I’m Thankful Smart People Are Telling the Truth:
Economic and Population Growth Need to End ASAP
It’s Thanksgiving weekend here in the U.S., and I want to share some unusual thanks I am feeling. I’m thankful for some of the smartest people on the planet, and their contributions to what I’m calling “overshoot literacy.”
I’ve been thinking about them today, because this is “Black Friday,” a North American celebration and orgy and of overconsumption. All eyes are on the level of consumer spending on Black Friday and Cyber Monday. If we go hog wild and spend a lot (mostly on things we don’t really need), that’s considered good news.
It’s not good news, however, because we are in overshoot. The products we buy contribute to the burden we’re putting on our planet. There are so many of us, and our way of life is so extravagant, we’re demanding multiples of what the Earth can provide for us while remaining healthy.
Why all the shopping? And all the celebration? Because far too few of us are aware that we’re in overshoot.
(We should really be observing Buy Nothing Day.)
So I’m thankful for the efforts of a handful of people who’ve helped me understand limits to growth, who will hopefully help you and/or people you know.
Herman Daly, the late, former World Bank senior economist who wrote brilliantly about how the economy is a subset of the biosphere, and how growth eventually becomes uneconomic. You’ll appreciate how much sense Daly made when you hear my conversation with him in the Conversation Earth radio series and podcast: Economic Heresy.
Kate Raworth is another unusual economist. Like Daly, she saw through the illogic of infinite growth mainstream economic thinking. I love that she describes herself as a “renegade economist.” She developed a great teaching and public policy concept, “doughnut economics.” Read her book, Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st Century Economist. My conversation with her was so engaging and informative it spanned two episodes of the Conversation Earth series: Flipping Economics on Its Head, Thriving Economy: Not Rocket Science.
Al Bartlett, the late physics professor famous for his lecture about exponential growth. He spent nearly his entire life teaching and writing about the lunacy of our society’s obsession with growth. My conversation with him in the Conversation Earth syndicated radio series and podcast will also fascinate you: What’s So Smart About Growth?
Al Bartlett on exponential growth, from the documentary, GrowthBusters: Hooked on Growth:
William Rees, originator of the ecological footprint concept. Professor Emeritus at the University of British Columbia. Rees is an outstanding educator. His writing and speaking on the subjects of limits to growth and overshoot have great clarity. His most recent white paper, The Human Eco-Predicament: Overshoot and the Population Conundrum, makes so much sense.
With such brilliant minds championing truth and logic, why is overshoot illiteracy so pervasive? The belief in — in fact, the worship of — growth everlasting, has been programmed into all of us since birth. That includes teachers, journalists and policymakers. So the mythology about the goodness of growth has infinitely more power than the truth about limits to growth. How and why that programming takes place is a subject for another day.
But with such brilliant, articulate people writing and speaking the truth, I remain hopeful that it will eventually prevail. There are other champions of sustainable thinking and teaching. I hope to publicly thank them, and recommend them to you, in future posts.
Dave Gardner co-hosts the GrowthBusters podcast about coming to terms with limits to growth. He directed the 2011 documentary, GrowthBusters: Hooked on Growth.
