World Population Day (and we’re still avoiding the subject)Posted by Dave Gardner on Jul 11, 2010Today fifteen on-camera performers and a volunteer crew of 10 will be joining me in a big Hollywood production. We’re shooting a video visualizing what our world might look like in a future where continued overpopulation and over-consumption have led to worldwide resource scarcity and social conflict. It will be a scary picture. Will this kind of shock therapy work? Will audiences view this science fiction scenario and immediately change their own lives, get over the taboo on discussing responsible family-size decisions, and step up efforts to change a system hooked on growth? The truth is we don’t know. Some sustainability advocates advise that instead of pointing out the dangers of where we’re headed, we should focus on painting an optimistic picture of where we want to go. They’re dead certain doom and gloom won’t sell an idea. And they may be right. Yet, there is no evidence it’s any more effective to follow the advice of that old song: “eliminate the negative, and accentuate the positive.” No one has ever complained about doom and gloom when someone shouted a warning that kept a person from stepping off the curb in front of an oncoming bus. So I think we should grow up and be willing to discuss both the negative consequences of business-as-usual and the joys of stepping off the hamsterwheel of growth addiction. I suspect there are benefits to both messages of hope and red flags of warning. Both have a role to play. Along these lines, I don’t think it serves us well to tiptoe around a subject just because it’s unpleasant or unpopular. I spoke out about this last year in this appearance on Inside Story, broadcast by Al Jazeera English on World Population Day in 2009: When the negative baggage associated with population control was brought up, I responded, “what about population information?” It is time we openly discuss overpopulation and educate everyone around the world, rich or poor, dark-skinned or light, about the ramifications of their family-size decisions. There is nothing draconian or racist about that. In fact it is a very humanitarian, loving, and compassionate idea – to act responsibly so that our children can have a good life. I also advocated for citizens to give organizations and elected officials permission to address this issue openly and honestly. As it happens, today is once again World Population Day. And I am disappointed, yet again, that World Population Day statements from the U.N. Secretary-General and UNFPA Executive Director intentionally tap dance around the subject of overpopulation. All I can say is, “Good grief! Get a backbone!” Dave Gardner is producing the non-profit documentary, Hooked on Growth: Our Misguided Quest for Prosperity. Everything You Wanted to Know About GrowthBustersPosted by Dave Gardner on May 24, 2010Want a detailed explanation of my film, Hooked on Growth – why I’m making it, why we need it, what I hope to accomplish, how the film will be seen? Then drop in for a few beers with Steve! I’m the guest on the popular podcast, Two Beers With Steve. You can hear my episode here. On a completely different subject, I’m about to head out on a 3.5 week whirlwind tour of the U.S. East Coast to capture interviews and case studies for the film, and I need your help. Would you like to join the crew when I’m in your area? Or offer a couch or guest-room to a weary filmmaker on shoestring budget? With our lean budget, I’m avoiding hotels and I’m not hiring grips or camera assistants. We’ll be shooting some fascinating material and interviewing some of the leading thinkers on economics, environment, psychology and politics. Here’s my schedule. Please call or email me right away if you can provide lodging and/or want to be on the crew when I’m filming in your area. May 27-28 Charlottesville, VA May 29-June 3 Washington DC June 3 Annapolis & Baltimore June 4-8 New York City June 8-9 Long Island June 9-11 Burlington, VT June 14 Strafford, VT June 14-16 Boston, MA June 17-18 Montague, MA The east coast of Chesapeake Bay will be fit in here at some point, also. Call me at 719-576-5565, or email me. GrowthBusters Network Pitches In For West Coast ShootPosted by Dave Gardner on May 16, 2010I’m sitting in a coffee shop in San Francisco, on the final day of a ten-day West Coast filming trip. In my 30 years traveling the globe directing films for airlines, energy and chemical companies, software firms and public television, I always had a decent expense account. So this is the first time I’ve couch-surfed rather than stay at hotels, the first time I’ve dined in the car or a grocery store instead of Outback Steakhouse. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and water have gotten us by. Necessity was behind the decision to tap the GrowthBusters support network for accomodations. Since we’ve so far raised only a modest percentage of our production budget for the film, Hooked on Growth, I have to be creative to capture the material we need while spending as little as possible. It was no surprise, but still remarkable, that relying on the generosity of kindred spirits is much more rewarding than falling back on the old habit of Hampton Inn and Starbucks. At every stop I met the most amazing people — enlightened and inspired to live a life where less is more: less commerce and more community, less consumption and more sharing. There is a phenomenal grass roots network of people and organizations around the world waking up from our collective trance and creating new ways to live after growth addiction.
The next night one of the Vancouver De-Growth Conferenceorganizers, Irene Stupka, and her roommates Laura and Chad offered us great company and a night’s lodging in their compact apartment. We enjoyed sharing thoughts and experiences around the kitchen table late that night after the evening’s conference film screenings. The next few nights ecological economist Tom Green shared his apartment and showed us some really creative videos his students have been making about economic growth. I’ll share these in a later post.
In Portland I finally got to meet prolific longtime GrowthBusters volunteer Albert Kaufman, who offered his house as an interview location. And we stayed overnight with another GrowthBuster, Ralph Risch. Ralph, his wife Amy and kids showed us their low-impact lifestyle, which includes chickens, bees and produce in the back yard. We also connected with a new member of the GrowthBusters Volunteer Network, Nancy, who can’t wait to put her passion to work geting our film finished and seen.
Tired, hungry and parched after a long day shooting lakes, aqueducts and pumping plants, Jason and I dragged ourselves up the stairs in San Francisco to be greeted by amazing food and wine and a small gathering of young Transition activists, courtesy of our hosts, Johnny and Colin. They saw keeping us fed and sheltered as a great contribution to the film, and they were right. Finally, Kent and Mary in Palo Alto opened their doors to us, grilled me thoroughly about the GrowthBusters project, and shared a few laughs as we watched my Endangered Species Condoms video on YouTube.
Must close for now. I’ve got to drop Jason at the train station to head toward his summer job in Kings Canyon National Park, shoot one last interview in Oakland, miraculously pack our production gear into two 48-pound suitcases, and then wing my way back to my own bed in Colorado. (written on 2010/05/08)
Dave Gardner is directing the non-profit documentary, Hooked on Growth: Our Misguided Quest for Prosperity. For more information and to become a GrowthBuster, visit www.growthbusters.org Miracle Cure for World’s Environmental ProblemsPosted by Dave Gardner on May 04, 2010I found a great cause that can feed the hungry, reduce poverty, cut CO2 emissions, provide clean water for all, help us survive after peak oil, reduce sprawl, preserve wildlands, eliminate traffic congestion, restore collapsing fisheries and save endangered species. How could there possibly be one solution to all these challenges?
People stopped to ask, “How can you possibly offer solutions to all these problems?” This provided the opportunity to explain (as Jason was doing in this photo) how pursuit of economic growth and failure to stabilize or reduce population is currently erasing most, if not all, the gains we make in addressing today’s environmental issues. Our project, of course, is production of the film, Hooked on Growth: Our Misguided Quest for Prosperity. Its purpose is to help us recognize our addiction, identify the pushers and resist their siren song. Physicist Al Bartlett summed it up well when he wrote,
Suffice it to say, we gave people some food for thought. Too Big to Succeed! Bill McKibben’s new book, EaarthPosted by Dave Gardner on Apr 13, 2010
Who knew Yogi Berra would be so prescient? I just finished Bill McKibben’s newest book, Eaarth: Making A Life On A Tough New Planet, and I am giving it three thumbs up. The book chillingly catalogs how the human enterprise has remade the face of the planet – and in the process created what could be a terrifying future. But it also offers hope. And part of that hope is really not even debatable: the end of growth. After reading his Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future a few years ago, I caught up with McKibben in Boulder, Colorado to interview him for my documentary, Hooked on Growth. It was an outstanding conversation (see a clip below). In both book and interview he had some brilliant observations and recommendations for humankind to move in a more sustainable direction. Shortly after our interview he launched the Step It Up and then 350.org campaigns to raise awareness and encourage action to reduce carbon emissions. These were no small feats. CNN described the 350.org day of climate action last October as “the most widespread day of political action in the planet’s history.” For the past couple of years McKibben has put a laser-like focus on climate change. So much so, I hadn’t even bothered to keep him updated on my film, in which climate change is just one of a long list of evidence we are bumping up against the limits to growth on a finite planet. So I was a bit surprised, and thrilled, that much of Eaarth is devoted to limits to growth and why we’re about to enter a post-growth world. McKibben sums up the purpose of the book:
He observes, “I don’t think the growth paradigm can rise to the occasion; I think the system has met its match.” As I’ve campaigned to get my own community, as well as the world, into a recovery program for growth addiction, I’ve learned there is nothing in our modern world as sacred as growth. While the famous Club of Rome report, Limits to Growth in 1972 began a global dialog about the unsustainability of economic growth, over the last few decades most of the mainstream environmental movement decided economic growth was too revered to even try to dismantle. It became politically incorrect to question continued, perpetual economic growth. Today that’s evidenced by all the talk about green jobs. In order to jolt us out of our carbon-intensive ways, the environmental movement has resorted to greenwash. We can combat climate change and put everyone back to work – in the new green, clean-energy economy. McKibben bravely acknowledges,
He quotes Al Gore and UN Secretary General Ban Kimoon in a Financial Times essay: “we need to make ‘growing green’ our mantra.” If we’re honest with ourselves, it’s not that simple. We cannot keep growing or even maintain the scale of the current global economy just by making it green. Not if we want our civilization to survive in any recognizable form. So I find it gratifying to read McKibben acknowledge in Eaarth that green technology alone is not going to save us. We need a sea change, a shift out of the perpetual growth paradigm.
My hope is this book might re-ignite the fire over the unsustainability of economic growth (after all, that is one of the main premises of my film, Hooked on Growth). It will no doubt enlighten many who weren’t around when limits to growth were being discussed back in the 1970s. He understands and explains our cultural obsession with growth:
McKibben takes us to task for ignoring two decades of climate change warnings, forgetting the forecasts of Limits to Growth, and pretending oil supplies will never run out. We’ve so far failed to recognize that the human enterprise has matured:
But we have clearly hit the limits. While McKibben focuses primarily on evidence and impacts of climate change, he provides other evidence that the size of our enterprise has peaked. Since 1986 per-capita grain yield has been declining (grain yields stagnated while population continued to climb). In spite of a host of technological advancements in agriculture, in spite of multi-national industrial-scale farming, new chemicals, genetically engineered crops and sophisticated automation, the amount of food per person has been dropping for over a quarter century.
After painting a rather bleak picture of the predicament in which we find ourselves, McKibben spends the last half of the book exploring ways we can, and probably will, survive. He introduces us to pieces of the puzzle forming an alternative, post-growth world. He mentions movements such as slow food, slow cities, slow design, slow money. He discusses the importance of community. Over 4,000 local currency projects.
He writes that in a hot, post-growth world, decision making needs to slide toward local levels. We need to scale down. Growth was about big, about centralization. Now it’s time for localization. He observes the failure rate of big banks during the recession has been seven times greater than that of small banks. American states and cities have done far more than the federal government to fight climate change. Small, family-owned and managed farms are making a comeback, and we’re learning how to grow better food with less machinery and fertilizer. The number of farmer’s markets has quadrupled in the last decade. Bill McKibben leaves the reader with a sense of impending doom: life as we know it cannot continue. But he also leaves us with a prescription for – at worst – getting by; for making the best of a bad situation. But many, McKibben included, believe some of the needed adjustments will actually improve our lives. McKibben reminds us the founder of Club of Rome (sponsor of the Limits to Growth study) stated, “The future is no longer what it was thought to be…,” bringing that funny Yogi Berra aphorism home in what is turning out to be a very chilling, but also promising way. Dave Gardner is producing the non-profit documentary, Hooked on Growth: Our Misguided Quest for Prosperity. For more information or to join the cause, visit www.GrowthBusters.org. Stewart Udall, January 31, 1920 – March 20, 2010Posted by Dave Gardner on Mar 22, 2010
The environmental and sustainability movements lost a great champion Saturday with the passing of Stewart Udall. Mr. Udall left an indelible mark on the planet by protecting vast areas of North America from the indelible mark of encroachment by humankind. For the past two years I’d been hoping to make a short trip down the freeway to Santa Fe, New Mexico to chat with Mr. Udall and capture an interview for my film, Hooked on Growth. The fact I procrastinated adds a little to my sadness. The good news is he does appear on the silver screen in the documentary Earth Days, coming to PBS April 19 in the U.S.
As U.S. Secretary of the Interior in the 1960s, Stewart Udall oversaw the creation of 4 national parks, 6 national monuments, 9 national recreation areas, 50 wildlife refuges and 8 national seashores. His son Tom and nephew Mark Udall carry on his legacy as they serve today in the U.S. Senate. I’d like to memorialize Stewart Udall with a few of his own words that struck a chord for me:
From a letter he and his wife wrote to their grandchildren:
Save the Polar Bear in Your BedroomPosted by Dave Gardner on Mar 10, 2010It’s been a great night. Romantic dinner for two. Fine organic wine. A little dancing in the living room. John Klemmer’s saxophone is putting you in the mood. It’s the right time of the night…for making love. Good thing you have the right tool in your hands to save the polar bear – an endangered species condom.
Photo by Ansgar Walk Scientists estimate that 25 years ago our population and consumption levels began to exceed Earth’s capacity to sustain us. Yet for years it’s been politically incorrect to suggest we humans ought to put a lid on our impulse to reproduce. So incorrect, in fact, that many environmental organizations have been unwilling to admit human population growth is a major contributor to the environmental devastation they’re fighting. Most groups settle for just slowing down the rate of destruction, for fear that campaigning for responsible population policies would limit membership or funding. So I was impressed when the Center for Biological Diversity came up with Endangered Species Condoms (for use by humans!). Here is an environmental organization that dares to tell the truth about the causes of species extinction. I enthusiastically volunteered to pass out the condoms, and I’d like to share my adventures with you in this video. There are two profound reasons we should all care deeply about this issue. One is, of course, that all species have a right to coexist with us on the planet. The second is that Earth’s ecosystems are our life support. We need a healthy, diverse abundance of plant and animal life in order to survive and thrive. The Center’s endangered species condoms have been such a big hit, they’ve had to order another run. So it’s not too late. You can still volunteer to help spread the word about the correlation between unsustainable human population growth and the decline and extinction of many species. Dave Gardner is producing the non-profit documentary, Hooked on Growth: Our Misguided Quest for Prosperity. For more information or to join the cause, visit www.GrowthBusters.org. Might as Well Face It; We’re Addicted to GrowthPosted by Dave Gardner on Mar 01, 2010My hometown has been making international headlines lately. Colorado Springs has become the posterchild for local governments slashing services in response to declining sales tax revenue. The budget-balancing challenges facing Colorado Springs are worsened by the recession and by voter reluctance to embrace tax increases. But the real story is that of an addict crashing. Unable to get immediate gratification from a quick fix of the addictive drug, the addict’s life crumbles. It is painful. It’s destructive. And to the addict, the solution is obvious – another hit of that elixir. ABC News, National Public Radio, CNN and even Canada’s National Post have provided the latest high-profile glimpses of Colorado Springs: CNN: City Removes Trash Cans, Streetlights, to Save Cash
Reporters repeat the assumptions of city officials: the recession has kicked our butt. Sales tax revenue has dropped and housing construction is at a standstill. That’s compounded by the fact Colorado Springs voters have declined to raise taxes. The city is in decline because the majority of residents are tight-fisted libertarians who want their streets plowed when it snows but do not want to pay for it. I repeat, these are the assumptions. What has not been clear to ABC’s Diane Sawyer or CNN’s Jim Spelman is that Colorado Springs is a junkie. And it is not alone. Like our national and global economies, Colorado Springs is addicted to growth. The city has been engaged in a Madoff-like Ponzi scheme, depending on growth this year to pay the costs of last year’s growth. And we’d need growth next year to pay the costs of growth this year – if only there were any growth this year. This growth-addictive prosperity strategy for Colorado Springs has been apparent to me for years, as the city has consistently funded utilities subsidies for new subdivisions and economic development incentives to turbo-charge growth, all the while digging itself into a financial hole. Today the public infrastructure backlog stands at over $1 billion. A tax averse citizenry is part of the story, but not in the way you expect. Voters have kept the city from raising taxes fast enough to pay for the costs of growth. The folly of this strategy was never apparent to elected officials. They operated on blind faith. Faith that growth would be the financial salvation of the city. Growth would provide more tax revenue. Growth would create a “vibrant” economy (everybody wants one). Money would be flying around in such quantities, everyone would prosper and the streets would be paved with gold. Of course if this strategy worked, then tax increases would not be necessary and a $1 billion infrastructure backlog would never have developed. The unfortunate truth is we have left the era of growth, the era of unlimited bounty which guaranteed economies of scale. We finally grew to the point that revenues from growth don’t keep up with the costs. And when growth one year did not lead to prosperity the next, the conclusion drawn was we didn’t grow fast enough, or didn’t grow in the right way. This delusion – and the insidious, addictive mania it feeds – have been kept alive by the constant IV drip of growth propaganda from the pushers. These are the growth profiteers – developers, homebuilders, construction contractors, bankers and news media. The growth boosters made sure the headlines always had that pro-growth spin, and they dominated the lists of campaign donors for city council and county commission elections. Like a Ponzi scheme, Colorado Springs was able to – for a time – stave off financial collapse, betting on construction sales tax revenue next year to pay for the tax and utilities breaks – and servicing – of new communities built this year. This is globally instructive because it’s happening in most cities. We cling to the notion there is a pot of gold at the end of the growth rainbow. Most politicians, chamber of commerce officials, and even everyday citizens have been programmed to believe in the benefits of growth everlasting. So they’re certain today’s ills are caused not by the inevitable crash from a destructive growth-addicted high, but by inadequate growth today. This attitude was clearly demonstrated in last year’s Colorado Springs City Council race (I was a candidate). During a debate, I made the statement, “Growth cannot solve the problems growth created.” My opponent, the pro-growth incumbent, replied “Yes, growth is the problem; not enough growth.” At one point he said, “A synonym for prosperity is growth.” Instead of clinging to this mythology, we should be learning what Bernie Madoff now knows: a Ponzi scheme cannot grow on forever. Now, the housing bust and recession have put local and state governments into a tailspin. The growth addicts have crashed. And like any addict, they’re convinced the world will be better if they can just get another fix. States like California and cities like Colorado Springs should be picking up the pieces and swearing they will not stay hooked on that destructive drug called growth. Yet Colorado Springs does not appear to have learned from this painful lesson. The city today contemplates borrowing $100 million, not to water the grass in its parks, but to complete an expressway needed to seal a proposed shopping mall deal. Sadly, struggling in the skid row of budget-balancing hell, they are not inclined to think about the long-term benefits of getting clean and sober. They feel the need, the need for another fix. So they’ll try to shoot up right now, on another hit of growth. Sounds a lot like our national economy, doesn’t it? Dave Gardner is producing the documentary, Hooked on Growth: Our Misguided Quest for Prosperity Population Taboo – Kiss it Adieu!Posted by Dave Gardner on Feb 01, 2010Today marks the beginning of Global Population Speak Out. It’s human nature to blend in with the crowd. Nobody wants to be the “only one” with a given viewpoint. The cultural taboo on discussing overpopulation renders politicians, scientists and other opinion leaders reluctant to mention population when discussing both causes and solutions of modern challenges. Famed physicist Al Bartlett (author of the ultra-logical Laws Relating to Sustainability) nicely summed up his frustration about this in the Spring 2008 Teachers Clearinghouse for Science and Society Education Newsletter: Why Have Scientists Succumbed To Political Correctness? (Incidentally, my film, Hooked on Growth, is dedicated to Professor Bartlett.) Global Population Speak Out is a month-long initiative encouraging more candor about population in public discussion of challenges like pollution, emissions, poverty, species extinction and peak oil, food and water. Population growth is often the biggest factor creating or accelerating these problems, but too often it goes unmentioned.
Global Population Speak Out (GPSO) is taking place this month to embolden leaders to address these issues more honestly. Ironically, there is strength in numbers; the more company they have, the easier it is. They don’t end up “standing out” or “out on a limb.” On behalf of my GrowthBusters public education project, I joined a group of 50 around the world who jointly asked for a pledge from scientists and scholars; environmental, science, and social policy writers and editors; and activists, staff members of environmental NGOs, politicians, and a variety of prominent public figures. The pledge is simply to end the silence. We have over 260 pledges at last count. Throughout the month you will hopefully hear more often about population growth, overpopulation and population stabilization and reduction. With a little luck the conversation won’t end when we turn our calendar pages to March. Tap-dancing around the subject of overpopulation while discussing climate change, hunger, species extinction, etc. is dishonest. It stands in the way of real progress for humanity. We should endeavor not to return to 11 more months of the “silent lie.” The “silent lie” was coined by Professor Bartlett to describe the population taboo problem in Thoughts on Long-Term Energy Supplies: Scientists and the Silent Lie, in Physics Today, July 2004. Bartlett again wrote convincingly about the silent lie it in a book review for The Physics Teacher, December 2006: Scientific American and the Silent Lie: Scientific American has rounded up the usual suspects but has ignored the perpetrator of the crime. The editors and writers at Scientific American know that population growth is the underlying source of the problems, but it is politically incorrect to state this obvious fact. Mark Twain wrote that if one has information that would help others, but does not share that information, then one is telling a “Silent Lie.” Because it does not address population size and growth as the main underlying cause of global warming, this issue of Scientific American is a serious “silent lie.” We have a world full of very good people working on important issues: eradicating poverty, feeding the hungry, reducing emissions, preserving habitat, and the list goes on. Their solutions run the gamut, from conservation to technological innovation, from prevention to restoration. These efforts are noble and worthwhile. But in the face of an ever-expanding population, – especially one that insists on ever-increasing material wealth – let’s face it: If we aren’t simultaneously acknowledging the role of expanding population, and doing something about it – byeducating the people making family-size decisions and setting public policy, then we are simply polishing and rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. What if Growth Isn’t Possible? See the cartoon!Posted by Dave Gardner on Jan 26, 2010Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist This week, world leaders, politicians, pundits and a solid majority of the population continue a global vigil – praying the world’s economies will return to robust growth. We hold our breath with the release of each new economic indicator – job creation, consumer confidence, retail sales, new home starts. this week, if you find yourself cheering a return to growth, you may be inadvertently celebrating our acceleration toward an ecological cliff edge
The problem is that growth drowns out the gains from increased efficiency and technological innovation…. even with the most optimistic likely uptake of low-carbon energy, it is seemingly impossible to reconcile a growing global economy with a good likelihood of limiting global temperature rise to 2C If you’ve succumbed to life at the speed of the internet and lack the attention span to read or at least skim the full report, you can at least get the Cliff Notes version from this cute cartoon:
we have surpassed limits within which me must live if this species is to survive on a vibrant, nurturing planet. We must move back within those limits if we are to have the possibility of ‘good’ life to offer future generations. We’re served a healthy dose of perpetual growth Kool Ade daily – by news reporters and pundits, politicians, and at chamber of commerce luncheons, city council meetings and corporate sales meetings. This pervasive culture of growth is the topic of my documentary, Hooked on Growth. My collection of Kool Ade samples is overwhelming this office – on hard drives, stacks of newspapers and DVDs. I’m sure we’ll get a healthy dose of it Wednesday night in U.S. President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address. Perhaps if you watch the cartoon or read the report, you might become a more discerning consumer of the Kool Ade, recognizing it for what it is. Visit here often, and soon you’ll be able to detect that the Kool Ade is “corked.” For those who don’t buy the notion of human-induced climate change, there are several other factors limiting our ability to achieve unending economic growth. Earth Policy Institute’s Lester Brown offers an excellent explanation of the conflict between perpetual economic growth and environmental sustainability. It’s informative to close by returning to an earlier Andrew Simms quote, but this time I’ll include the end of his sentence: this week, if you find yourself cheering a return to growth, you may be inadvertently celebrating our acceleration toward an ecological cliff edge and an opportunity missed to find a new, better direction. As I mentioned, in future blog posts, and in my film, we’ll be addressing that “new, better direction.” older entries |
Steve Patterson tells me Two Beers With Steve started as a podcast about what they are doing to us, but it has evolved into a podcast about what we can do for ourselves and our communities. According to Steve, “we started looking for ways to become not so dependent on a flawed system. We cover topics about economic and financial chaos all the way to what method we should use in our gardens.” Patterson has some smart followers, covers great topics, and features some prominent guests (including Crash Course’s Chris Martenson, James Howard Kuenstler, and quickly-becoming-infamous GrowthBuster Dave Gardner).
I was fortunate to have Jason Cross accompany me and serve as camera assistant on the trip. Jason volunteered his time and paid his way. Thanks to John in Seattle, a Buddhist meditation room provided accomodation the first night of our journey.
Without a doubt, there is, and it is getting unhooked from Growth Addiction. We put together a unique display for our local community’s Earth Day fair this year. It certainly brought many a curious onlooker to our booth. GrowthBusters volunteers Jason Cross and Bill Jack created this unusual tree. Each leaf trumpeted just one of the many, many environmental causes addressed by our project.
These stories focus on removal of trash cans from parks, turning off streetlights and selling police helicopters, necessitated by the failure of a tax increase in last November’s election. None of these reports get to the heart of what is going on. That’s important for cities around the world, because the rest of the world shouldn’t miss the opportunity to learn from Colorado Springs’ mistakes.
