depressing and enlightening book. –Jane Gray Morrison and Michael Charles Tobias (read the full review:  “Over and Over and Over Again” Makes for Essential Reading)

Learn more about the book and the Global Population Speak Out campaign through the link above.

Read Jane Gray Morrison and Michael Charles Tobias’s review: “Over and Over and Over Again” Makes for Essential Reading