10th Anniversary of GrowthBusters Documentary
The Film is Finally Free on YouTube
Ten years ago today, my documentary GrowthBusters: Hooked on Growth, held its world premiere at the West End Cinema in Washington DC. Three days earlier, world population hit the 7 billion milestone.
I hoped journalists looking for possible stories related to that would key in on our film. As it turned out, the only national attention the premiere attracted was from Politico (Film: Growth Isn’t Always Good) and the Christian Broadcasting Network’s The 700 Club (Overpopulation?).
That was hardly the earth-shaking debut I was hoping for. I’ve managed to get limited, but better, coverage of the film and our culture of growth in other media since then. But this drove home a lesson I had already begun to learn — about mainstream media’s avoidance of the overpopulation subject and complete ignorance of the unsustainability and planet-destroying impact of economic growth.
Researching, fundraising, producing and releasing the GrowthBusters documentary launched me on my new career as a media activist, working to educate the public, journalists and policymakers about limits to growth and overshoot. I’ve always said, “If you put up a tent, I’ll be glad to evangelize on the subject.”
“I want to make it okay to be against growth. Someone has got to hold up a mirror and show us how crazy we are behaving” — Dave Gardner in the film, GrowthBusters: Hooked on Growth
GrowthBusters was honored at a dozen film festivals — in Taiwan, Germany, South Africa, New Zealand, Canada and the U.S. Occupy London gave the film its UK premiere. The film was screened at a number of national and international professional conferences. A few years later I produced the syndicated radio series (and podcast), Conversation Earth. And eventually launched the GrowthBusters podcast. I initially called it Paving Paradise, an homage to the classic Joni Mitchell hit, Big Yellow Taxi. My crusade continues.
They paved paradise. And put up a parking lot. — Joni Mitchell
Be sure to see this excellent animated Big Yellow Taxi (with Cher singing).
On the film’s tenth anniversary I thought I should reflect a little on the past decade. We can credit the GrowthBusters project with hundreds of community screenings, a few thousand DVDs, over a hundred YouTube videos, and probably over a hundred media interviews and presentations to college classes, churches, service clubs and community groups. Is it working?
There has been a little progress. “Degrowth” is getting a little bit of media attention. Media mentions of the climate crisis have exploded. But world population is about to click up another billion. The global economy is projected to hit $100 trillion next year. Earth Overshoot Day was in July this year. And policymakers around the world are still not willing to do what COP26 is hoping to achieve, not if it means giving up economic growth. Greta Thunberg truthfully called this “fairy tales of eternal economic growth.” Today, there are still too few who understand the truth of that statement.
“We are in the beginning of mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth.” — Greta Thunberg
The recent G20 meeting in Italy resulted in a Communique in which the first sentence included, “enable sustainable and inclusive growth in our Countries and across the world.” The news that birth rates around the world are declining impressively has been met with a lot more uninformed concern than enlightened celebration. I’ve still not been invited onto The Tonight Show like biologist Paul Ehrlich was over a dozen times after co-writing The Population Bomb back in 1968. And the New York Times hasn’t seen fit to dig into the needed shift from a culture of growth to a culture of enough.
“We, the Leaders of the G20, met in Rome to…enable sustainable and inclusive growth in our Countries and across the world.”
We know the progress we’ve made is not enough. So, I’m adding one more arrow to the quiver of sustainability advocates and activists worldwide. In observance of the tenth anniversary of the GrowthBusters film, I’m making the film free on YouTube. Now activists don’t have to buy a DVD and send it to their elected representatives. They don’t have to send a link and hope a journalist might spring for a digital download of the film or reach out to me for a free media screener. Just send them the “free on YouTube” link.
I do want to thank the supporters who pitched in on the crowdfunding campaign to help make the movie free. And those who’ve contributed over the years to the nonprofit GrowthBusters project (and will hopefully continue to do so).
There is much work to be done. But let’s now include on our to-do list sending the film’s link to elected representatives, journalists, pundits, etc.
