89: Bezos - We’re Going to Need Another Planet
GrowthBusters
Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos thinks the U.S. can grow its way out of a massive deficit. He says we need a “growth mindset.” Stephanie and Dave call it a “suicide economic model,” and note that growth addiction is exactly what afflicts most policymakers around the world. The dynamic duo discuss the little-understood fact that a shrinking economy can be healthy – when it accompanies a contracting population. Bezos also proposes that we plunder the universe in order to protect Earth “we've sent robotic probes to all of the planets in this solar system. This is the good one.”) Also:...
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88: Shutdown315: Start Post-Growth Living Saturday
GrowthBusters
Unplug from an overshoot economy serving a growth-obsessed oligarchy. On March 15, the multitudes will begin a general strike across the U.S. – starving our profit and growth obsessed system. The commoners will reclaim power taken by the elite. Learn about Shutdown315 as Stephanie and Dave discuss, and chat with two Shutdown315 movement organizers, Chet and Bones. We’re excited to share this with you, because Shutdown315 may be a great on-ramp to post-growth living. It starts March 15, 2025, and continues. We also launch the GrowthBusters book club – listen to learn our first book...
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87: The Shit Hits the Fan
GrowthBusters
In the face of accelerated global warming and increasingly severe consequences of climate disruption, UN projections are outdated and understating the problem, and the U.S. is going to produce and burn fossil fuels like they’re going out of business. Meanwhile Trump wants to be sure Gazans aren’t using condoms to float bombs over the border, and to be sure condoms and other family planning resources are not available the world over. On a positive note, a small town in Canada has adopted a “Limits to Growth” policy. Learn more about it in this episode. Please take a short survey to help...
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86: Projecting Optimism in the Time of Overshoot
GrowthBusters
Is optimism required in order to alert folks to our ecological overshoot emergency? Dave and Stephanie discuss the challenge of communicating the depth and urgency of overshoot without shutting people down. Also: Dave shares how he and a group of local growthbusters projected a guerilla “pop-up” billboard on New Year’s Eve – attempting to provide an honest reality check, but not put revelers off (or entice police or security personnel to stop them) The wisdom in U.S. President Jimmy Carter’s “malaise” speech Congestion pricing results in kids walking, riding bikes, or taking...
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85: Election 2024 – Stephanie Attempts to Talk Dave Off the Ledge
GrowthBusters
Dave and Stephanie dig into what caused voters to ignore Donald Trump’s felony convictions, indecency, incompetence, narcissism, and dishonesty – and elect him president. This includes a review of the 50-year war waged by the mega-rich and corporations to undermine civility, compassion, equity and rule of law, to elevate the free enterprise system, rob the working class and enrich themselves. The Lewis Powell Memo kicked this into high gear 50 years ago. They also propose theories about why Dave’s campaign for president failed in its mission to alert the public, media and policymakers to...
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84: Strong Economy Begins With Shrinking Workforce
GrowthBusters
A new study debunks depopulation panic. For decades economists have perpetuated the false narrative, “If population growth reverses and begins to decline, the economy is doomed.” This belief has so frequently been repeated by economists, politicians, business people and the public, that it is generally taken as gospel. Psychologists have characterized the phenomenon as the illusory-truth effect, or believing something to be true if it’s repeated often enough, even if it is false. For the first time in modern history, a handful of countries are witnessing actual population declines. The...
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83: We Roasted Elon Musk, Raising the Curiosity of Thousands
GrowthBusters
We made it VERY clear that Musk’s worries about population collapse are ill-founded, and that attracted thousands more listeners than usual to our podcast. How did that happen? What kind of comments did we get? Find out in this episode. And get important truths about overshoot and overpopulation. Plus, learn how we’ll give YOU the mic for an episode of the GrowthBusters podcast. We explain the long wait for this episode, and share our offer to listeners to “adopt” a future episode to discuss an aspect of limits to growth important to you. If you do want to guest-host an...
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82: Governor Whitmer Unveils Ponzi Population Policy
GrowthBusters
The Michigan Governor is apparently unaware that the world, the U.S. and even Michigan are overpopulated. Michigan population has been growing a little too slowly for her taste, so Whitmer has appointed a Chief Growth Officer and formed the Growing Michigan Together Council. Not surprisingly, her bottom line is to “spur economic growth.” In an episode you should share with YOUR governor, you’ll get the details and find out why this news puts “a bee in Dave’s bonnet,” plus news about some outstanding new studies, a wonderful commentary in Newsweek, a crazy podcast you’ll like, and...
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81 Overpopulation Think Tank – Part 2
GrowthBusters
Are many vegans self-righteous, overbearing and insufferable in their efforts to recruit us? Would you believe “overpopulation” is still a taboo word? Or that human population numbers are still an “off-limits” topic at some conferences? This episode continues the conversation we began in episode 79 with five smart people: Nandita Bajaj, executive director of Population Balance Sarah Bexell, director of humane education at the Institute for Human Animal Connection at University of Denver Paul Sutton, professor of geography & the environment at DU Stephanie Gardner, co-host of the...
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80 How Do We Get Out of This Mess? University Students Brainstorm
GrowthBusters
Students in a DU ecological economics class discuss their biggest concerns and how our society might overcome them. Overshoot, polarization, the American Dream, politics, selfish individualism, and the capitalism growth imperative are among the topics explored – as GrowthBuster Dave Gardner sits down with leaders of tomorrow. Dave is joined by Professor Paul Sutton at the University of Denver and students Lilia Davis, Julia Gainey, Cassienne Levan, Nathan Cox, Mikey Ford, Geordie Shonk, Elsa Krantz, and Alexandra Van de Water. Surprisingly, all the students seem to have a clear...
info_outlineBiologist Paul Ehrlich reflects on the 1972 MIT study, The Limits to Growth, on its 50th anniversary – including the fact that it has been refuted (poorly), ignored, and confirmed. The study was done by a team of scientists commissioned by the Club of Rome to develop a computer model to simulate the interaction of earth and human systems. It revealed that continuation of the then-current trends in population, industrialization, resource use and pollution would result in overshooting the carrying capacity of the Earth and result in a general collapse at some point in the first half of the 21st century.
The study results were published in the 1972 book, The Limits to Growth, which holds the record as the top-selling environmental book. The book was authored by four system dynamics scientists (Donella Meadows, Dennis Meadows, Jørgen Randers, and William Behrens III). Gaya Herrington, whose 2020 analysis of The Limits to Growth was published in Yale’s Journal of Industrial Ecology, described the study and book aptly: “the authors identified society’s relentless pursuit of growth not as the solution to, but the cause of, so many of the environmental and social crises that plague humanity still today.”
“....what is it about Homo sapiens that leads us to the limits as a moth to a flame. Why don’t we stop? Why should we? Can we?” – Brian Czech, Executive Director of the Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy
Read The Limits to Growth:
Online Read, but includes scans of pages and downloadable charts
https://collections.dartmouth.edu/teitexts/meadows/diplomatic/meadows_ltg-diplomatic.html
High Quality Scan
https://collections.dartmouth.edu/content/deliver/inline/meadows/pdf/meadows_ltg-001.pdf
Mentioned in Our Discussion of The Limits to Growth:
Limits to Growth 50th Anniversary Events - on Club of Rome website
https://www.clubofrome.org/ltg50-events/
UN Event June 2-3: Stockholm+50: a healthy planet for the prosperity of all – our responsibility, our opportunity
View live on the web:
https://www.stockholm50.global/events/programme
The Stockholm+50 Conference: What You Need to Know and Why It Matters
https://unfoundation.org/blog/post/the-stockholm50-conference-what-you-need-to-know-and-why-it-matters/
Take this survey before June 2: https://www.stockholm50.global/state-planet-global-public-survey
June 10 seminar: Limits to Growth +50: Can Economies Keep Growing Indefinitely on a Finite Planet?
Organized by: Norwegian University of Life Sciences
https://www.nmbu.no/en/faculty/landsam/department/noragric/research/seminars/node/44433
The Limits to Growth at 50: From Scenarios to Unfolding Reality - by Richard Heinberg
https://www.resilience.org/stories/2022-02-24/the-limits-to-growth-at-50-from-scenarios-to-unfolding-reality/
Limits and Beyond (New book April 2022 from the Club of Rome, a collection of essays)
https://exapt.press/books/limits-and-beyond
Nate Hagens interviews Dennis Meadows in his podcast, The Great Simplification.
https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/episode/12-dennis-meadows
Dennis Meadows on the 50th Anniversary of the Publication of The Limits to Growth - interview by Richard Heinberg
https://www.resilience.org/stories/2022-02-22/dennis-meadows-on-the-50th-anniversary-of-the-publication-of-the-limits-to-growth/
Is Global Collapse Imminent? – by Graham Turner (2014)
The Limits to Growth “standard run” (or business-as-usual, BAU) scenario produced in 1972 aligns well with historical data that has been updated in this paper
https://sustainable.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/2763500/MSSI-ResearchPaper-4_Turner_2014.pdf
Update to Limits to Growth: Comparing the World3 Model with Empirical Data - by Gaya Herrington
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jiec.13084
Come On! Capitalism, Short-termism, Population and the Destruction of the Planet - by Anders Wijkman and Ersnt Von Weizscker and with contributions from more than 30 members of the Club of Rome
https://mahb.stanford.edu/library-item/come-capitalism-short-termism-population-destruction-planet/
What a 50-year-old World Model Tells Us About a Way Forward Today - by Gaya Herrington, now vice president of ESG Research at Schneider Electric and member of The Club of Rome’s Transformational Economics Commission
https://www.clubofrome.org/blog-post/herrington-ltg50/
In this episode, we also discuss these “growthbusting news” items:
Walk Or Cycle Instead of Driving, Urges Ford Boss
https://www.forbes.com/sites/carltonreid/2022/05/16/walk-or-cycle-instead-of-driving-urges-ford-boss/?sh=2283c3ba3481
New flight of fancy for billionaires – the Air Yacht
https://theuglyminute.com/2022/05/11/air-yacht/
Back From a Touring Hiatus, Coldplay Pledges to Make Performances More Sustainable
https://www.npr.org/2022/05/14/1098947216/back-from-a-touring-hiatus-coldplay-pledges-to-make-performances-more-sustainabl
The European Environmental Bureau has launched a campaign calling on the EU to refocus from GDP Growth to Wellbeing
Campaign Page: https://eeb.org/doughnuteconomicsforall/
https://meta.eeb.org/2022/05/12/doughnut-economics-how-to-bake-a-better-future/
The 25% Revolution - film
https://vimeo.com/535791169
GrowthBusters Called Me Extreme, So I Responded - episode of This Sustainable Life podcast by Joshua Spodek
https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/this-sustainable-life-593342/episodes/583-growthbusters-called-me-ex-139440528
Mobilising Humanity Film Premier at COP26 - Ed Gemmel described his nightmare in this episode of the Planet in Crisis podcast from Scientists Warning Europe
https://planetincrisis.libsyn.com/30-mobilising-humanity-film-premier-at-cop26
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The GrowthBusters theme song was written and produced by Jake Fader and sung by Carlos Jones. https://www.fadermusicandsound.com/ https://carlosjones.com/
On the GrowthBusters podcast, we come to terms with the limits to growth, explore the joy of sustainable living, and provide a recovery program from our society’s growth addiction (economic/consumption and population). This podcast is part of the GrowthBusters project to raise awareness of overshoot and end our culture’s obsession with, and pursuit of, growth.
Dave Gardner directed the documentary GrowthBusters: Hooked on Growth, which Stanford Biologist Paul Ehrlich declared “could be the most important film ever made.” Co-host, and self-described "energy nerd," Stephanie Gardner has degrees in Environmental Studies and Environmental Law & Policy.
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