Shows
GrowthBustersThe Good Ancestor: Is There an Intergenerational Golden Rule?How often do you think about the effect of your actions today on the wellbeing of future generations? What do we owe our children’s children? Are we capable of responsibly delivering on that debt? Philosopher Roman Krznaric explored these questions in the book, The Good Ancestor: A Radical Prescription for Long-Term Thinking. Krznaric thinks we do, and we can: “...humankind has always had the innate ability to plan for posterity and take action that will resonate for decades, centuries, even millennia to come. If we want to be good ancestors and be remembered well by the generations who foll...
2021-04-2054 minGrowthBustersFinding Common GroundCan we achieve some unity without giving up our integrity and core values? That’s a very current conundrum, so this seems the perfect time for us to publish this conversation. We confess we recorded this conversation last May! Apologies to our guests for the long delay. We could not make up a believable excuse that would keep our integrity intact. When it seems like we can’t agree on even the simplest choices, one has to wonder if humanity will ever find common ground and a way out of the climate crisis. Kevin Wilhelm and...
2021-02-0450 minGrowthBustersShrinking Your Travel FootprintIs flying always the worst travel choice for climate stability? Is traveling by rail always the best? You might be surprised. In this episode of GrowthBusters, Dave shares his research on this subject with co-host Erika Arias and frequent guest Joshua Spodek. We also share a great cheat-sheet, Getting There Greener – The guide to Your Lower Carbon Vacation, from the Union of Concerned Scientists. We’d like to remind listeners that while it may seem like the system is stacked against us, we really do have choices about how to transport ourselves. With a little bit of creativity, personal agen...
2020-12-2859 minGrowthBustersPhilosophy of Shrinking FootprintsWe set out to make this the second of a series of episodes about shrinking our travel footprint, but the conversation ended up being a broader exploration of philosophical issues related to all kinds of footprint-shrinking actions. Erika and Dave are joined by recurring guest, Joshua Spodek, host of the This Sustainable Life podcast. The conversation includes: The joy of not flying Generating a lot less waste Is the new iPhone really green? And plastic, plastic, plastic. MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE: Donate to Support this Podcast (yes, it’s...
2020-12-2642 minGrowthBustersTaking a Vacation from Carbon EmissionsHow far will you go in your quest to shrink your carbon footprint? What’s eco-tourism, and is it really ecologically responsible? International tourism accounts for 8% of all carbon emissions in the world, and transportation of all types accounts for an even greater proportion of of our carbon emissions. In the first of several episodes about shrinking our travel footprint, Dave and Erika chat with Dr. Michael Hall, Professor in the Department of Management, Marketing and Entrepreneurship at University of Canterbury in New Zealand. According to Hall, “tourism leads to the short and long term decline of natu...
2020-10-271h 07GrowthBusters1-See Planet of the Humans; 2-Resolve OvershootWhat 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 growth in the most serious environmental crises we face. The webinar was co-hosted by GrowthBusters and World Population Balance. Panelists: Kristine Mattis: An interdisciplinary environmental scholar with a bac...
2020-06-121h 35GrowthBustersIs GrowthBusters a Good Earth Day Movie?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 around Earth Day this year. It sparked such a spirited discussion as part of an Earth Day screening attended by filmmaker Dave Gardner in 2019, that he invited one of the audience members to joi...
2020-02-1350 minGrowthBustersYou Have to Stay Poor – I’m Having a SteakOn 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 that. But “reputable” economists and technology Pollyanna’s like Andrew McAfee routinely fail to recognize this. In this episode, Dave and Erika respond to the surge of listener feedback fro...
2020-01-2346 minGrowthBustersSustainable New Year’s ResolutionsWe’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-great. “You cannot get through a single day without having an impact on the world around you. What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference...
2020-01-0846 minGrowthBustersDecoupling NonsenseTechnological 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 ThingIn this episode, Dave and Erika take serious exception to Andrew McAfee’s misguided thesis in his latest book, More from Less: The Surprising Story of How We Learned to Prosper Using Fewer Resources—and What Happens Next. Erika really likes Sam Harris’ podcast, Making Sense, but when it comes to his episode...
2019-10-311h 01GrowthBustersComing Out as ChildfreeMore 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 Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center at University of Maine. Her research into the childfree choice has appeared in a variety of academic and media sources including the New York Times, National Public Radio, and other nati...
2019-10-041h 07
CausepodsPushing Sustainable Living with Dave Gardner of GrowthBustersDave Gardner is the director of the documentary, GrowthBusters: Hooked on Growth and host of the GrowthBusters podcast which is a part of GrowthBusters project, which promotes sustainable living (perpetual growth in the scale of the human enterprise is physically impossible, and our pursuit of continued growth of our economy and human population is stressing and injuring Earth\'s life-supporting ecosystems). Project began as a documentary (GrowthBusters: Hooked on Growth) released in 2011.Key TopicsIntroducing Dave Gardner and his podcast. [00:47]How Dave got into his work on sustainable living [01:12]The reason behind why Dave s...
2019-09-1923 minGrowthBustersIs the End Near?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 of the world? Listen to this episode to find out. In their discussion of Jeff’s book and interview, Erika and Dave agree he pla...
2019-08-1455 minGrowthBustersWe're in Deep: Earth Overshoot Day 2019In 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. Ecological footprint co-originator Mathis Wackernagel joins Erika and Dave for an in-depth discussion of overshoot. He explains the rigorous analysis done by the Global Footprint Network (w...
2019-07-241h 30GrowthBustersOvershoot Playlist: Top 10 Environmental SongsWhat’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 (five curated by Erika and five picked by Dave). Music licensing restrictions prevent us from sharing these songs in full...
2019-06-1544 minGrowthBustersAvengers: Endgame – I Cut the Population in Half; Don’t Make Me Do This AgainDid 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 producer with great audio editing skills. If you’re interested, email us. LINKS: The Science of Avengers: Endgame Proves Thanos Did Nothing Wrong by JV Ch...
2019-05-3040 minGrowthBustersMasturbate, Don't ProcreateBill 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 introduces herself. She is very interested in the voluntary child-free choice and hopes to do research in this area in the future. She shares a clip from a recent episode of Real Tim...
2019-05-1537 min