Here’s the latest in our Al Bartlett video marathon, from an interview I did with Al in 2005 for the documentary, GrowthBusters: Hooked on Growth.

To participate in Al Bartlett Week and avoid missing out, subscribe to this blog, join the event page, and/or follow us on Twitter. Add your comments. I look forward to reading and sharing your thoughts throughout the week!

Dave Gardner
Filmmaker & GrowthBuster

Dave Gardner directed the documentary, GrowthBusters: Hooked on Growth. He blogs at www.growthbusters.org and is a founder and contributor to www.growthbiasbusted.org.

We kick off our Al Bartlett video marathon with this segment from GrowthBusters: Hooked on Growth. Although I interviewed Al in 2005, it wasn’t until 2011 I was finally able to get into a classroom to film Bartlett doing what he ultimately did over 1,700 times around the world. It was fun to add some animation to his illustration.

To participate in Al Bartlett Week and avoid missing out, subscribe to this blog, join the event page, and/or follow us on Twitter. Add your comments. I look forward to reading and sharing your thoughts throughout the week!

Dave Gardner
Filmmaker & GrowthBuster

Dave Gardner directed the documentary, GrowthBusters: Hooked on Growth. He blogs at www.growthbusters.org and is a founder and contributor to www.growthbiasbusted.org. . . .

A Week-Long Marathon of All Things Al Bartlett

Al Bartlett left this Earth on September 7, 2013. If you had asked him, I’m afraid he would have said he didn’t leave it better than he found it. Still, Al made a big difference in this world.

In the Fall of 2005 I filmed the very first interview for my documentary, GrowthBusters: Hooked on Growth. I sat down with Al Bartlett, professor emeritus of physics, in a cluttered office the size of a janitor’s closet, and began a conversation I never wanted to end. He must have had another appointment, because 78 questions later I was trudging back across the University of Colorado campus with my video gear slung across shoulders and back.

The minute I acquired my first high-definition video camera, specifically to film GrowthBusters, my first act was to schedule that interview. Al Bartlett was no spring chicken, and it would be a crime if I didn’t get that interview because I dawdled. He turned out to be amazingly resilient, and lived another 9 years. I was lucky and honored to count him as a colleague in the true sustainability movement for that time. I dedicated the GrowthBusters documentary to the great physics professor with a knack for hitting the nail on the head . . .

Today we announced to the world a crowdfunding campaign for our new TV series (in development), Conversation Earth. If you support our GrowthBusters work, you’ll want to help us meet and exceed the modest $15,000 goal.

Why a TV series? An opinion piece in Saturday’s New York Times purported humans are above nature. It claimed our technology can overcome any limitations we might create by paving over habitat, overfishing, damming rivers, pumping aquifers dry and overloading the atmosphere with greenhouse gases. (read my full critique at www.growthbiasbusted.org)

It’s astonishing we have scientists (granted, it’s a minority of them) writing this kind of nonsense, and disappointing a prestigious, widely read newspaper publishes it. This reminds us we still have very important work to do, replacing the growth mythology that’s paralyzing society as we steer our civilization straight toward the cliff. . . .

Today (August 20) is Earth Overshoot Day, according to scientists at Global Footprint Network. That means in about eight months we’ve consumed the renewable resources the Earth takes a year to replenish. If we want to live sustainably and leave our children a world worth inheriting, we need to turn off the lights, stop eating, drinking, driving, flying, and shopping – and hold our breath for the rest of the year – to make up for our unsustainable rate of resource use.

WWF’s Living Planet Report tells us we’re using 50% more resources each year than the Earth can replenish. That’s why we’re seeing climate disruption, fisheries collapsing, aquifer and river levels dropping, fertile soil declining and deserts expanding. In the U.S. we’re actually using resources at five times the sustainable rate. Overshoot Day for the U.S. was back in March! . . .