99: Unless Someone Like You Cares a Whole Awful Lot
GrowthBusters
Who can we count on to make the dramatic changes needed in a civilization in ecological overshoot? Will it have to be the leaders of tomorrow? And are they up to it? We take the pulse of students at the University of Denver just wrapping up an ecological economics class. The class conversation took place in May, 2025. Special thanks to Professor Paul Sutton for devoting a class period to this conversation (incidentally, Paul has since retired from teaching and joined the board of GrowthBusters). MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE: - by Gary Wockner Gary was a guest on episode 91 of the...
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98: In Memory of Richard Heinberg 1950 – 2026
GrowthBusters
Brilliant journalist and educator Richard Heinberg passed away July 19 from pancreatic cancer. In his honor we’re sharing my last conversation with him here, about what turned out to be his last book, Power: Limits and Prospects for Human Survival. This conversation was published as Episode 59 of the GrowthBusters podcast - Too Much of a Good Thing: Richard Heinberg, in October of 2021. Learn a lot more about Richard in my introduction. LINKS: , including his monthly newsletter Museletter - Episode 59 of the GrowthBusters podcast: Give Us Feedback: Record a voice message for...
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97: The Wit and Wisdom of Paul Ehrlich
GrowthBusters
Continuing our tribute to the late Paul Ehrlich, we discuss the critiques and praise that followed news of his passing, and we share a VERY candid – and charming – “uncensored” 2020 Earth Day conversation. Paul points out a flaw on the cover of The Population Bomb. Can you guess what it is? Listen to find out. In our prelude and epilogue, we discuss his acerbic wit – was it helpful or did it hurt the cause of overshoot literacy? One fact is certain: Paul wasn’t boring. What if thousands of scientists around the world spoke with Ehrlich’s level of candor about the state of...
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96: Paul Ehrlich (1932-2026): Behaving Against Our Interests
GrowthBusters
We lost scientific and environmental icon Paul Ehlich on March 13. We’re honoring his memory by revisiting Dave Gardner’s first interview with Paul, outside his Stanford University office in 2007 for the documentary, GrowthBusters: Hooked on Growth. Ehrlich was most famous for authoring, with wife Anne Ehrlich, the bestselling 1968 book, The Population Bomb. While the book inspired widespread concern about human overpopulation, those who profited from growth worked to discredit the book, the scientist, and the notion that human numbers above 2 or 3 billion would seriously harm our...
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95: Technology – Fast and Furious Into Overshoot
GrowthBusters
The academy awarding the Nobel Prize in Economics is still drinking pro-growth Kool-Aid, while spiritual leader Acharya Prashant is serving up a healthier recipe - insightful truth about ecological overshoot. We examine both in this episode. Technology headlines much of the conversation. “Technology is not a way out of overshoot; it is a slower way in,” according to Prashant. MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE: Nobel Prize press release: How Technological Progress Leads to Economic Growth, An Interview With 2025 Nobel Prize Winner Joel Mokyr: About The Sorcerer’s Apprentice: The...
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94: Reporting on Population – Sense and Nonsense
GrowthBusters
Population growth is making headlines for the wrong reason or with a biased perspective. It’s too easy to draw erroneous conclusions about dropping fertility rates around the world. A surge of news stories from NPR compels us to offer both praise and criticism. Population growth appears to be coming to an end, and that’s getting all the oxygen, not the fact that we have an overpopulation crisis. In fact, the word “overpopulation” is not heard even once in the 16 stories we analyzed. Because the subject is brushed under the rug, reported infrequently or inaccurately, widespread...
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93: Ezra Klein’s Abundance Delusion
GrowthBusters
Just say “NO.” Some approaches to “abundance” are healthy, but one brand of abundance that’s been capturing the cultural moment lately is a recipe for a dead planet. Dave and Stephanie assess key points made by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson in their book, Abundance. The result, a sound thrashing. The authors believe “America needs to build and invent more of the things it needs.” They advocate eliminating regulatory barriers that are keeping us from getting more, faster. Conservation and environmental stewardship are not on the agenda. Klein is a columnist for The New York Times...
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92: Economic Wisdom from the Natural World – The Serviceberry
GrowthBusters
In this trial run for the “GrowthBusters Book Club,” we discuss The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World - by Robin Wall Kimmerer. Cannibal economies, gift economies, reciprocity, and doughnut economics all come up. Sally Gillespie in her Substack column, Psyche’s Nest wrote this about Kimmerer’s book: “As disruptions and destructions reach our communities in all manner of ways, acts of kindness and generosity are already challenging modernity’s stories of ‘never enough’ and ‘you’re on your own’. Often led by those on the margins, we are...
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91: Growth Addiction and Water in the American Southwest – with Gary Wockner
GrowthBusters
Prolific river protector Gary Wockner gives us the straight scoop on the state of the Colorado River (and others), and the growth obsession that keeps southwest states and cities from responding rationally to increasingly scarce water resources. TODAY, nearly half the world’s population experiences severe water shortages at least part of the year. So far, fresh water issues in the American Southwest amount – mostly - to first world problems – like “I can’t water my lawn whenever I want,” “it’s hard to keep the golf course lush and green with less water,” or “How can...
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90: Degrowth – by Design or Disaster
GrowthBusters
Learn about a new think tank that’s doing some of the most important thinking on the planet. Matt Orsagh is co-founder of the Arketa Institute for Post-Growth Finance and co-author of a just-published white paper, By Disaster Or Design: How Finance Can Evolve to Avoid the Worst of the Ecological Challenges We Face and Enable the Transition to a Better Economic Model. That paper, and this episode, offer an introduction to degrowth, the rational response for a society in ecological overshoot. Degrowth is “an equitable downscaling of production and consumption that increases human well-being...
info_outlineWho can we count on to make the dramatic changes needed in a civilization in ecological overshoot? Will it have to be the leaders of tomorrow? And are they up to it? We take the pulse of students at the University of Denver just wrapping up an ecological economics class. The class conversation took place in May, 2025.
Special thanks to Professor Paul Sutton for devoting a class period to this conversation (incidentally, Paul has since retired from teaching and joined the board of GrowthBusters).
MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
Is the Colorado River in a Climate Doom Loop? - by Gary Wockner
Gary was a guest on episode 91 of the GrowthBusters podcast a year ago:
Growth Addiction and Water in the American Southwest
Bright Future Project – Dave Gardner’s presidential campaign platform
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The GrowthBusters theme song was written and produced by Jake Fader and sung by Carlos Jones.
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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