PODCAST · society
GrowthBusters
by Dave Gardner and Stephanie Gardner on sustainability
Humankind has outgrown the planet, so we explore ways to recover from growth addiction. We dig into the more fascinating and hard-hitting aspects of public policy and the joy of living sustainably. It's all about ending our culture's love affair with "more," which is not making us happier and is killing our planet. No half-hearted greenwashing here; we share the brutal and joyful truth! Co-host Dave Gardner directed the documentary GrowthBusters: Hooked on Growth, which Stanford Biologist Paul Ehrlich declared "could be the most important film ever made." Learn more about the film at www.growthbustersmovie.org. Co-host Stephanie Gardner earned a masters degree in environmental law and policy, and has expertise and experience in sustainable energy.
Episodes
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99: Unless Someone Like You Cares a Whole Awful Lot
Who can we count on to make the dramatic changes needed in a civilization in ecological overshoot? Will it have to be the leaders of tomorrow? And are they up to it? We take the pulse of students at the University of Denver just wrapping up an ecological economics class. The class conversation…
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98: In Memory of Richard Heinberg 1950 – 2026
Brilliant journalist and educator Richard Heinberg passed away July 19 from pancreatic cancer. In his honor we're sharing my last conversation with him here, about what turned out to be his last book, Power: Limits and Prospects for Human Survival. This conversation was published as Episode 59 of...
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97: The Wit and Wisdom of Paul Ehrlich
Continuing our tribute to the late Paul Ehrlich, we discuss the critiques and praise that followed news of his passing, and we share a VERY candid – and charming – "uncensored" 2020 Earth Day conversation. Paul points out a flaw on the cover of The Population Bomb. Can you guess what it is?…
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96: Paul Ehrlich (1932-2026): Behaving Against Our Interests
We lost scientific and environmental icon Paul Ehlich on March 13. We're honoring his memory by revisiting Dave Gardner's first interview with Paul, outside his Stanford University office in 2007 for the documentary, GrowthBusters: Hooked on Growth. Ehrlich was most famous for authoring, with…
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95: Technology – Fast and Furious Into Overshoot
The academy awarding the Nobel Prize in Economics is still drinking pro-growth Kool-Aid, while spiritual leader Acharya Prashant is serving up a healthier recipe - insightful truth about ecological overshoot. We examine both in this episode. Technology headlines much of the conversation....
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94: Reporting on Population – Sense and Nonsense
Population growth is making headlines for the wrong reason or with a biased perspective. It's too easy to draw erroneous conclusions about dropping fertility rates around the world. A surge of news stories from NPR compels us to offer both praise and criticism. Population growth appears to be...
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93: Ezra Klein's Abundance Delusion
Just say "NO." Some approaches to "abundance" are healthy, but one brand of abundance that's been capturing the cultural moment lately is a recipe for a dead planet. Dave and Stephanie assess key points made by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson in their book, Abundance. The result, a sound thrashing....
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92: Economic Wisdom from the Natural World – The Serviceberry
In this trial run for the "GrowthBusters Book Club," we discuss The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World - by Robin Wall Kimmerer. Cannibal economies, gift economies, reciprocity, and doughnut economics all come up. Sally Gillespie in her Substack column, Psyche's Nest…
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91: Growth Addiction and Water in the American Southwest – with Gary Wockner
Prolific river protector Gary Wockner gives us the straight scoop on the state of the Colorado River (and others), and the growth obsession that keeps southwest states and cities from responding rationally to increasingly scarce water resources. TODAY, nearly half the world's population…
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90: Degrowth – by Design or Disaster
Learn about a new think tank that's doing some of the most important thinking on the planet. Matt Orsagh is co-founder of the Arketa Institute for Post-Growth Finance and co-author of a just-published white paper, By Disaster Or Design: How Finance Can Evolve to Avoid the Worst of the Ecological...
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89: Bezos - We're Going to Need Another Planet
Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos thinks the U.S. can grow its way out of a massive deficit. He says we need a "growth mindset." Stephanie and Dave call it a "suicide economic model," and note that growth addiction is exactly what afflicts most policymakers around the world. The dynamic duo discuss…
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88: Shutdown315: Start Post-Growth Living Saturday
Unplug from an overshoot economy serving a growth-obsessed oligarchy. On March 15, the multitudes will begin a general strike across the U.S. – starving our profit and growth obsessed system. The commoners will reclaim power taken by the elite. Learn about Shutdown315 as Stephanie and Dave…
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87: The Shit Hits the Fan
In the face of accelerated global warming and increasingly severe consequences of climate disruption, UN projections are outdated and understating the problem, and the U.S. is going to produce and burn fossil fuels like they're going out of business. Meanwhile Trump wants to be sure Gazans aren't...
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86: Projecting Optimism in the Time of Overshoot
Is optimism required in order to alert folks to our ecological overshoot emergency? Dave and Stephanie discuss the challenge of communicating the depth and urgency of overshoot without shutting people down. Also: Dave shares how he and a group of local growthbusters projected a guerilla "pop-up"...
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85: Election 2024 – Stephanie Attempts to Talk Dave Off the Ledge
Dave and Stephanie dig into what caused voters to ignore Donald Trump's felony convictions, indecency, incompetence, narcissism, and dishonesty – and elect him president. This includes a review of the 50-year war waged by the mega-rich and corporations to undermine civility, compassion, equity…
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84: Strong Economy Begins With Shrinking Workforce
A new study debunks depopulation panic. For decades economists have perpetuated the false narrative, "If population growth reverses and begins to decline, the economy is doomed." This belief has so frequently been repeated by economists, politicians, business people and the public, that it is...
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83: We Roasted Elon Musk, Raising the Curiosity of Thousands
We made it VERY clear that Musk's worries about population collapse are ill-founded, and that attracted thousands more listeners than usual to our podcast. How did that happen? What kind of comments did we get? Find out in this episode. And get important truths about overshoot and overpopulation....
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82: Governor Whitmer Unveils Ponzi Population Policy
The Michigan Governor is apparently unaware that the world, the U.S. and even Michigan are overpopulated. Michigan population has been growing a little too slowly for her taste, so Whitmer has appointed a Chief Growth Officer and formed the Growing Michigan Together Council. Not surprisingly, her...
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81 Overpopulation Think Tank – Part 2
Are many vegans self-righteous, overbearing and insufferable in their efforts to recruit us? Would you believe "overpopulation" is still a taboo word? Or that human population numbers are still an "off-limits" topic at some conferences? This episode continues the conversation we began in episode…
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80 How Do We Get Out of This Mess? University Students Brainstorm
Students in a DU ecological economics class discuss their biggest concerns and how our society might overcome them. Overshoot, polarization, the American Dream, politics, selfish individualism, and the capitalism growth imperative are among the topics explored – as GrowthBuster Dave Gardner sits...
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79 Overpopulation Think Tank – Part 1
Five thought leaders break the silence on the role of human overpopulation in ecological overshoot –with an informed, engaging conversation about the subject. This is what intelligent discourse sounds like. For thirty years, many people – some well-intentioned – have been trying to silence...
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78 Discussing Overpopulation: Let's Clear the Minefield
Why do discussions of overpopulation often elicit emotional responses of fear, anger, or indignation? Are anger and indignation what prevents productive discussion of population? These responses in a graduate college class provide an opportunity to explore how we might pave the way for productive...
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77 Fact-Checking News of China's "Demographic Crisis"
The news that China's massive population dropped by nearly a million people last year was almost universally reported as a "crisis." In this episode we unpack the news coverage and take journalists to task for completely overlooking the fact that, in an overpopulated world, population contraction...
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76 Now Here's What We Call an Eco-Superhero
Getting take-out in your own reusable container, recycling bubble-wrap properly, and getting arrested – it's all in a day's work for an eco-superhero. Stephanie and Dave learn about climate activism with Extinction Rebellion, sharing quirky sustainability life hacks on social media, and the joy…
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75 A Vasectomy Could Save Herschel Walker a Lot of Money
More men are stepping up and taking responsibility for avoiding unplanned parenthood. Dave celebrates this trend as he shares GrowthBusters plans for the new year in this special year-end mini-episode. A typical vasectomy takes about ten minutes. It's much less invasive, and less expensive, than...
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74 Bleak Friday, 8 Billion Post-Mortem and Damage Done by Guilt
Examining news coverage and commentaries about human population passing 8 billion on November 15, we unpack the reasons far too many of us avoid discourse about human overpopulation. Why are we tap-dancing around the very dialogue needed so people around the world can make informed, responsible...
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73 Eight Billion is Too Many: Don't be a Twit About Overpopulation
While Elon Musk erroneously claims population collapse is our biggest worry, world population is hitting 8 billion, adding the latest billion faster than any time in history. The UN has declared world population will surpass 8 billion on November 15, 2022. We persist in adding about 80 million...
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72 Upping Our Game Alerting the World to Limits to Growth: New Online Community
World population may peak this decade and start dropping, over 60% of Coloradans are fed up with the negative consequences of growth of their communities, a new online community and resource for sustainability advocates, Elon Musk keeps populating our conversations, and should Dave run for...
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71 World Population Day 2022: We're Overpopulated. Pass It On.
As we approach the 8 billion population milestone, activist/author Valorie Allen thinks it's high time we stop avoiding the overpopulation subject. Yet here we are, on World Population Day 2022, and the UN is still beating around the bush, journalists rarely report on the subject (and when they…
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70 Paul Ehrlich on The Limits to Growth
Biologist Paul Ehrlich reflects on the 1972 MIT study, The Limits to Growth, on its 50th anniversary – including the fact that it has been refuted (poorly), ignored, and confirmed. The study was done by a team of scientists commissioned by the Club of Rome to develop a computer model to simulate...
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69 Chickens are Coming Home to Roost
While nary a week goes by that we don't get a new report of the destruction we're wreaking on our home planet, the news has been particularly bad over the last few weeks. Plus: Bill Maher, usually praised by us for speaking the truth, needs to get there on the benefits of a shrinking economy. We...
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68 Paul Ehrlich, Unfiltered (Special Earth Day Episode)
A reprise of Paul Ehrlich's candid conversation with us on the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, in April of 2020. We discuss the COVID pandemic, overpopulation, The Population Bomb (including an amusing mistake on the cover), dinner with Johnny Carson, the deficits of our university system, the...
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67 Obsessive-Compulsive's Guide to Cutting Your Carbon Footprint
Chickens, Tomatoes and Cars: The Wonky Numbers Behind Your Carbon Footprint We NEED to be obsessed with shrinking our footprint, and Lloyd Alter did the research, the spreadsheet, and the book to help us all do our part. Did you know you can cut your carbon footprint from food in half? In a...
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66 Can Living a 1.5 Degree Lifestyle Make a Difference?
Should we be sitting around eating burgers and driving pickup trucks, and just wait for the system change needed to live sustainably on this planet? We attempt here to put to rest the tired and misdirected debate about whether individual footprint-shrinking action is a distraction that slows…
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65 What Do College Students Think Their Future Holds?
OK, boomers, we blew it. Our best hope is that younger generations are aware and smart enough to save the planet. What do they know, and what are their planet-saving intentions? We went straight to the source, and sat down with a University of Denver Ecological Economics class to get their...
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64 Is Parenthood an Entitlement?
Get married, buy a house, raise a family. For many of us, that's the expected life trajectory. Are we entitled to meet that expectation? If many follow the typical trajectory, including having two or more children, then we drive human civilization right off a cliff. On an overpopulated planet…
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63 Stuck in Traffic? Head to Mars
"If people don't have more children, civilization is going to crumble," according to Time Magazine's "Person of the Year" – Elon Musk. He is, of course, dead wrong. We briefly explore that in this episode, and offer our take on Musk's stone-age solutions to traffic congestion. We also share...
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62 World Leaders COP Out
The climate pact achieved at COP26 was woefully inadequate. We could be in for over four degrees Fahrenheit of warming this century over pre-industrial temperatures, and some scenarios would put us closer to eight degrees. In this episode, Paul Sutton shares his observations from Glasgow, and we...
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61 Rebelling Against Black Friday Consumerism
We generate 23% more waste during December than other months of the year, but more than three in four Americans wish the holidays were less materialistic. Our retail and consumer culture have gotten out of hand over holiday gift-giving. 9 in 10 believe holidays should be more about family and...
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60 Populating and Plundering the Universe
We're running out of booty on planet Earth, so billionaires are racing to mine and populate the rest of the universe. In this follow-up to our Billionaires in Space episode, we examine and applaud points made by economist Tim Jackson in his recent essay, Billionaire Space Race: The Ultimate…
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59 Too Much of a Good Thing: Richard Heinberg
"Once a species becomes powerful enough to take over a planet, then is it also intelligent enough to understand the limits to its own power?" This is a question posed in the new book, Power: Limits and Prospects for Human Survival. Author Richard Heinberg is a Senior Fellow at Post Carbon…
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58 Billionaires in Space
Are Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson and Elon Musk doing civilization a favor and advancing science? Are they preparing to colonize space like the Borg in Star Trek: The Next Generation? Or are they seeking status and boosting their egos – AND their carbon footprints – with expensive toys? July was a...
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57 Overshoot: World's Best Introduction
Everything your friends, family, colleagues, journalists and elected representatives need to know about Earth Overshoot Day. Every other week, another scientific report is added to the stack of evidence human civilization has outgrown the planet. What are we doing about it? Earth Overshoot Day is...
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56 Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy and the Green New Deal
What do the Green New Deal, Santa Claus and the tooth fairy have in common? Find out as we talk with the founder of The REAL New Green Deal Project. Megan Seibert thinks we're being sold a fantasy – that we can run our current, materialistic, growth-obsessed economy forever on solar and wind…
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55 More Fun, Less Stuff
"We need to end the game of Monopoly and start playing the game of sustainability – recognizing the limitations of the planet and building our systems to live within those." Those are the wise words of Mike Nickerson, author of Life, Money & Illusion: Living on Earth as If We Want to Stay. In…
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54 The Good Ancestor: Following the Intergenerational Golden Rule
How often do you think about the effect of your actions today on the wellbeing of future generations? What do we owe our children's children? Are we capable of responsibly delivering on that debt? Philosopher Roman Krznaric explored these questions in the book, The Good Ancestor: A Radical...
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53 Finding Common Ground
Can we achieve some unity without giving up our integrity and core values? That's a very current conundrum, so this seems the perfect time for us to publish this conversation. We confess we recorded this conversation last May! Apologies to our guests for the long delay. We could not make up a...
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52 Shrinking Your Travel Footprint
Is flying always the worst travel choice for climate stability? Is traveling by rail always the best? You might be surprised. In this episode of GrowthBusters, Dave shares his research on this subject with co-host Erika Arias and frequent guest Joshua Spodek. We also share a great cheat-sheet,...
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51 Philosophy of Shrinking Footprints
We set out to make this the second of a series of episodes about shrinking our travel footprint, but the conversation ended up being a broader exploration of philosophical issues related to all kinds of footprint-shrinking actions. Erika and Dave are joined by recurring guest, Joshua Spodek, host...
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50 Taking a Vacation from Carbon Emissions
How far will you go in your quest to shrink your carbon footprint? What's eco-tourism, and is it really ecologically responsible? International tourism accounts for 8% of all carbon emissions in the world, and transportation of all types accounts for an even greater proportion of of our carbon...
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
Humankind has outgrown the planet, so we explore ways to recover from growth addiction. We dig into the more fascinating and hard-hitting aspects of public policy and the joy of living sustainably. It's all about ending our culture's love affair with "more," which is not making us happier and is killing our planet. No half-hearted greenwashing here; we share the brutal and joyful truth! Co-host Dave Gardner directed the documentary GrowthBusters: Hooked on Growth, which Stanford Biologist Paul Ehrlich declared "could be the most important film ever made." Learn more about the film at www.growthbustersmovie.org. Co-host Stephanie Gardner earned a masters degree in environmental law and policy, and has expertise and experience in sustainable energy.
HOSTED BY
Dave Gardner and Stephanie Gardner on sustainability
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does GrowthBusters have?
GrowthBusters currently has 102 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is GrowthBusters about?
Humankind has outgrown the planet, so we explore ways to recover from growth addiction. We dig into the more fascinating and hard-hitting aspects of public policy and the joy of living sustainably. It's all about ending our culture's love affair with "more," which is not making us happier and is...
How often does GrowthBusters release new episodes?
GrowthBusters publishes regularly with 102 episodes available. Check the episode list for the typical release schedule.
Where can I listen to GrowthBusters?
You can listen to GrowthBusters on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts GrowthBusters?
GrowthBusters is created and hosted by Dave Gardner and Stephanie Gardner on sustainability.
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