U.S. presidential candidate Dave Gardner is determined to alert us that ecological overshoot is a profound emergency threatening to leave our children a dead planet. So it’s critical that everyone understand what ecological overshoot is. William E. Rees, the originator of ecological footprint analysis, provides a primer for the uninitiated – plus some advanced thinking for those already well aware of the metacrisis.

We’re exploring the topic now, since Earth Overshoot Day happens this week – on August 1.

Rees developed the concept of ecological footprint pre-1990, but in 1995, he and one of his doctoral students at University of British Columbia, Mathis Wackernagel, published the definitive book, Our Ecological Footprint: Reducing Human Impact on the Earth, introducing the concept to the world. Wackernagel went on to found Global Footprint Network, which collects and analyzes data to provide the best estimates of biocapacity and ecological footprint on a nation-by-nation basis.

The conversation digs into how long we’ve been in overshoot, the symptoms and consequences, and what is necessary in order to get out of overshoot and back into balance with nature. There are significant hurdles impeding our progress.

Rees is human ecologist, ecological economist, Professor Emeritus and former Director of the University of British Columbia’s School of Community and Regional Planning.

Dave Gardner promises to declare an ecological overshoot emergency and launch a national project to get the U.S. out of overshoot and lead the world in a global effort. Learn more about that national project at https://brightfutureproject.us

Some Recommended Resources, Viewing and Reading:

Earth Overshoot Day – official site

https://overshoot.footprintnetwork.org/

National Footprint and Biocapacity Accounts - Global Footprint Network Data

https://data.footprintnetwork.org

On Being a Snowflake in an Avalanche: The Catastrophe of Overshoot and How to Cope – by William E. Rees

https://www.resilience.org/stories/2024-07-11/on-being-a-snowflake-in-an-avalanche-the-catastrophe-of-overshoot-and-how-to-cope/

Earth Overshoot Day 2018 - YouTube video by Dave Gardner

https://youtu.be/Kfooegpo-Rg?si=2ZLJhtW21bk675OG

Spaceship Earth Passenger Safety Briefing – short film by Dave Gardner

http://youtu.be/e5s1i7vTSXk

GrowthBusters Playlist on Spotify

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0sOpYgT6oaJnDYIodhEHgy?si=3cf841e2dde745c5

Overshoot Playlist: Top 10 Environmental Songs – Episode 30 of GrowthBusters podcast

https://www.growthbusters.org/overshoot-playlist-top-10-environmental-songs/

YouTube playlist of Top 10

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLn8soDpwHB3HSuETzzb8ZC_ylk9g1tiGO

Top 10 podcast with complete songs

Independent presidential candidate Dave Gardner was prepared to step into Biden’s place on the Democratic ticket, but instead is pledging to vote for Kamala Harris. He’s not quitting the race, though. He says that’s because the conversation still has to change. Because we’re in ecological overshoot, we need to end the quest for robust economic growth, and begin living more lightly on the planet, so that our children can have decent lives on a healthy planet.

View video of Dave's statement: https://youtu.be/NVO_qUIUiVw

Check out The Bright Future Project at https://brightfutureproject.us

Follow this podcast for a ringside seat to Dave Gardner’s adventures running for U.S. President. If elected, Dave will declare an ecological overshoot emergency and launch a national project to get the nation out of overshoot. Podcast guests don't necessarily endorse Dave for president. We’ve got a planet to save, and the U.S. should do its part. Learn more, subscribe to campaign updates, volunteer, or donate to the campaign at https://davetheplanet2024.com

In order to get the nation out of ecological overshoot, we need to stop pursuing population growth and adopt a population policy that will voluntarily and ethically contract our population. This is, of course, in addition to policies to reduce our material and energy consumption.

Presidential candidate Dave Gardner invited a few of the experts he would appoint to a President’s Council on Population Policy, to make a start at sketching out the needed policies. After a century mistakenly celebrating and pursuing population growth, we need to turn things upside down, root out pronatalist policies, and implement policies that encourage and reward small-family choices.

We’re publishing this episode of the Dave the Planet podcast in observance of World Population Day, July 11. World Population Day has been the day most news media ignore the topic of human overpopulation, just as they do the other 364 days of the year. It’s the day the United Nations tap-dances around the subject, as well. One discussion point in this conversation is the need for open, honest conversation acknowledging the overpopulation and ecological overshoot crises. Dave Gardner promises to do that if elected U.S. President.

Here are the expert advisors convened for this workshop to begin crafting 21st century population policy:

Phil Cafaro

Professor of Philosophy, Colorado State University

Senior Researcher, The Overpopulation Project

Author:

How Many Is Too Many? The Progressive Argument for Reducing Immigration into the United States

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20948687-how-many-is-too-many

Life on the Brink: Environmentalists Confront Overpopulation

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/14984966-life-on-the-brink

Carter Dillard

Policy Director and Board Member, Fair Start Movement

Author: Justice as a Fair Start in Life: Understanding the Right to Have Children

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/62140570-justice-as-a-fair-start-in-life

Trevor Hedberg, PhD

Assistant Professor of Practice, W.A Franke Honors College, Philosophy Department, University of Arizona

Author: The Environmental Impact of Overpopulation: The Ethics of Procreation

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/50552291-the-environmental-impact-of-overpopulation

Karin Kuhlemann

Author:

Overpopulation, Or the Stories We Tell Ourselves

https://www.academia.edu/35846301/Overpopulation_or_the_stories_we_tell_ourselves

Population Governance

https://www.academia.edu/103990219/Population_Governance_Authors_manuscript_

The Right to Procreate and the Legitimate Scope of Anti-natalist Policies

https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10165577/2/K%20Kuhlemann%20manuscript%20clean%202023.pdf

UK-based Attorney

We didn’t finalize specific policies, but we asked all the right questions and examined the critical issues, a major step in...

Developing Programs and Policy to Put Us On Course to a Bright Future

A conversation with Joseph Merz of the Overshoot Behavior Lab and the Future Behavior Lab

How can we help ourselves and everyone in the country make the dramatic changes needed to get our nation out of ecological overshoot and on a path to a bright future? Getting out of ecological overshoot – and doing it before the damage of overshoot is irreversible – will require a World War II level of effort. All of us – citizens, businesses, scientists and policymakers – will work together to completely reinvent our society, so that we give our kids not a dead planet, but a bright future.

We’ve begun to sketch this out on the Dave the Planet campaign website. Here’s a quick link to The Bright Future Project there: https://brightfutureproject.us. It’s far from complete, however. In this episode, presidential candidate Dave Gardner sought valuable perspective and advice to help us plan that project. Joseph Merz is one of the people he would invite to serve on the “President’s Council on The Bright Future.”

Merz was lead author of World Scientists’ Warning: The Behavioural Crisis Driving Ecological Overshoot https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00368504231201372

Merz is:

• Founder and Chairman of the Merz Institute https://merzinstitute.org/
• on the Executive Committee of the Stable Planet Alliance
• Senior Fellow of the Global EverGreening Alliance

The Merz Institute’s Overshoot Behavior Lab and Future Behavior Lab are doing work at a high level that we think would inform The Bright Future Project.

Follow this podcast for a ringside seat to Dave Gardner’s adventures running for U.S. President. If elected, Dave will declare an ecological overshoot emergency and launch a national project to get the nation out of overshoot. Podcast guests don't necessarily endorse Dave for president. We’ve got a planet to save, and the U.S. should do its part. Learn more, subscribe to campaign updates, volunteer, or donate to the campaign at https://davetheplanet2024.com

It’s critical we set the record straight on the uninformed fearmongering about a baby bust. The latest round comes from a Wall Street Journal story and a segment on the CNN show, Smerconish. Presidential candidate Dave Gardner shines a little light on the subject in this episode.

Far too few of us are aware we have a human overpopulation crisis. For the past thirty years, too many have run for cover when the subject comes up. There is a fear of being labeled (usually falsely) racist, classist, or misogynist if one acknowledges overpopulation – or even worse – suggests we do something about it.

Yet today, growth boosters – and the journalists and commentators who carry water for them – shout from the rooftops about an alarming baby bust. They are the ones who should be ashamed and embarrassed, for reducing human beings to economic pawns. No child should be brought into this world in order to bolster the supply of labor, beef up the supply of taxpayers, restock an oversupply of consumers (customers), or provide some built-in, unpaid elder care.

Gardner shares how we know that we’re in a state of overpopulation today, and therefore should welcome falling birth rates. Smaller family decisions are a gift that will keep on giving – to generations to come.

MENIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

Why are Global and U.S. Fertility Rates Plummeting? – Smerconish on CNN

https://www.cnn.com/videos/health/2024/05/25/smr-fertility-rate-plummeting.cnn

Suddenly There Aren’t Enough Babies. The Whole World Is Alarmed – Wall Street Journal

https://www.wsj.com/world/birthrates-global-decline-cause-ddaf8be2

Follow this podcast for a ringside seat to Dave Gardner’s adventures running for U.S. President. If elected, Dave will declare an ecological overshoot emergency and launch a national project to get the nation out of overshoot. We’ve got a planet to save, and the U.S. should do its part. Learn more, subscribe to campaign updates, volunteer, or donate to the campaign at https://davetheplanet2024.com

Some voters are seriously concerned about our environmental meta-crisis, as we find out in this virtual town hall. Dave isn’t burning gas (and cash) roaming the country to meet with voters, so to have a dialogue he took to Zoom. Much of the conversation focused on answering these key questions:

• How can we be effective but also quick in alerting the public to the ecological overshoot emergency, and leading the country to action?
• Is there a role for alarmism, or not?
• And if facts don’t persuade, what will, and how quickly?

Also discussed: How best to educate the public about overpopulation, in the face of growing baby bust alarmism.

Thanks to those who joined in this conversation!

Recorded May 11, 2024

See the video of this town hall: https://youtu.be/iIE7-gEwn0E

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

The Bright Future Project

https://brightfutureproject.com

This Sustainable Life – podcast hosted by Joshua Spodek, and more

https://joshuaspodek.com/

The Limits to Growth

https://www.clubofrome.org/publication/the-limits-to-growth/

We Asked 380 Top Climate Scientists What They Felt About the Future

They are terrified, but determined to keep fighting. Here’s what they said

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2024/may/08/hopeless-and-broken-why-the-worlds-top-climate-scientists-are-in-despair

Dave the Planet on Substack: https://davetheplanet.substack.com

Donate to the Dave the Planet campaign: https://davetheplanet2024.com/donate

Volunteer for the campaign: https://davetheplanet2024.com/volunteer

Contact the campaign: https://davetheplanet2024.com/contact.html

Follow this podcast for a ringside seat to Dave Gardner’s adventures running for U.S. President. If elected, Dave will declare an ecological overshoot emergency and launch a national project to get the nation out of overshoot. Podcast guests don't necessarily endorse Dave for president. We’ve got a planet to save, and the U.S. should do its part. Learn more, subscribe to campaign updates, volunteer, or donate to the campaign at https://davetheplanet2024.com

Baby Bust Alarmism or Depopulation Panic are misplaced. We’ve outgrown the planet and are in ecological overshoot. So population contraction is not a disaster; it should be celebrated. Professor Scott Galloway often gets things right, but on this topic, he needs to hit the books.

[DAVE THE PLANET VIRTUAL TOWN HALL – May 11 at 10 Pacific/11 Mountain/Noon Central – Register Here: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUrdO6oqT0jGN3K6fTrJdj7P9sTVJzWHIxT]

This episode was inspired by remarks made by Galloway on HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher on April 26, 2024. The professor was lamenting how gen z are not conceiving children because the American Dream (Dave Gardner's words) isn’t working out for them. In this episode, you'll hear Galloway characterize the population contraction Japan and Italy are experiencing as “the way we go out of business.”

You can’t talk our young people into being optimistic. They see what we’re doing to the planet. And you can’t restore their faith and optimism with bigger paychecks and affordable housing, because one finite planet just can’t support the antiquated American dream of ever-increasing wealth.

This is very relevant to Dave Gardner’s campaign for U.S. President, because a key part of his platform, The Bright Future Project to get out of overshoot, includes contracting our nations’s population (ethically and voluntarily) and ending our love affair with increasing wealth, economic growth and material consumption.

If you’re Scott Galloway and want to brush up on limits to growth, planetary boundaries and ecological overshoot, here are a few recommendations:

The Most Dangerous Secret – will point you to four good podcast episodes about overshoot

https://davetheplanet.substack.com/p/the-most-dangerous-secret

For an excellent summary of our situation, plus links to some of the most important reading you can do:

Polycrisis, Unraveling, Simplification, or Collapse: Coming Soon to a Planet Near You? – by Richard Heinberg, Senior Fellow at Post-Carbon Institute

https://www.resilience.org/stories/2023-06-15/polycrisis-unraveling-simplification-or-collapse-coming-soon-to-a-planet-near-you/

Follow this podcast for a ringside seat to Dave Gardner’s adventures running for U.S. President. If elected, Dave will declare an ecological overshoot emergency and launch a national project to get the nation out of overshoot. Podcast guests don't necessarily endorse Dave for president. We’ve got a planet to save, and the U.S. should do its part. Learn more, subscribe to campaign updates, volunteer, or donate to the campaign at https://davetheplanet2024.com

President Biden couldn't tell us the full truth in his State of the Union address last week. So independent presidential candidate Dave Gardner recorded this State of the Planet address, to provide a more accurate assessment of how things are going. We need the full truth about threats that – if ignored – could mean a dead planet for our children. In this address, Dave outlines how we can acknowledge those threats and come together to give our kids a bright future, instead.

Dave Gardner is the one candidate for U.S. President in 2024 who has that bright future agenda. Learn more about the candidate and his platform at https://davetheplanet2024.com

Get more detail about Dave’s National Project to Get the U.S. Out of Ecological Overshoot at https://davetheplanet2024.com/natlonalproject.html

Full transcript and more about this subject: https://davetheplanet.substack.com/p/state-of-the-planet-address

Follow this podcast for a ringside seat to Dave Gardner’s adventures running for U.S. President. If elected, Dave will declare an ecological overshoot emergency and launch a national project to get the nation out of overshoot. We’ve got a planet to save, and the U.S. should do its part. Learn more, subscribe to campaign updates, volunteer, or donate to the campaign at https://davetheplanet2024.com