The Making and Taking of Life [The Ezra Institute Podcast for Cultural Reformation]

know, when I was growing up, you know, it was very much the population explosion.

And Paul Ehrlich had come out with his book, his bestseller in, I think, 68, The Population Bomb.

And really, it painted a very horrific doomsday picture of humanity on planet Earth and with numerous predictions of how it's going to go down.

uh, terribly.

And, uh, so I was actually nervous, you know, as a young person thinking we're going to run out of places to be able to play soccer and throw the Frisbee.

There'll be so many people, you know, and it'll just be overrun with, with people.

And, and really, uh, all of those predictions, every single one of them from, from that book, uh, uh, you know, fell, fell away as, as, as untrue.

And here we are, uh, in 2026 in a completely different, reversed scenario where we don't have a population explosion.

We have a tremendous decline, really a free fall in a way.

Some would describe this as a demographic winter.

And so we've seen not just in Canada, although very much in Canada, but really globally, a significant reduction in fertility and rates.

And so, for example, just to look at the Canadian experience, When we were founding, the country was being founded in the 1800s, it was typically in the range of six to eight children per woman.

This is hard to imagine.

The

average.

If you see a family with six or eight children, it really...

Yeah, it's a wonderful celebration, but it's more of a rarity.

And we've come down now in the States, you know, 1.6 now is the current figure that I'm aware of, 1.25 in Canada.

This is, you know, well below the replacement rates.

And we're seeing this kind of scenario played out in other countries too, really globally.

So it's not just a North American phenomenon, but if you look at what was happening there in this drop-off, One of the main players was the contraceptive pill and, of course, then the increased access to abortion.

And so it's still this lingering idea that the world is overrun with people, and it's still being talked about, even in the face of the raw data, which is so counter to that and showing that actually this is a scary time of population decline.

I remember seeing not that long ago on social media, it was actually a Christian influencer, and we would say probably a far more liberal Christian influencer.

But nonetheless, somebody who claimed to be Christian who posted on Twitter that one of the most helpful things a Christian couple can do for environmental care is have one less child than they would have had.

And, uh, and I remember that that was a number of years ago now.

know, when I was growing up, you know, it was very much the population explosion.

And Paul Ehrlich had come out with his book, his bestseller in, I think, 68, The Population Bomb.

And really, it painted a very horrific doomsday picture of humanity on planet Earth and with numerous predictions of how it's going to go down.

uh, terribly.

And, uh, so I was actually nervous, you know, as a young person thinking we're going to run out of places to be able to play soccer and throw the Frisbee.

There'll be so many people, you know, and it'll just be overrun with, with people.

And, and really, uh, all of those predictions, every single one of them from, from that book, uh, uh, you know, fell, fell away as, as, as untrue.

And here we are, uh, in 2026 in a completely different, reversed scenario where we don't have a population explosion.

We have a tremendous decline, really a free fall in a way.

Some would describe this as a demographic winter.

And so we've seen not just in Canada, although very much in Canada, but really globally, a significant reduction in fertility and rates.

And so, for example, just to look at the Canadian experience, When we were founding, the country was being founded in the 1800s, it was typically in the range of six to eight children per woman.

This is hard to imagine.

The

average.

If you see a family with six or eight children, it really...

Yeah, it's a wonderful celebration, but it's more of a rarity.

And we've come down now in the States, you know, 1.6 now is the current figure that I'm aware of, 1.25 in Canada.

This is, you know, well below the replacement rates.

And we're seeing this kind of scenario played out in other countries too, really globally.

So it's not just a North American phenomenon, but if you look at what was happening there in this drop-off, One of the main players was the contraceptive pill and, of course, then the increased access to abortion.

And so it's still this lingering idea that the world is overrun with people, and it's still being talked about, even in the face of the raw data, which is so counter to that and showing that actually this is a scary time of population decline.

I remember seeing not that long ago on social media, it was actually a Christian influencer, and we would say probably a far more liberal Christian influencer.

But nonetheless, somebody who claimed to be Christian who posted on Twitter that one of the most helpful things a Christian couple can do for environmental care is have one less child than they would have had.

And, uh, and I remember that that was a number of years ago now.