—Systemic change begins with personal change—
Christopher has been a freelance writer for more than 20 years and has published in Harper’s, CounterPunch, National Geographic, Hustler, Penthouse, the New York Times, Pacific Standard, Sierra, Earth Island Journal, Vanity Fair, The New Republic, Rolling Stone, Mother Jones, Salon, and many other websites and newspapers large and small.
His book This Land: How Cowboys, Capitalism, and Corruption are Ruining the American West is a product of those years in the last wild places. He currently lives in the Catskill Mountains of New York.
Christopher may be the most direct, accurate reporter on sustainability. Our last conversation treated his helpful and accurate reporting on the book Limits to Growth. Today we start from his (in my opinion) excellent article The Green Growth Delusion, in which he reports on the futility and false promise of chasing growth. It's tempting, alluring, and seductive to believe technology, growth, or economic trickery will save us, but wanting to believe something doesn't make it true, even if you really want to believe it. As before, Christopher doesn't hold back, nor does he speak inaccurately. I recommend reading the article first, though you won't go wrong listening right now. Here's how it starts: In the annals of industrial civilization, the Green New Deal counts as one of the more ambitious projects. Its scale is vast, promising to reform every aspect of how we power our machines, light our homes and fuel our cars. At this late hour of ecological and climate crisis, the Green New Deal is also an act of desperation. Our energy-ravenous culture cannot continue producing carbon without destroying the systems that are the basis of any advanced civilization, not to mention life itself. Something must be done, and quickly, to moderate the pressure on the atmospheric sink while powering the economic machine. The consensus on the need for scaling up renewable energy is rarely disturbed by a disquieting possibility: What if techno-industrial society as currently conceived — based on ever-increasing GDP, global trade and travel, and complex global production and distribution chains designed to satisfy the rich world’s unquenchable appetite for bigger, faster, more of everything — what if that simply cannot function without energy-dense fossil fuels? What if, despite the promises of Green New Deal boosters, it is impossible to make sustainable the current system that provides billions of people sustenance, shelter, goods?
Reading Christopher's story in the Pacific Standard, The Fallacy of Endless Economic Growth What economists around the world get wrong about the future, made me contact him. It was one of the only reviews of criticism of our culture's attempting to grow the economy and population forever that didn't prioritize growth dogma over understanding. The article centered on the book Limits to Growth, its analysis, and the unhinged criticism of it. I had to look up his other work too. I recommend following up at his page, which links to his writing and Denatured, his journalism nonprofit. From the moment he starts talking in this conversation, he lays down basic, common sense understanding of our culture's fundamental tenets, which he calls growthism. To my ears, it sounds like what we see in front of our noses all the time, yet few to no one with prominent voices will say it. He talks about how we got this way, how things could be different, how he came to write for such prominent magazines, and more. He is at times serious, funny, calm, exasperated, and always authentic, genuine, and honest. I hope you know people who understand things as Christopher does and is as outspoken with what they've learned. I believe everyone should hear messages like his periodically. Our culture tries to drown such voices out, but what he says is too clear and makes too much sense to remain silenced.