Film Crew T-Shirt Contest

Help us choose the GrowthBusters Film Crew T-shirt you will soon be wearing!
(click on a photo to enlarge it) 

I’d like to send you a Film Crew T-shirt, but you do have to be on the crew to get it. The good news is that when you make a donation (tax-deductible in the U.S.) to the project you are actually joining our team, becoming a GrowthBuster, and – if you donate $100 or more, we’ll thank you by sending a T-shirt.

Problem is, we can’t decide which design is the best. Please help us decide, by voting for the one you want to wear. We also welcome your suggestions for other slogans or designs. Post your design or slogan to our facebook page, comment below with your suggestion, or send me an email. We’ll add your design to the ballot. We’ll produce a batch of the design that wins the most votes, and the winning designer will get an extra T-shirt free. . . .

Please help us eliminate pro-growth bias in the news media. A flurry of news reports this morning reinforce the cultural myth that population growth is a sign things are going well. This keeps our culture hooked on growth. Over a lifetime it programs us to seek and celebrate growth.

The U.S. Census released new state population estimates yesterday, and – as usual – the flurry of news headlines and reports is providing disappointing evidence that most journalists have a pro-growth bias. It’s often fairly subtle, but if your radar for this bias is active as you read some of these headlines or stories, you can’t miss it.

• U.S. population growth flat (USA Today)
• Kansas population growth lags behind national average (Wichita Business Journal)
• Indiana Population Growth “Sluggish” (Inside Indiana Business)
• Florida ranks 3^rd in population growth (Bradenton Herald)

This is a real problem in our modern culture, because it reinforces the cultural myth that growth is necessary for prosperity. We must give this myth a decent burial to speed our transition to a sustainable world. This will be a world that does not seek impossible and destructive perpetual growth, but rather seeks good and satisfying lives that leave future generations a world worth inheriting. . . .

As a kid I watched a TV series about a Canadian Mountie patrolling the wilds of the Yukon. At the end of every episode Sergeant Preston would hug his faithful dog and say, “Well, King, this case is closed.”

13 months ago GrowthBusters: Hooked on Growth held its world premiere to a packed house at the West End Cinema in Washington DC. Since then, community groups, environmental organizations, universities, conferences, individuals and film festivals have hosted hundreds of screenings around the world. One might think this case is closed. Film produced, film released, film viewed, end of story. I suppose it could be, but this case is far from closed. We are making progress, but the world is not yet in a 12-step program for recovery from growth addiction. . . .

This Thursday many families in the U.S. will observe the Thanksgiving holiday. Some  will push their plates away after a celebratory feast, get up from the table and head out the door to wreck the planet. Most of them won’t be aware of the dire consequences of their shopping sprees.

Black Friday is the biggest shopping day of the year. The frenzy of holiday shoppers chasing after bargains dominates the news broadcasts. In recent years it has become extra newsworthy as shoppers have been shot or trampled to death. The sheer absurdity is captured brilliantly in this video from Annie Leonard’s Story of Stuff project:

It’s the most wonderful time of the year, when we cease to be human beings and become consumers: . . .

Stanford biologist and longtime sustainability advocate Dr. Paul Ehrlich is in Australia on a research project. He has given me permission to share his thoughts about the recent U.S. election, sent via email late last night, after the presidential election had been called. At GrowthBusters we try to remain apolitical, but of course we admonish political fools when they exhibit growthmania, and we congratulate political leaders when they demonstrate good sense. So, these are Paul Ehrlich’s words. Paul doesn’t hide his disdain for the current GOP, but I think it’s safe to say he’s not thrilled with President Obama’s environmental track record thus far. . . .