“Gross Domestic Product has now become a fetish,” according to economist Raj Patel. Many undesirable things end up adding to GDP: wars, disease, and environmental destruction, for example. And GDP fails to measure many desirable indicators of community health. It has led us to live in an ecologically and socially unsustainable fashion.

“No one wants to live in the Stone Age, no one wants to live in a time with bad medical care, no one wants to live in a time of poverty and wide-spread illness and disease, but what I'm suggesting is that there are other ways in which we can get to that world, and other ways in which we can track our progress other than the fetish of Gross Domestic Product.”

Raj Patel offers observations of what is and isn't working our current, unsustainable system. He believes better ways of organizing our economy are being developed and demonstrated today; we just need to open our eyes.

Photo Credit: Sheila Menezes

Legendary physics professor Al Bartlett was quick to tell us “smart growth” and “dumb growth” both lead to the same undesirable end; “smart growth” just takes you there in style.

Bartlett worked on the Manhattan Project with Robert Oppenheimer early in his career, but went on to spend six decades teaching at the University of Colorado in Boulder.

We present this interview in observance of the anniversary of his death, September 7, 2013. Bartlett was best known for his lecture on exponential growth, which he delivered nearly 2,000 times, around the world. He also penned Laws Relating to Sustainability. The first law: "Population growth and / or growth in the rates of consumption of resources cannot be sustained." The physicist campaigned tirelessly for honest acknowledgement of limits to growth – both globally and in Boulder.

Sit down with the professor for a lesson in sustainability.

This interview was recorded in Al Bartlett’s office in the Fall of 2005.

This is the second episode in the new series, Conversation Earth. It is available free to radio stations to broadcast and stream. Learn more at www.conversationearth.org

Photo Credit: Jim Richardson

Have you heard of “time affluence?” According to economist/sociologist Juliet Schor, many of us are giving up “the good life” in our quest for material possessions.

Symbols of success, instead of enriching our lives, create stress. Americans are working longer hours and taking on debt to keep up with the Joneses and reproduce a lifestyle we’ve been told “makes life worth living.”

Schor thinks there’s a better way. She calls it “plenitude,” and it’s a small-scale lifestyle involving greater degrees of both self-sufficiency and community, more control over our time, and more satisfaction.

Schor is professor of Sociology at Boston College. Her book, Plenitude, was released in paperback as True Wealth: How and Why Millions of Americans Are Creating a Time-Rich, Ecologically Light, Small-Scale, High-Satisfaction Economy.

This is the first in the Conversation Earth series of podcasts and radio programs. We plan to post a new podcast every Thursday. Be sure to subscribe! If you like what you hear, please support this project with a tax-deductible donation. To donate, learn more about Juliet Schor, or about the series, visit http://www.conversationearth.org

Photo Credit: Gary Gilbert

Here's a quick sampling of voices and thoughts to come in the Conversation Earth radio series, available free to radio stations starting today, August 25. Watch for the podcast Thursday at www.conversationearth.org