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[…] Keep reading →

Have you heard the phrase “Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution.”? It sounds extreme. Then it makes sense and you can’t see it otherwise. Similarly: nothing in sustainability works except if we first address and solve population. If you’re like most people, including me until I learned of Mechai Viravaidya and his peers, you reflexively think of China’s One Child policy or eugenics when anyone[…] Keep reading →

The notes I read from for this episode: I asked many questions on the last episode. The core ones were “why aren’t we switching to renewables and not polluting faster?” I know we can’t switch overnight, but what sets the pace? Do we know if the limits will go away, like we just need to build more factories, or maybe they won’t, like what led us to retract from supersonic[…] Keep reading →

The notes I read from for this episode: I asked many questions on the last episode. The core ones were “why aren’t we switching to renewables and not polluting faster?” I know we can’t switch overnight, but what sets the pace? Do we know if the limits will go away, like we just need to build more factories, or maybe they won’t, like what led us to retract from supersonic[…] Keep reading →

People seem to have a hard time imagining a world without growth, specifically economic growth or population growth. There’s also personal growth but I’m talking about materially measurable growth so population growth and economic growth. People seem to believe that economic growth is necessary. I’ve looked and I have not found any reasonable proof. If you know of any, please let me know. People say you need inflation to keep[…] Keep reading →

David Gardner left a well-paying mainstream job to create and star in a documentary called GrowthBusters. That’s a play on Ghostbusters. He saw the problems with growth to local communities, the national economy, the global economy, the environment and many other places. He also saw the nearly unquestioned belief that growth is good, especially GDP growth and population growth. And once you question this belief, then like a sweater unraveling[…] Keep reading →

I can’t believe it’s not obvious to everyone that driving the problems of pollution, global warming, resource depletion, extinctions, conflict over resources, pestilence, and related issues is overpopulation. It’s not the only issue, but it’s one of the main drivers. Maybe the main one. People have a weird knee-jerk response to think the opposite of overpopulation is eugenics, Nazism, killing, giving up modernity, returning to living in caves, economic collapse[…] Keep reading →