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