Even if we could, it wouldn’t be in our best interest to consume our way out of recession.

Today is the biggest shopping day of the year, known as Black Friday. Is that something to celebrate? Or is it something we should try to change? In the U.S., the National Retail Federation is expecting a record number of people to shop today – nearly half the entire population. Shopping will be the number one news story today and throughout the weekend. That will be followed by a flurry of news reports about Cyber Monday.

Yet my advice is, “Please don’t shop.” Resist the urge to do your patriotic duty and buy things you and your loved ones don’t really need. Why? It’s rather simple, even though it’s something we rarely think or talk about: The scale of the human enterprise has outgrown the planet. The ecosystems that support our civilization are buckling under the pressure. We are in a global emergency. We need to, as quickly as possible, leave behind us the era of consumption and economic growth. Repeat after me, “I am not a consumer, I am a human being.” . . .

I’ve heard from a few of you anxious for a report on the GrowthBusters World Premiere. Apologies for keeping you in suspense. The last four weeks were a whirlwind of activity for me.

First was the presentation and sneak preview of clips at the Center for Environmental Filmmaking on October 25. The next week was our World Premiere in Washington DC on November 2. A week later we held the Colorado Premiere, and then last week was the Bay Area Premiere. This four-week intensive came right on the heels of a Summer/Fall post production binge to finish the film before world population hit 7 billion (31st of October). So finally I am home for a stretch and relearning how to sleep, breathe, relax, exercise and generally have a life. It feels very, very good! . . .

The Christian Broadcasting Network took a swipe at GrowthBusters last week – the day before our world premiere. I will admit I hope the release of this film generates increased national and global dialogue about overpopulation. So I’m glad CBN felt called to report on our film. We were even discussed by Pat Robertson (9:00 into this clip) on The 700 Club. Of course not all media outlets go out of their way to present facts objectively. We were not contacted by any CBN reporters or producers to react to the views they presented.

They chose to let Steven Mosher of Population Research Institute refute one of the central premises of the GrowthBusters documentary, that population growth is a threat to the wellbeing of all the children and future generations of the world. Listen to what Mosher had to say:
. . .

Now that you’ve seen the GrowthBusters film, if you’re curious about where we go from here, this is a place to start. Let me begin by assuring you I don’t have all the answers. I just have a lot of the questions. My hope is we can all contribute here our ideas on forging a new, post-growth society.

You might begin by exploring our summary page for each of the four issues addressed in the film:

Economic Growth

Consumption Growth

Population Growth

Urban Growth

Each page can point you to some useful reading. You may also be interested in reviewing our What Can I Do document.

I’d also like to encourage you to explore the website of one of our partners in this, The Pachacuti Project. . . .

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.

There 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. . . .