Karen I. Shragg  E.D.D.

Karen is a lifelong environmentalist, naturalist, educator, poet, author, policy advisor, and overpopulation activist. Karen received her doctorate from the University of St. Thomas in 2002. She retired as a long-time naturalist and nature center director to found Move Upstream Environmental Consulting. As a member of the advisory board of the non-profit “Earth Overshoot”, she has become increasingly alarmed by the lack of discourse surrounding the overpopulation crisis. In 2015, her book Move Upstream, A Call for Overpopulation, was published by Freethought House Press. Her newest book, Change Our Stories, Change our World, was published in 2020, moves the overpopulation discussion even further upstream.

Karen is or has been a board member of three related organizations focused on addressing issues involving overpopulation including (SEPS), Scientists and Environmentalists for Population Stabilization, (CAPS), Californians for Population Stabilization, and World Population Balance (1992-2021).

She writes children’s books, the most well known of which is the Nature’s Yucky series, co-written by Lee Ann Landstrom, published by Mountain Press. Her books for adults include:

• Grieving Outside the Box: Stories of Hope and Resilience (

• The Wolf Within: Poems to Awaken and Inspire in Times Like These

• Organic Dreams and Pickled Nightmares, a Pocketful of Political Poems for the Resistance.