Sinopsis
From movies and entertainment to lifestyle, science and politics, Dana and Dave dig into the more fascinating aspects of sustainable living. Its all about ending our cultures love affair with more, which is not making us happier and is killing our planet. No half-hearted greenwashing here; we share the brutal and joyful truth! Dave directed the documentary GrowthBusters: Hooked on Growth, which Stanford Biologist Paul Ehrlich declared could be the most important film ever made. Dana Hicky is a student leader at Georgia Tech.
Episodios
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52 Shrinking Your Travel Footprint
28/12/2020 Duración: 59minIs 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 agency, and help from the experts, our choices can change the system! USEFUL LINKS: The Four Lifestyle Choices that Most Reduce Your Carbon Footprint (Lund University Study ranking carbon reduction actions) Vacation Traveler Carbon Guide – Quick Reference Chart and the stuy behind it (Union of Concerned Scientists) Getting There Greener – full report behind the above vacation guide Skyscanner greener flight booking site UCS w
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51 Philosophy of Shrinking Footprints
26/12/2020 Duración: 42minWe 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 a 501(c)3 non-profit project) Apple’s New iPhone Is Far from Green Apple is aiming for ‘zero climate impact.’ The iPhone 12 won’t help. The Story of Plastic The Story of Plastic screenings (search for The Story of Plastic) Joshua Spodek’s The Story of Plastic panel discussion Joshua Spodek's This Sustainable Life podcast On the GrowthBusters podcast, Erika and Dave explore the joy of sustainable living and provide a recovery program for our society’s growth addiction (econo
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50 Taking a Vacation from Carbon Emissions
27/10/2020 Duración: 01h07minHow 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 natural capital at local and global scales.” Find out what Hall has to say about carbon offsetting, public transportation, local food, and building a market to service communities of people. Hall says that it isn’t about avoiding travel altogether, but about how to travel smart! On the GrowthBusters podcast, Erika and Dave explore the joy of sustainable living and provide a recovery program for our society’s gr
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49 Damn, It's Earth Overshoot Day Already!
15/08/2020 Duración: 52minIf we were on a spaceship, the end really would be near – August 22. That is Earth Overshoot Day for 2020. We all know we can’t graze 100 head of cattle for long on a one-acre patch of land. We’d have a barren wasteland and a bunch of dead cattle in no time. It’s a little more challenging for us to make this calculation about meeting the needs of 7.8 billion people on a larger patch of land – the entire planet. But the laws of physics equally apply. Analysts at Global Footprint Network do an impressive job of performing this worldwide calculation. Since 2003, they’ve been analyzing UN data and satellite imagery to estimate the planet’s capacity to meet our needs (biocapacity), and humankind’s footprint - or demand (ecological footprint) - on that capacity. Their analysis suggests we have been in overshoot since about 1970. If you have too many people, consuming resources faster than the planet can regenerate them, and generating waste faster than the planet can convert that waste, you are in overshoot. This b
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48 Things Are Not Fine
05/08/2020 Duración: 01h04minPhysician Sofia Pineda Ochoa became so concerned about the future of life on Earth that she wrote, produced and directed the new documentary, Endgame 2050. “There is no human health without planetary health,” she tells us. She interviewed several notable experts in the film, but musician/environmental activist Moby provided the most brutally candid assessment of our situation: “Things are not fine.” He told Sofia we “are destroying the only home that we know of in the universe that will support life…. if we can’t change ourselves, if we can’t learn how to live in sustainable harmony with the only world that will support us, we need to go away.” The film doesn’t shy away from human overpopulation as a chief contributor to our ongoing destruction of Earth’s life-supporting ecosystems. Dr. Ochoa does more than diagnose our problem; she also offers some solutions: “I think we have a moral obligation to raise awareness about the unsustainability of our current population growth rate, and the importance of slowing
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47 Sarah’s Wildlife Friendly Wedding
08/07/2020 Duración: 42minIf 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, Sarah Baillie reports on how she made her wedding “wildlife friendly.” Sarah wrote the Wildlife Friendly Wedding Guide, and told us about this before her own wedding in episode 25 (link below). At the time she was just embarking on planning her own wedding, so we invited her back to report on the blessed event. Sarah is Endangered Species Condoms Coordinator at the Center for Biological Diversity, so we also asked her for an update on this program (we are big fans), especially during the pandemic period of isolation. The Wildlife-friendly Wedding Guide (e-version is free) How to Have a Green Wedding – GrowthBusters Epis
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46: 1-See Planet of the Humans; 2-Resolve Overshoot
12/06/2020 Duración: 01h35minWhat 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 background in Biology and Earth System Science, Kristine has worked as a medical researcher, a science reporter for the congressional record in the U.S. House of Representatives, and a science teacher. She holds a PhD in Environment and Resources. Her writing encompasses issues of social and environmental justice, public health, risk, and science. Brian Czech: Executive director of the Center for the Advancement of t
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45 Planet of the Humans: What Did the Film Get Right?
28/05/2020 Duración: 01h32min“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 not 100% accurate, there’s been a lot of backlash and effort to keep the film from being seen. In the film, director Jeff Gibbs notes: “It was becoming clear that what we had been calling green, renewable energy, and industrial civilization are one and the same – desperate measures not to save the planet, but to save our way of life.” We think the most important messages of the film are just too critical to avoid, so GrowthBusters teamed up with World Population Balance to co-host the webinar, Planet of the Humans: a Sequel. You can view a video replay of that webinar here. Or you can listen to the audio of the webi
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44 Just Sitting Around Waiting for the World to End
08/05/2020 Duración: 57minIs 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 turn to for good advice on this? An astrophysicist, of course! We’re joined in this episode by NYU professor Joshua Spodek. Yes, he has a degree in astrophysics, but these days he’s busy teaching and coaching leadership and entrepreneurship, doing TEDx talks, authoring best-selling books, blogging daily, and hosting his own podcast. It takes Joshua a year to accumulate a load of trash, and he hasn’t hopped on a plane in four years. So when it comes to both the joy, and the value, of individual planet-saving action, Josh is our guy. Here is the complete email from Rob Boman in Oregon (we shared a portion of it on the
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43 Paul Ehrlich - Uncensored on Earth Day 50th Anniversary
22/04/2020 Duración: 01h18minStanford 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 50th 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-old secret about a mistake on the front cover). Plus: Dinner with Johnny Carson, butterfly graffiti, and why the climate crisis has never captured our full attention like the COVID-19 pandemic has. We also make an important announcement: In honor of the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, and the fact that most of us are sheltering in place, we’re making access to the documentary, GrowthBusters: Hooked on Growth, and archived recordings of a series of GrowthBusters webinars, free from April 22 through April 29 (2020). Here’s the link to get access. EARTH DAY 50th ANNIVERSARY LINKS: GrowthBusters Documentary Free Screening
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42 The Silver Lining of COVID Induced Recession
09/04/2020 Duración: 54minCoronavirus 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 Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy (CASSE) to explain how this recession is “setting up a brighter future for the generations to come.” Our “suicidal obsession with economic growth has caused us to make some bad deals. What happens at the end of the recession is what really matters. Have we learned enough about the shortcomings of GDP growth on a full planet to NOT climb right back on that horse? LINKS: Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy (CASSE) Shoveling Fuel for a Runaway Train by Brian Czech Supply Shock: Economic Growth at the Crossroads and the Steady State Solution by
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41 Bury Mom in the Back Yard? The Ins & Outs of Green Burial
15/03/2020 Duración: 35minDid 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 information about “going green,” as your last heroic act of volunteerism, readily available to the public. Families can feel pressure, sometimes of their own making, to send someone off in high style. Fournier’s book, The Green Burial Guidebook: Everything You Need to Plan an Affordable, Environmentally Friendly Burial, is a practical guide that can help you make decisions that are lighter on the planet, and happen to reduce funeral and burial costs. She owns and operates Cornerstone Funeral Services in the small town of Boring, Oregon. But we can promise you this episode is anything but boring. LINKS: The Green Bur
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40 Is GrowthBusters a Good Earth Day Movie?
13/02/2020 Duración: 50minThe 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 join him in the studio to discuss his response. This conversation was recorded nearly a year ago; it just kept being pushed aside as more time-sensitive topics and guests arose. Finally, we’re sharing it now. Erika had not yet joined the podcast when we recorded this. Sean Svette is very active in the local food community/movement in Colorado Springs. He’s an instructor at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, and played
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39 You Have to Stay Poor – I’m Having a Steak
23/01/2020 Duración: 46minOn 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 from GrowthBusters Episode 35, Decoupling Nonsense, in which they critiqued the unrealistic premise of Andrew McAfee’s latest book, More from Less: The Surprising Story of How We Learned to Prosper Using Fewer Resources-and What Happens Next. After listening to that episode, Terry Spahr, executive producer of the film 8 Billion Angels, sent a thoughtful email with some particularly interesting ideas. So we invited him to join us on
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38 Sustainable New Year’s Resolutions
08/01/2020 Duración: 46minWe’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 you want to make.” – Jane Goodall Get some unusually good sustainability resolution recommendations from us in this episode, and learn how Dave and Erika are challenging themselves. Erika makes a VERY big footprint-reducing resolution. Listen to find out what it is. Will she be able to keep it? They tell us 80% of people give up on their resolutions by February, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be the change you want to see! Being one of her favorit
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37 A Finer Future?
12/12/2019 Duración: 01h12minWe 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 book grew out of a homework assignment from the King of Bhutan. Please think of us in your year-end giving. GrowthBusters is a non-profit project funded by YOU. DONATE HERE Hunter Lovins is President and Founder of Natural Capitalism Solutions. She co-founded the Rocky Mountain Institute, and co-authored (with Paul Hawken and Amory Lovins) the landmark book, Natural Capitalism. Lovins consults on sustainability for corporate giants and world leaders. She also finds time to serve as professor of sustainable business at Bard MBA. This conversation was recorded in February of 2019, with introduction and close recorded in D
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36 Don’t Make Me Stop this Spaceship!
15/11/2019 Duración: 57minWhen 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 this episode we visit with the man who offered to help the world’s scientists step up to the microphone and be heard. Scott is the founder and Executive Director of the Union of Concerned Citizens of Earth. He’s taken on the mission of helping the world’s scientists communicate well with everyday people. The most recent warning, by the Alliance of World Scientists, is titled World Scientists’ Warning of a Climate Emergency, and was published in the November issue of the professional journal, Bioscience. It begins: “Scientists have a moral obligation to clearly warn humanity of any catastrophic threat and to ‘tell it
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35 Decoupling Nonsense
30/10/2019 Duración: 01h01minTechnological 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 interviewing McAfee, Dave assures her it is utter nonsense. But first… Individual Action vs. Waiting for System ChangeDo individual actions really matter in the face of the climate crisis? Or are they a distraction from critically needed system change? Should we all be flying less, reducing our meat consumption, and/or having fewer children? Or do we wait until government regulations incentivize us
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34 Coming Out as Childfree
04/10/2019 Duración: 01h07minMore 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 national, regional, and international outlets. Childfree by Choice: The Movement Redefining Family & Creating a New Age of Independence is a definitive investigation into the history and current growing movement of adults choosing to forgo parenthood: what it means for our society, economy, environment, perceived gender roles, and legacies, and how understanding and supporting all types of families ca
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33 Is the End Near?
14/08/2019 Duración: 55minThere 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 places too much faith in technology and wish he shared their belief that changing individual behavior and contracting our population are both critical parts of limiting climate disruption. Erika has a great notion: there is a “sweet spot” between too much technology and not enough. And don’t get them started on economic growth (oops, too late!). PLUS: Erika can’t help but laugh at a piece critical of ecological footprint accounting and Earth Overshoot Day, written by Michael Schellenberger of t