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The average number of children each woman gives birth to globally has been steadily declining.

To some, this is a disaster.

Elon Musk, for example, says that collapsing birth

rate is the biggest danger civilization faces by far. With 14 children at last count, he seems to be

attempting to avert this crisis single-handedly. Folks concerned with the decline in birth rates

advocate for policies that incentivize having more children.

But on the other hand, a decline in birth rate is music to the ears of others.

As someone who adores both human beings and nature, I would love to see living standards rise as population size falls.

It seems reasonable to assume that more humans translates into a greater environmental impact,

so if humans are choosing to have fewer babies, that sounds like a win-win for humans and for nature.

Plus, I've heard humans are going to level out at 8 billion people anyway,

so any decline in population size would

be short-lived. And anyway, this seems like a problem for future generations, right? Why should we

start worrying about population size now? Well, today we're going to talk to Dean Spears and Michael

Jeruso about their recent book, After the, population, progress, and the case for

people. They are concerned that the future will see a precipitous decline in human population size,

and they want to see us start taking this problem seriously now, so that we have plenty of time

to find compassionate solutions to the problem before society start to feel the pinch.

Welcome to Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe.

Hi, I'm Daniel.

I'm a particle physicist and a professor at UC Irvine, and I have two children and a dog.

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