Libsyn Directory

Animals in the Anthropocene | Jo-Anne McArthur

Release Date: 05/14/2024

The Fertility Industry’s Dirty Secrets | Pamela Mahoney Tsigdinos

OVERSHOOT | Shrink Toward Abundance

In vitro fertilization (IVF) is often seen as a triumph of reproductive freedom, but its origins are deeply entangled with patriarchy, pronatalism, and eugenics. Pamela Mahoney Tsigdinos, IVF survivor and author of Silent Sorority and Finally Heard, discusses how under-regulation and cultural obsession with biological motherhood allows the multi-billion dollar fertility industry to obscure the truth about its low success rates and the trauma it causes. Highlights include: What the IVF process entails how time-consuming, expensive, and emotionally and physically wrenching it is; How John Rock,...

The Omnivore's Deception | John Sanbonmatsu

OVERSHOOT | Shrink Toward Abundance

The meat industry and its defenders promise ethical consumption and sustainable farming, but animal agriculture fuels ecological destruction, entrenches human supremacy, and masks cruelty with comforting myths. John Sanbonmatsu, philosopher and author of The Omnivore’s Deception, shatters the myths of “humane meat” and the 'naturalness' of eating meat, and explains why abolishing the animal economy is essential to living an ethical human life. Highlights include: Why growing up as the child of a Jewish mother and Japanese-American father in the U.S. sensitized John to bullying and...

Pro-Nuclear Propaganda and Our Future | M. V. Ramana

OVERSHOOT | Shrink Toward Abundance

The nuclear industry and its boosters promise clean, abundant energy, but nuclear power delivers expensive electricity while posing catastrophic radiation risks and a constant threat of nuclear war. M. V. Ramana, physicist and author of Nuclear is Not the Solution, explains why respecting the limits of the biosphere means reducing our energy use and rejecting elites’ push for endless growth. Highlights include: Why nuclear energy is inherently risky due to its complex, tightly coupled systems that are prone to catastrophic failures that can't be predicted or prevented; Why...

Escape from Overshoot | Peter Victor

OVERSHOOT | Shrink Toward Abundance

The world is colliding with the ecological limits of growth - and mainstream economics is still looking the other way. Peter Victor, ecological economist and author of Escape from Overshoot, joins us. Highlights include: How 'the pre-analytic vision' of ecological economics, unlike mainstream economics, recognizes that all economic activity is embedded in the biosphere of Earth; Why population growth has been the main driver of ecological overshoot in recent decades; Why markets routinely fail to protect public goods like clean air and water and often produce socially and ecologically unjust...

Oscar Winner Fighting for Animals | Louie Psihoyos

OVERSHOOT | Shrink Toward Abundance

Academy Award-winning vegan filmmaker and former National Geographic photographer Louie Psihoyos joins us to share how he is using the power of storytelling to spark transformation for animal rights, human health, and environmental conservation. Highlights include: How The Cove, his Oscar-wining documentary and the first documentary to sweep all the film guilds, inspired activism that helped reduce dolphin and porpoise slaughter in Japan by over 90%; How his team’s audacious projection events of endangered species on iconic buildings including The Empire State Building, The United Nations...

Hospicing Modernity | Vanessa de Oliveira Andreotti

OVERSHOOT | Shrink Toward Abundance

Modernity is dying within and around us, and we need to face that death with courage and compassion. Vanessa de Oliveira Andreotti, author of Hospicing Modernity, joins us. Highlights include: How her mixed Indigenous and German heritage in Brazil exposed her to a complex mix of love and violence, deepening her understanding of how socialization and education can perpetuate harmful relationships; Why the ‘house of modernity’, which is built on a foundation of humanity’s separation from the rest of nature, is structured to ultimately fail; Why we need to ‘hospice...

“Hopium” and the Long Defeat | Pamela Swanigan

OVERSHOOT | Shrink Toward Abundance

The rhetoric of “hopium” is failing as ecological overshoot deepens. “Hopium”, a colloquial term that is a blend of the words “hope” and “opium” (as though it were a drug), represents a faith in technological and market-based solutions to address our multiple reinforcing crises, despite evidence to the contrary. We're living in the long defeat and we must own and confront it with courage. Award-winning essayist, Pamela Swanigan, joins us. Highlights include: How children's literature is full of reverence for nature but children's literature analysis done in the academy is...

The "Energy Transition" Delusion | Jean-Baptiste Fressoz

OVERSHOOT | Shrink Toward Abundance

There is no energy transition - only ongoing and symbiotic energy addition. Historian Jean-Baptiste Fressoz, author of More and More and More: An All-Consuming History of Energy, joins us. Highlights include: How the symbiotic relationships between wood, coal, and oil have led to increased use of all of them; Why decoupling economic growth from energy and materials use is a delusional myth; How the energy transition narrative evolved and why it's an "intellectual scandal" used to delay climate action through faith in techno-driven growth; How the IPCC’s focus on economic growth drives the...

Global Conflict, Misogyny, and Resistance | Sally Armstrong

OVERSHOOT | Shrink Toward Abundance

Patriarchy and misogyny fuel global conflicts that further increase the oppression of women and girls. But the resistance of women and girls remains steadfast. Sally Armstrong, award-winning war correspondent, author, and human rights activist, joins us to share their stories. Highlights include: How Sally broke the story about mass rape in the Balkan War in the 1990s that was ignored by male-dominated mainstream media; How patriarchy became established and why women’s role in human history has been unrecorded and ignored; Why cultural relativism can be an enemy of greater...

The Sexual Politics of Meat | Carol J. Adams

OVERSHOOT | Shrink Toward Abundance

Our patriarchal culture animalizes women and sexualizes animals, and without compulsory pregnancy among human and nonhuman females, both patriarchy and animal agriculture would fail. Carol Adams, author of The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegan Critical Theory, joins us. Highlights include: How Carol got started on her personal journey to veganism; Why patriarchal cultures associate masculinity with meat-eating and how women and animals become ‘absent referents’; Why feminism and veganism have a long history of deep interconnection; How sexism persists in the animals rights...

More Episodes

The suffering of animals trapped within human systems of exploitation and oppression is hidden in plain sight. Jo-Anne McArthur, animal photojournalist and founder of We Animals Media, joins us. Highlights include:

How, motivated by the power of photography to catalyze social change and to raise awareness about animal exploitation, Jo-Anne created a new genre of photojournalism, namely Animal Photo Journalism (APJ);
APJ’s mission to capture, memorialize, and expose the experiences of animals who are caught within the complex human-dominated systems and whom we fail to see - animals within the industrial food systems, animals used for entertainment, such as in circuses, zoos, aquaria, theme parks, and rodeos, and animals used in research;
Jo-Anne’s travels to over 60 countries that catalogue our complex relationship with animals, captured in her three books, We Animals, Captive, and Hidden: Animals in the Anthropocene, and her feature role in the acclaimed Canadian documentary, The Ghosts in Our Machines;
inspiring stories of animal advocacy and highlights of the work of women on the front lines, captured in the Unbound project by We Animals Media;
how Jo-Anne manages the emotional impact of documenting animal suffering while staying committed to animal liberation;
and finally, on behalf of our planet which is groaning under the pressure of human dominion, Jo-Anne’s reflection on her personal journey of choosing not to have children, emphasizing the importance of considering alternative and richer ways to express love and fulfillment.

See episode website for show notes, links, and transcript:

https://www.populationbalance.org/podcast/joanne-mcarthur

ABOUT US

OVERSHOOT | Shrink Toward Abundance [Formerly The Overpopulation Podcast]

OVERSHOOT tackles today’s interlocked social and ecological crises driven by humanity’s excessive population and consumption. The podcast explores needed narrative, behavioral, and system shifts for recreating human life in balance with all life on Earth. With expert guests from wide-ranging disciplines, we examine the forces underlying overshoot: from patriarchal pronatalism that is fueling overpopulation, to growth-biased economic systems that lead to consumerism and social injustice, to the dominant worldview of human supremacy that subjugates animals and nature. Our vision of shrinking toward abundance inspires us to seek pathways of transformation that go beyond technological fixes toward a new humanity that honors our interconnectedness with all beings.

Hosted by Nandita Bajaj and Alan Ware. Brought to you by Population Balance.

Learn more at populationbalance.org

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