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:
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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. . . .

Last night I was the guest of legendary filmmaker Chris Palmer (author of Shooting in the Wild: An Insider’s Account of Making Movies in the Animal Kingdom)  at his Center for Environmental Filmmaking. This is one of several outstanding programs in the School of Communications at American University in Washington DC.

I shared clips from GrowthBusters and answered questions about the film and the issues it raises. I’m pleased to report it got a very enthusiastic reception. Most of the crowd stayed beyond the appointed end time, and it took me another half hour to get out the door (I’m not complaining).

I’ve been looking forward to this moment for several years – the point in time when the public can begin to rally. Based on the comments I got, as more and more people see this film there is going to be a groundswell. More and more screenings will be organized. Word is going to travel! Cross your fingers. This is our moment! This is our children’s moment. And their children’s. In my film, sociologist Juliet Schor called the movement toward localization and self-provisioning “a ‘change the world’ movement.” The GrowthBusters movie could make this a “change the world moment.” . . .

I stopped into the West End Cinema Friday to do a technical check (make sure my film gets along with their projection equipment) and it hit me – the sudden realization that I’ve made my first feature film. After 6 years of gestation my baby is being born! It was exciting.

Theatre manager Josh Levin put our poster up on the wall, and our local event manager, Johanna Barron, informed me we had reservations to fill half the theatre within 24 hours of our invitations going out.

It’s pretty clear we’ll fill the theatre. What remains to be seen is if we start a buzz that travels around the planet: “Here’s a film that dares to tell us the truth. You must see it!” Most of the news media is ignoring us. They may recognize we are a threat, a threat to their growth-dependent, growth-obsessed, blissful ignorance. They’d rather we fade quickly into oblivion. That’s not going to happen. . . .