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.

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.

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.

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.

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 Challenges We Face and Enable the Transition to a Better Economic Model.