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  • ”The inescapable failure of a society built upon growth and its destruction of the Earth’s living systems are the overwhelming facts of our existence.”
    – George Monbiot
    Guardian columnist
  • ”Our economic activity is at war with the planet.”
    – Naomi Klein
  • ”We’ve globalized an utterly untenable economic model of hyperconsumerism. It’s now successfully spreading across the world, and it’s killing us.”
    – Naomi Klein
  • ”Long-term sustainability requires a materially smaller economy (the pie) shared more equitably (not equally) by a smaller population.”
    – William Rees
    Co-originator of Ecological Footprint Analysis
  • ”In today’s full world, resources are not only scarce but have become the limiting factor”
    – Herman Daly
    former World Bank senior economist
  • ”There is a sufficiency in the world for man's need but not for man's greed.”
    – Mahatma Ghandhi
  • ”We can’t frack our way back to economic prosperity; nor can we unplug a coal plant, plug in a solar panel, and go on expanding population and consumption.”
    – Richard Heinberg
  • ”If the world is saved, it will be saved by people with changed minds, people with a new vision. It will not be saved by people with the old vision but new programs.”
    – Daniel Quinn
    author: Ishmael and The Story of B
  • ”We can share the earth and take care of it together, rather than trying to possess it, destroying the beauty of life in the process.”
    – Dalai Lama
  • ”We created a way of raising standards of living that we can’t possibly pass on to our children.”
    – Joe Romm
    physicist
  • ”Because of this civilization’s obsession with growth, its demise is 100 percent predictable. We simply cannot go on living this way.”
    – Adam Sacks
  • ”You don’t have a conservation policy unless you have a population policy.”
    – Paul Ehrlich
    author: The Population Bomb
  • ”Continual increases in population and consumption cannot continue forever on a finite planet.”
    – Richard Heinberg
  • ”On the one hand, it’s politically impossible to stop growth. On the other hand, it’s biophysically impossible to continue it ad infinitum. So, which impossibility is fundamentally impossible?”
    – Herman Daly
    former World Bank senior economist
  • ”I have – over the last five years – quite rapidly become a Malthusian. I have been won over by the data, and I have been won over by the logic of the math.”
    – Jeremy Grantham
    investment strategist
  • ”We can just as easily have an economy that is based on healing the future instead of stealing it.”
    – Paul Hawken
  • ”Who’s gonna stand up and save the Earth? Who’s gonna say that she’s had enough?”
    – Neil Young
  • ”Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.”
    – Kenneth Boulding
    economist
  • ”At present we are stealing the future, selling it in the present, and calling it gross domestic product.”
    – Paul Hawken
  • ”A growing nation is the greatest ponzi game ever contrived.”
    – Paul Samuelson
    economist
  • ”Our economic activity is at war with the planet.”
    – Naomi Klein
  • ”There will inevitably come a time that the society drastically needs to change the way it interacts with the environment, or it will lose its coherence.”
    – Sander van der Leeuw
  • ”You don’t have a conservation policy unless you have a population policy.”
    – Paul Ehrlich
    author: The Population Bomb
  • ”Continual increases in population and consumption cannot continue forever on a finite planet.”
    – Richard Heinberg
  • ”The free-market fundamentalists will tell you that more growth, more stuff and 9 billion people going shopping is the best we can do. They’re wrong. We can be more. We can be much more.”
    – Paul Gilding
    author: The Great Disruption
  • ”A growing nation is the greatest ponzi game ever contrived.”
    – Paul Samuelson
    economist
  • ”In the short term, we must realize that we have better ways to create jobs and build the economy than holding an everything must go sale on our precious resources.”
    – Dr. David Suzuki
  • ”As I see it, humanity needs to reduce its impact on the Earth urgently and there are three ways to achieve this: we can stop consuming so many resources, we can change our technology and we can reduce the growth of our population.”
    – Sir David Attenborough
  • ”Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.”
    – Edward Abbey
  • ”We’re going to need some kind of radical break with our past behavior if we’re to engineer a viable future.”
    – Mark Buchanan
    Bloomberg columnist
  • ”We can’t frack our way back to economic prosperity; nor can we unplug a coal plant, plug in a solar panel, and go on expanding population and consumption.”
    – Richard Heinberg
  • ”I have – over the last five years – quite rapidly become a Malthusian. I have been won over by the data, and I have been won over by the logic of the math.”
    – Jeremy Grantham
    investment strategist
  • ”If the world is saved, it will be saved by people with changed minds, people with a new vision. It will not be saved by people with the old vision but new programs.”
    – Daniel Quinn
    author: Ishmael and The Story of B
  • ”The truth is this: the Earth cannot provide enough food and fresh water for 10 billion people, never mind homes, never mind roads, hospitals and schools.”
    – Richard Branson
  • ”Population is the multiplier of everything we do wrong.”
    – Dr. Martha M. Campbell
  • ”This is not about whales anymore. It’s about us.”
    – Thomas Friedman
  • ”Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.”
    – E.F. Schumacher
    author: Small is Beautiful

7 Billion – And Your Community Wants Its Share

There’s a good chance you’ve heard world population will pass 7 billion on Halloween. Most of us in the developed world haven’t given it a second thought. The hungry children whose photos accompany these news stories are not our children. Most of us don’t think of population growth as something we can or should do anything about. It’s a problem for someone else, somewhere else.

forecast-graphic-9-1024x576There are signs, however, that the planet has filled up. On a full planet, problems don’t blow away. We can’t move away from them. China’s emissions affect air quality in the western U.S. The relentless march of humankind across the planet is eliminating forests and species. It’s heating our atmosphere and acidifying our oceans. Our appetite is decimating fisheries. We’re over-appropriating and fouling fresh water supplies. We’re depleting the planet’s fertile soils and many precious elements. . . .

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Screening Report – Center for Environmental Filmmaking

Last night I was the guest of legendary filmmaker Chris Palmer (author of Shooting in the Wild: An Insider’s Account of Making Movies in the Animal Kingdom)  at his Center for Environmental Filmmaking. This is one of several outstanding programs in the School of Communications at American University in Washington DC.

I shared clips from GrowthBusters and answered questions about the film and the issues it raises. I’m pleased to report it got a very enthusiastic reception. Most of the crowd stayed beyond the appointed end time, and it took me another half hour to get out the door (I’m not complaining).

I’ve been looking forward to this moment for several years – the point in time when the public can begin to rally. Based on the comments I got, as more and more people see this film there is going to be a groundswell. More and more screenings will be organized. Word is going to travel! Cross your fingers. This is our moment! This is our children’s moment. And their children’s. In my film, sociologist Juliet Schor called the movement toward localization and self-provisioning “a ‘change the world’ movement.” The GrowthBusters movie could make this a “change the world moment.” . . .

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GrowthBusters World Premiere in 3 Days

DSCN1872-300x224I stopped into the West End Cinema Friday to do a technical check (make sure my film gets along with their projection equipment) and it hit me – the sudden realization that I’ve made my first feature film. After 6 years of gestation my baby is being born! It was exciting.

Theatre manager Josh Levin put our poster up on the wall, and our local event manager, Johanna Barron, informed me we had reservations to fill half the theatre within 24 hours of our invitations going out.

DSCN1873-300x224It’s pretty clear we’ll fill the theatre. What remains to be seen is if we start a buzz that travels around the planet: “Here’s a film that dares to tell us the truth. You must see it!” Most of the news media is ignoring us. They may recognize we are a threat, a threat to their growth-dependent, growth-obsessed, blissful ignorance. They’d rather we fade quickly into oblivion. That’s not going to happen. . . .

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GrowthBusters Film Premieres November 2 – Order Now

It’s been a long, hard climb, and I am pleased to report the GrowthBusters documentary is finished. It’s nearly killed me to complete the film prior to the sad population milestone of world population passing 7 billion this October 31. 16-hour work-days, occasional all-nighters, and 8-day weeks have been the norm for several months.

4paneldvddigipak-foamhubBut enough about my blood, sweat and tears. What you want to know is that the film can now be ordered. Community screenings can be scheduled. The world premiere is set for Washington DC on November 2. A Colorado premiere in my hometown (prominently featured in the film) is scheduled for November 9.

“This could be the most important film ever made.  It tackles the three lethal taboos that threaten our civilization, those against discussing overpopulation, overconsumption, and the nonsensical idea that economic growth itself is a net benefit even in rich countries and can and must continue forever.” . . .

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Great News! Economic Recovery Stalls

This essay was published today in the Daly News from Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy.

Economic news last Friday was quite positive. Annualized U.S. GDP growth was less than one percent in the first half of 2011.

sharp-slowdown-in-growth-rateHowever, I would hazard a guess that, oh, some 99.9 percent of the world considered this bad news. It was characterized in the New York Times as a “snail’s pace.” Journalists and commentators around the world are predictably typing out words like weak, anemic, malaise, gloomy, bleak, doldrums and stagnation.

So why would I celebrate? Do I get perverse, morbid pleasure at seeing my fellow humans unemployed, upside down in their mortgages, or dining at soup kitchens? I do not. The fallout of the recession is real, it’s painful, and it’s sad. But steady or declining GDP is not bad news. Nor is the drop in consumer spending reported Tuesday. . . .

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