I was born and raised in Santa Cruz one
of the things I love most about this
town is how environmentally conscious
everybody in it is it was because of
that that I thought I was completely
aware of how our environment was
changing but the truth is that I was
living in a bubble that’s me
my bubble burst when I made a Facebook
account
I would scroll through my feet and read
articles about how pigs were abused in
food production or new genetically
modified plants made to end starvation
but instead disrupting migration
patterns and ecosystems I even read
articles about how our pollution both
sound and chemical this was a survival
and communication of marine mammals it
was these articles that made me feel
helpless frustrated and scared I
frantically started researching
pollution freshwater depletion and
factory farming it seems like every
industry was altering the environment in
some way to provide food or energy for
us people how could we as a society
allow all these things to happen more
importantly why did I feel so paralyzed
as I watched our planet decay it
occurred to me that all these problems
were connected by one cause
overpopulation that’s why I founded my
own organization called preventing
overpopulation pop to educate the public
about overpopulation its causes its
effects and eventually end starvation
stop pollution and consider fresh water
at our current rate in just 43 years we
will possibly reach Earth’s carrying
capacity of 10 billion people but what
is overpopulation what is too many
people why is that so
scary number today our global population
is seven-and-a-half billion and the
numbers are multiplying fast if we do
reach that number of 10 billion we will
reach it by the Year 2060 but why is
overpopulation an issue why are we
supposed to be scared of that number did
you know that today one of our primary
sources of freshwater is already rapidly
running out in global superpowers such
as the US China and India aquifers
underground sources of fresh water are
being depleted they’re not renewable and
not the rate that we’re drawing from
them
they’re not sustainable either as we
pump water out of these aquifers the
foundations of our world are compromised
as Yaak first dry out the lower water
pressure in the sand and gravel causes
slow drainage of water from the
surrounding clay and silt bed this makes
them unstable and dry as a result over
time the ground subsides for the loss of
sport have any of you ever pulled an
apple from the bottom of the pile at the
grocery store
yeah we do the whole thing collapsed
right because the foundation failed the
California Central Valley has already
sunk 28 feet through this exact
phenomena what is scariest about this is
that these aquifers are some of the last
remaining sources of fresh water once
our lakes rivers and aquifers dry out
the only fresh water we’ll have left
will be frozen the glaciers and the
glaciers are already melting turning our
fresh water into salt water not
surprisingly Wars already breaking out
in developing countries over drinkable
water and if we don’t act now we could
all face the same fate if we continue at
our current rate of growth in 43 years
when we do reach Earth’s carrying
capacity of 10 billion people we will
have more poverty this
or life expectancy and unforgiving
climate with more typhoons hurricanes
even land loss from rising sea levels
demand for fresh water will increase by
55% and our food production would have
to double the support the ballooning
population but this is all in the future
we have tons of time to turn things
around while not tons but enough
assuming we all act now last month we
had an ant problem at my house
skin sounds strange but I felt somewhat
and all of their teamwork in fact fire
ants are experts at teamwork
they’re pretty tiny right but when faced
with large challenges like crossing a
river hundreds or thousands of fire ants
can work together to build structures
out of their own bodies like rafts as a
resulting carry the entire colony across
the river collectively they do what is
necessary to save the entire group we
too can work together to solve the
problems that we face today we don’t
have time to wait for a few geniuses or
even the most powerful people to fix the
mess that we’re in that’s why we need a
solution to all seven and a half billion
people on earth can take part in after
much research I found a way that we
could decrease our global population by
1.6 billion people in the next decade
consider this if each family had two
children or less and our death rate
remained the same by the year 2027 we
had a global population of 5.9 billion
people we had consumed fresh water at a
significantly slower pace and we’d be
able to alleviate pollution not only
that raising kids day in the US is kind
of expensive raising one child to the
age of 18 and paying for his or her
undergraduate and graduate school costs
on average four hundred and ten thousand
dollars if they have an educational
disability like say an IQ below seventy
that cost can soar up to two million
but there’s one more family for you to
consider how many of you have parents or
grandparents that you expect to take
care of okay
yeah me too if you combine the cost of
raising two children with caring for two
elders your financial responsibility
would become around four million this
includes four years of assisted living
and three years in a nursing home
what if they live longer I can’t even
afford my own car I can’t afford my own
gas this is a huge responsibility as I
learn more about what will happen to our
world and what overpopulation will cause
I’m not sure I want to have kids in fact
I’m pretty sure I don’t want any but all
of us combined can completely change the
future of our planet having smaller
families could take tons of pressure off
our environment we need to stop
overpopulation
but the best way to do this is by
empowering the world through knowledge
spreading the knowledge of the
environmental and financial aspects of
family planning we need to educate the
childbearing world about overpopulation
in developing countries such as Nigeria
or Burundi Bertha remains at over six
children per woman but we’re a part of
this problem too and Tennessee Utah
and Texas families are having up to six
kids there are millions of children in
the world today that don’t have families
for those of you them want one two gets
adoptions always an option
in fact 140 million children worldwide
or orphans now I don’t have the
experience of having a family I’ve never
had kids
as you can probably tell I’m a teenager
but I think that if at some point I
changed my mind and I decided to have a
family that I want to adopt I’m sure
some of you already have families like
raising can if you already have kids
thank you you may think that there’s
nothing you can do to help but just by
spreading awareness to your friends and
family about overpopulation you see you
could significantly help solve this
problem
you could also pledge if you go to
www.calculated.com/support
we have the choice to make it a positive
one thank you
[Applause]
of the things I love most about this
town is how environmentally conscious
everybody in it is it was because of
that that I thought I was completely
aware of how our environment was
changing but the truth is that I was
living in a bubble that’s me
my bubble burst when I made a Facebook
account
I would scroll through my feet and read
articles about how pigs were abused in
food production or new genetically
modified plants made to end starvation
but instead disrupting migration
patterns and ecosystems I even read
articles about how our pollution both
sound and chemical this was a survival
and communication of marine mammals it
was these articles that made me feel
helpless frustrated and scared I
frantically started researching
pollution freshwater depletion and
factory farming it seems like every
industry was altering the environment in
some way to provide food or energy for
us people how could we as a society
allow all these things to happen more
importantly why did I feel so paralyzed
as I watched our planet decay it
occurred to me that all these problems
were connected by one cause
overpopulation that’s why I founded my
own organization called preventing
overpopulation pop to educate the public
about overpopulation its causes its
effects and eventually end starvation
stop pollution and consider fresh water
at our current rate in just 43 years we
will possibly reach Earth’s carrying
capacity of 10 billion people but what
is overpopulation what is too many
people why is that so
scary number today our global population
is seven-and-a-half billion and the
numbers are multiplying fast if we do
reach that number of 10 billion we will
reach it by the Year 2060 but why is
overpopulation an issue why are we
supposed to be scared of that number did
you know that today one of our primary
sources of freshwater is already rapidly
running out in global superpowers such
as the US China and India aquifers
underground sources of fresh water are
being depleted they’re not renewable and
not the rate that we’re drawing from
them
they’re not sustainable either as we
pump water out of these aquifers the
foundations of our world are compromised
as Yaak first dry out the lower water
pressure in the sand and gravel causes
slow drainage of water from the
surrounding clay and silt bed this makes
them unstable and dry as a result over
time the ground subsides for the loss of
sport have any of you ever pulled an
apple from the bottom of the pile at the
grocery store
yeah we do the whole thing collapsed
right because the foundation failed the
California Central Valley has already
sunk 28 feet through this exact
phenomena what is scariest about this is
that these aquifers are some of the last
remaining sources of fresh water once
our lakes rivers and aquifers dry out
the only fresh water we’ll have left
will be frozen the glaciers and the
glaciers are already melting turning our
fresh water into salt water not
surprisingly Wars already breaking out
in developing countries over drinkable
water and if we don’t act now we could
all face the same fate if we continue at
our current rate of growth in 43 years
when we do reach Earth’s carrying
capacity of 10 billion people we will
have more poverty this
or life expectancy and unforgiving
climate with more typhoons hurricanes
even land loss from rising sea levels
demand for fresh water will increase by
55% and our food production would have
to double the support the ballooning
population but this is all in the future
we have tons of time to turn things
around while not tons but enough
assuming we all act now last month we
had an ant problem at my house
skin sounds strange but I felt somewhat
and all of their teamwork in fact fire
ants are experts at teamwork
they’re pretty tiny right but when faced
with large challenges like crossing a
river hundreds or thousands of fire ants
can work together to build structures
out of their own bodies like rafts as a
resulting carry the entire colony across
the river collectively they do what is
necessary to save the entire group we
too can work together to solve the
problems that we face today we don’t
have time to wait for a few geniuses or
even the most powerful people to fix the
mess that we’re in that’s why we need a
solution to all seven and a half billion
people on earth can take part in after
much research I found a way that we
could decrease our global population by
1.6 billion people in the next decade
consider this if each family had two
children or less and our death rate
remained the same by the year 2027 we
had a global population of 5.9 billion
people we had consumed fresh water at a
significantly slower pace and we’d be
able to alleviate pollution not only
that raising kids day in the US is kind
of expensive raising one child to the
age of 18 and paying for his or her
undergraduate and graduate school costs
on average four hundred and ten thousand
dollars if they have an educational
disability like say an IQ below seventy
that cost can soar up to two million
but there’s one more family for you to
consider how many of you have parents or
grandparents that you expect to take
care of okay
yeah me too if you combine the cost of
raising two children with caring for two
elders your financial responsibility
would become around four million this
includes four years of assisted living
and three years in a nursing home
what if they live longer I can’t even
afford my own car I can’t afford my own
gas this is a huge responsibility as I
learn more about what will happen to our
world and what overpopulation will cause
I’m not sure I want to have kids in fact
I’m pretty sure I don’t want any but all
of us combined can completely change the
future of our planet having smaller
families could take tons of pressure off
our environment we need to stop
overpopulation
but the best way to do this is by
empowering the world through knowledge
spreading the knowledge of the
environmental and financial aspects of
family planning we need to educate the
childbearing world about overpopulation
in developing countries such as Nigeria
or Burundi Bertha remains at over six
children per woman but we’re a part of
this problem too and Tennessee Utah
and Texas families are having up to six
kids there are millions of children in
the world today that don’t have families
for those of you them want one two gets
adoptions always an option
in fact 140 million children worldwide
or orphans now I don’t have the
experience of having a family I’ve never
had kids
as you can probably tell I’m a teenager
but I think that if at some point I
changed my mind and I decided to have a
family that I want to adopt I’m sure
some of you already have families like
raising can if you already have kids
thank you you may think that there’s
nothing you can do to help but just by
spreading awareness to your friends and
family about overpopulation you see you
could significantly help solve this
problem
you could also pledge if you go to
www.calculated.com/support
we have the choice to make it a positive
one thank you
[Applause]
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