GrowthBusters

If you're planning your wedding, or have a friend planning theirs, this episode is for you. The idea of a virtual wedding seemed pretty geeky a year ago, but in the COVID era, suddenly the notion isn't so far-fetched. But if you're not going virtual, we have some other recommendations for you to shrink the footprint of your wedding. In this follow-up to episode 25 of the GrowthBusters podcast, Sar...

What should we do in response to the key messages of the 2020 documentary, Planet of the Humans ? This is a continuation of the discussion begun in part one of the webinar, Planet of the Humans: a Sequel . In part 2, our panel explores actions we can take now – to avoid terminating   human civilization. Both parts of the webinar addressed the roles of overpopulation, overconsumption and economic g...

"There are too many human beings, using too much, too fast." Those are the words of Richard Heinberg in a controversial new documentary executive produced by Michael Moore. Planet of the Humans presents us with some inconvenient truths – far more inconvenient than just the greenhouse gas effect. Yet because the film skewers some renewable energy advocates for painting an overly rosy picture that's...

Is there any use in choosing to live more sustainably if you're surrounded by an unsustainable system? There are those who argue there is little value in making efforts to trim your own ecological footprint. They lament, "It's difficult to skinny up your life when you live within a system that needs structural change," built to drive itself off a cliff. The GrowthBusters disagree. But who can you...

Stanford biologist Paul Ehrlich reflects on more than 50 years of effort to educate the public about the unsustainability of endless economic and population growth. In this special Earth Day 50 th Anniversary episode, Ehrlich discusses the challenges of getting a good university education, his work with butterflies, and a few of his over 40 books, including The Population Bomb (he shares a 50-year...

Coronavirus has brought the economies of the world to a grinding halt. The world is (almost) universally mourning the recession – almost. There is a small, but rising chorus of hopeful speculation that the increasingly apparent deficiencies of our growth-obsessed economic system make it ripe for this crisis to shock it onto a more sustainable path. We invited Brian Czech, executive director of the...

Did you know we bury enough metal in caskets each year to build a new Golden Gate Bridge? You're living your life trying to be green. Have you given any thought to the impact of the way you exit the planet? What's your final act? In this episode we explore how to exit gracefully, with a lighter footprint. Funeral director Elizabeth Fournier is known as the "green reaper," for her and work to make...

The documentary, GrowthBusters: Hooked on Growth is guaranteed to provoke conversations. Over eight years after it originally premiered, it's still being screened. Is it still relevant? What kind of conversations does it spark? After he first watched, famed Stanford biologist Paul Ehrlich wrote, "This could be the most important film ever made." You may want to screen the film in your community ar...

On a full planet, where human civilization is already in overshoot and in the process of crippling life-supporting ecosystems, it's unfortunately not possible for the world's poor, en masse, to rise out of poverty and live as richly as the even the average family in the industrialized world. There's not enough biocapacity for 8 billion people to live high on the hog, and technology has not changed...

We're back! Today's episode of the GrowthBusters podcast welcomes the New Year with the Telegraph's 11 Green New Year's Resolutions That Put the Planet First . But do they really? Whether you're considering switching to electric, eating less meat, or choosing some combination of this year's most popular green resolutions, Dave and Erika unpack the good and the confusing, and pick apart the not-so-...

We could use some good news. According to the four scholars who wrote A Finer Future , we are already experiencing some of the dramatic changes our system must undertake in order for our planet to meet the needs of future generations. This episode features a conversation with L. Hunter Lovins about the wellbeing economy and how sustainable behavior makes good business sense. Interestingly, this bo...

When the world's scientists are concerned enough about something that they issue a warning – to the world, you might think we'd all take notice. Once you get to three warnings, however, well, you start to wonder just how intelligent we humans really are. After a 1992 warning, and another in 2017, world scientists have this month issued what our guest, Stuart Scott, has termed, a "final notice." In...

Technological innovation cannot take the environmental destruction out of economic growth. Get the real facts, not the blind faith and hope, about whether "decoupling" can allow more and more "prosperity" for more and more people without also delivering more and more ecosystem collapse. Decoupling is Not a Thing In this episode, Dave and Erika take serious exception to Andrew McAfee's misguided th...

More and more young women are declaring their intention not to conceive children. BirthStrike, Conceivable Future and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have all made headlines on this point. Erika and Dave unpack the issues surrounding womanhood without motherhood in this conversation with the author of the new book, Childfree by Choice , sociologist Amy Blackstone. Amy is a professor of Sociology at the M...

There may be beer in your fridge when you open it, but that doesn't mean we aren't in the early stages of climate catastrophe. The crisis is now, this is a present threat, not a future threat, according to our guest on this episode, Jeff Nesbit. He compiled an attention-getting catalog of things unraveling around the planet in his book, This Is the Way the World Ends . Is Nesbit predicting the end...

Since 1972, study after study, and report after report, has warned we are in overshoot – the sum total of human activity is too much for the Earth's ecosystems to bear. Welcome to Overshoot explores overshoot's causes, effects, and possible solutions, as well as some of the barriers to solving the problem. This is an in-depth follow up to episode 31 of the GrowthBusters podcast, which included a l...

In seven months humanity has burned through the resources it takes the Earth a full year to replenish. This is overshoot, and yes, it is a very big deal. In 2019, Earth Overshoot Day falls on July 29. Find out how we know when "Earth Overshoot Day" falls, how and why we're operating in ecological deficit, what it means for us and our children, and what – if anything – we can do about it. Ecologica...

What's the soundtrack of human civilization's time on Earth? If we were to put ten songs into a time capsule to help historians in the future piece together what the hell humankind was doing as the planet crumbled beneath our feet, the ten songs in this episode would tell half the story. We'll have to share another ten songs in a future episode to tell the rest of the story. So here's our top ten...

Did the heroes solve a problem or make it worse? Did super-villain Thanos in the blockbuster movie, Avengers: Infinity War , solve the overshoot problem when he killed off half the beings in the universe to end overpopulation? Should the Avengers undo his deed if they can? Dave and Erika dissect Avengers: Endgame and how it treats these sustainability issues. We're looking for a podcast editor or...

Bill Maher and Steven Colbert become the first honorees on the GrowthBusters podcast's "Wall of Excellence." You'll find out why in this episode. We want to thank and celebrate influencers who help alert the public that we are in overshoot, demonstrate sustainable living in their own lives, or help educate the public about important ways we can shrink our footprints. New co-host Erika Arias introd...

Will you be able to feed your family in ten or fifteen years? Mass starvation in industrialized countries due to climate change – in the near future – is not something we read or hear about. But it's a real probability, according to Michael Brownlee, author of Taking Back Our Food Supply: How to Lead the Local Food Revolution to Reclaim a Healthy Future . In this fascinating conversation Brownlee...

What if we told you the coming climate catastrophe MAY not turn out to be as bad as we all thought? I'm not sure I'm ready to buy that, but one of our guests on this episode tells us just that. IPCC worst-case scenarios seem to forget peak oil. Limited fossil fuel supplies on the planet could be a factor. But don't break out the champagne; we still have enough fossil fuels to screw things up prett...

Love is in the air on Valentine's Day, so this seems the perfect time to learn what you can do to green up your wedding. With over 2 million weddings per year just in the U.S., greening your wedding can make a real difference. The Center for Biological Diversity's Sarah Baillie shares low-impact wedding tips from the new Wildlife-Friendly Wedding Guide. Listen for more tips and information. And by...

When you've had a tough day and need some comfort, do you go for a long hike and commune with nature, or do you get on Amazon? What gives us joy, yet what do we strive to achieve? Are we in dominion over nature, or are we part of nature? Suez Jacobson (believe it or not, an economics professor) shares why she produced the film Wild Hope , which premieres February 23, 2019 at the Colorado Environme...

How do we handle the despair of knowing we may not win this battle with climate change (which is really a battle with ourselves)? Should we keep fighting? And if we do, WHO needs to be making the drastic changes we know are needed to avoid the worst of climate change disaster? Is it you and me? The big corporations? Or is it our elected policymakers? Are we assuming too much personal responsibilit...