Today is World Population Day, observed in many ways around the world. Every year at this time I survey the landscape and assess our progress toward achieving a sustainable world population.

There is good news and bad. Overall I think progress is being made on my goal of getting overpopulation onto our radar screens. More about that below.

First I want to highlight the efforts of the GrowthBusters project to have more awareness and information about the subject:

1. Top 10 Reasons to Choose a Small Family

2. Top 10 Population Films of All Time

3. Our new video, Should We Stop Worrying and Love the (Population) Bomb:

Next, the bad news. Here are the things that are bugging me today about the world population situation: . . .

As we observe World Population Day (July 11) I thought I’d share some of the most interesting films about human population, or least films with significant population themes.

I posted a list of the films I was considering, and invited you to vote for your favorite (or nominate others), so I could rank them by popularity come World Population Day 2013. So here they are, in the order you ranked them. I’m leaving the voting open on this page, so I’ll come back and revise this list if the voting swings significantly.

Be sure to check out www.worldpopulationday.org for other outstanding videos and other population news.

#1: GrowthBusters: Hooked on Growth (2011)
I directed this documentary challenging the myths linking growth with prosperity and fulfillment. It explores how our beliefs about economic, consumption and population growth prevent rational responses to evidence we’ve outgrown the planet. I’m biased, but this film belongs on the list because of its honesty about overpopulation and exploration of the topic’s taboo. GrowthBusters includes interviews with a host leading thinkers like Paul Ehrlich, William Rees and Herman Daly. It also chronicles my own David vs. Goliath adventures in growthbusting: “My mission is to make it okay to be against growth.”
Available on Pivotshare, Amazon, and direct from producer . . .

One of the key roots of so many of the challenges and crises we face is remarkably simple to fix, yet for many reasons the solution has evaded us for decades. The root is population, and the simple fix is for every couple around the world to make responsible, informed decisions about family size. Everyone loves their kids and wants them to have a good life. Conceiving a “quiver full” of children in today’s overpopulated world guarantees a life of scarcity, conflict and misery. Choosing to limit the size of your family is the most loving thing you can do for your children. It should be a no-brainer.

We’re counting down to World Population Day on July 11 by sharing our list of Top 10 Reasons to Choose a Small Family. Of course we can easily come up with 20 reasons, but top 20 lists aren’t all the rage. So please follow our daily posts at www.worldpopulationday.org. Here at this blog I’ll also add the newest reason every day, until we have the full list. . . .

At GrowthBusters we consider World Population Day (July 11) an annual opportunity to bring the topic of overpopulation into sharper focus. We have some interesting things in store for you this year in the days leading up to World Population Day.

Subscribe to this blog to be kept apprised of our World Population Day posts and activities. Look for the subscribe box to the right of this post.

Also check out www.worldpopulationday.org for outstanding videos and other population news.

This year we thought we’d come up with the ultimate list of the Top Ten Population Films of all time. While I do consider myself the world’s foremost authority on population in the media (not really), I thought it would be fun to invite readers to nominate and vote for films to be on this list. . . .

Typically every morning I rise when the sunlight streams into the room. This time of year that means 6 or even 5:30. I sit down with a cup of skinny cafe mocha and go through my email in-box, which invariably is full of interesting bits of communication from all over the world. Much of it details the ongoing destruction humankind is wringing on the planet.

This morning, however, I received a link to a Youtube video in an email from one of my favorite fans, Nina Centaine. Nina composed (and contributed, for no pay) some of the music in the GrowthBusters: Hooked on Growth documentary. You can explore her music here. Knowing Nina is one of the many great rewards of my growthbusting. . . .