Dave the Planet

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

These are lines from a speech written by Matt Orsagh, a speech we need to hear from our leaders, but so far we’re only hearing it from one political candidate – Dave Gardner, independent candidate for U.S. President in 2024.

Read the speech we're discussing here:

https://degrowthistheanswer.substack.com/p/the-speech-we-need-to-hear-from-our

The speech is so truthful, accurate and poignant, that we convened a few members of the Dave the Planet campaign team to review it. We’re faced with the decision of a lifetime: inconvenience ourselves and do what’s right for future generations, or opt for comfort and leave our kids a dead planet.

The speech continues:

Thank you to finance guru Matt Orsagh, who wrote this speech and published it on his Substack column, Degrowth is the Answer, in January of 2024. It was stunning to read the speech Dave Gardner could have delivered - such syncronicity. We interviewed Matt in our last episode; be sure to listen. Find that podcast in the links below. Here is one more, very relevant excerpt:

 We also share some campaign news in this episode:

Endorsements – our campaign website now includes endorsements from notable people, plus supporters like you. Add your endorsement.

Flyers – download these graphics and leave them wherever you go to help spread the word.

Dave the Planet on Substack – campaign updates and notes about the issues are now being published on Substack. If you’re not already getting thes, be sure to subscribe here: https://davetheplanet.substack.com

Fundraising – this national campaign has so far not met even the $10,000 milestone. Please support this campaign so we can alert, educate and inspire more people. We promise not to be a spoiler.

Recorded January 24, 2024.

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

The Speech We Need to Hear from Our Leaders – by Matt Orsagh

I encourage our leaders to steal this speech.

https://degrowthistheanswer.substack.com/p/the-speech-we-need-to-hear-from-our

Degrowth is the Answer on Substack

https://degrowthistheanswer.substack.com/

Dave the Planet on Substack

https://davetheplanet.substack.com

Endorsements

https://davetheplanet2024.com/endorsements.html

Flyers

https://davetheplanet2024.com/flyers.html

Dave is the one candidate for U.S. President in 2024 who promises our children not a dead planet, but a bright future. Learn more about Dave Gardner's campaign for U.S. President and his National Project to Get Out of Overshoot at https://davetheplanet2024.com

Subscribe, donate, volunteer, explore the issues, and vote for Dave.

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.

If things were going well, there’d be no reason to question our current system that puts so much faith in economic growth. But things aren’t going well. Common sense and system dynamics models tell us we cannot grow economic throughput forever. It’s making our world more and more unlivable.

An array of evidence suggests continued pursuit of growth will leave our kids a Mad Max future, at best, and very possibly a dead planet. Finance professional Matt Orsagh explains why we need to change our economic paradigm, put human outcomes above economic, and embrace degrowth. He also explains the concept. Matt writes the Substack column, Degrowth is the Answer.

Americans, on average, are engaged in 5-planet living. We need to scale back in order to avoid leaving our children a dead planet — instead giving them a bright future. Contracting our economy back to a sustainable level is a major part of Dave Gardner’s agenda as a presidential candidate.

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

Degrowth is the Answer on Substack

https://degrowthistheanswer.substack.com/

The Economics of Biodiversity

https://www.cam.ac.uk/stories/dasguptareview

Degrowth Resources – recommended by Matt Orsagh

https://degrowthistheanswer.substack.com/p/degrowth-resources

Planetary Boundaries

https://www.stockholmresilience.org/research/planetary-boundaries.html

Doughnut Economics – Kate Raworth

https://doughnuteconomics.org/

The Speech We Need to Hear from Our Leaders 

https://degrowthistheanswer.substack.com/p/the-speech-we-need-to-hear-from-our

Thanks to Michael Kerbow for permission to use his painting, The Oil Age.

https://www.michaelkerbow.com/

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

Don’t Let Trump Near the White House

No one was surprised at Donald Trump’s victory in the Iowa Caucus, but here’s why we cannot allow him anywhere near the White House. In this short bonus episode, presidential candidate Dave Gardner shares why anti-Trumpers are so adamant. We hear briefly from John Heilemann (speaking on MSNBC’s Morning Joe) about how unimpressive 51% is for the Donald.

Read Dave’s full Iowa Caucus response here: https://davetheplanet.substack.com/p/dave-gardner-statement-on-the-iowa

View his abbreviated response here: https://youtu.be/mCmznRC77x4?si=dXcuVzp41Omk3_ie

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

In the first town hall of Dave Gardner’s campaign for U.S. President, Dave answers questions from panelists and audience about why he’s running and his plan for our nation to stop making dead planet decisions and start providing a bright future for our children.

Why would an everyday guy - who’s never starred in a hit movie, written a New York Times bestseller or held public office - run for President of the United States? Independent candidate Dave Gardner answered this question and more at a town hall in Colorado Springs on December 11.

Dave warns, “Continued business as usual will result in a dead planet. We have a moral obligation to leave the children of the world a planet worth inheriting.” So, his administration will shrink the U.S. footprint – by contracting the material throughput of the economy, putting the nation on an energy diet, and ethically and voluntarily contracting the population that demands that energy and consumes that material throughput.

PANELISTS:

• Ally Richardson, campaign team volunteer and permaculture educator
• Becky Elder, permaculture educator and consultant, Transition Town veteran, former city councilor
• Jax Armendariz Unzueta, Chicana community organizer and activist, former state senate staffer

LOCATION:

Buffalo Lodge Bicycle Resort

 AUDIO MIX AND VIDEO DIRECTION:

Haden Gillespie

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

It’s the economy, stupid. But what’s stupid is the persistent belief that economic growth can continue forever on a finite planet. Gag-orders silenced one scientist in an attempt to bury the truth that economic growth will give us a dead planet. It’s just one more obstacle that’s prevented the needed shift from a culture of “more” to a culture of “enough.” In this episode, Brian Czech discusses his experiences at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, as recounted in his new book, Gag-Ordered No More: The 800-Pound Gorilla In The U.S. Government.

The conversation includes, of course, society’s obsession with economic growth, and why that is in conflict with environmental integrity.

Brian Czech is founder and executive director of the Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy. He also authored:

• Supply Shock: Economic Growth at the Crossroads and the Steady State Solution
• Shoveling Fuel for a Runaway Train: Errant Economists, Shameful Spenders, and a Plan to Stop them All
• The Endangered Species Act: History, Conservation, Biology, and Public Policy

 Host Dave Gardner is – to the best of our knowledge – the ONLY candidate running for any office in the U.S., promising to shrink the economy. This is necessary in order get out of ecological overshoot.

View video of this episode at https://youtu.be/2KyM_0dr4eE?si=ymM9rgT9qr86bWAJ

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy

https://steadystate.org/

Books by Brian Czech (including Gag-Ordered No More)

https://steadystate.org/membership/

Sign the CASSE Position Statement Calling for a Steady State Economy

https://steadystate.org/act/sign-the-position/

More about Dave’s economy platform, including links to learn more about the unsustainability of continued economic growth

https://davetheplanet2024.com/economy

Notable Interviews with Brian Czech:

The Silver Lining of Covid Induced Recession - Episode 42 of the GrowthBusters podcast

https://www.growthbusters.org/silver-lining-covid-recession/

Pulling the Rug Out From Under Our Kids - Episode 204 of the Conversation Earth radio series and podcast

http://www.conversationearth.org/pulling-rug-kids-brian-czech-204/

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

How would presidential candidate Dave Gardner answer the questions posed at the GOP Debate November 8? As an independent candidate, Dave was obviously not invited to the event. But as a service to voters, Dave sat down and answered all of the questions.

Dave is the one candidate who promises our children not a dead planet, but a bright future.

Learn more about Dave Gardner's campaign for U.S. President and his National Project to Get Out of Overshoot at https://davetheplanet2024.com

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

Presidential candidate Dave Gardner discusses the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and overpopulation. Overpopulation may not be the central issue in the conflict between Israel and Palestinian terrorist groups, but the stress of crowded, high density living and scarce resources like food and water exacerbate the situation. Many global conflicts have been happening in areas that can’t support their growing populations. The fact that Israelis and Palestinians have long been engaged in a population growth competition adds to the tragedy.

Dave sat down to discuss this with campaign team-member Chris Bystroff, a university professor who teaches a course about population dynamics. The outstanding 2013 book about overpopulation, Countdown, by Alan Weiss devotes its first chapter to the conditions and population competition in this area.

They also discuss Liz Cheney’s values and unique honesty in the world of political spin, and a great column by Froma Harrop reminding us that the “American Dream” isn’t all about money. 

MENTIONED IN, OR OTHERWISE RELEVANT TO, THIS EPISODE:

Countdown: Our Last, Best Hope for a Future on Earth? – by Alan Weisman

https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/17332183

The Catalyst of Overpopulation in the Gaza Conflict – by Jon Austen and Jane O’Sullivan

https://overpopulation-project.com/the-catalyst-of-overpopulation-in-the-gaza-conflict/

End The Insanity: For Nuclear Disarmament and Global Demilitarization

https://www.ecologicalcitizen.net/article.php?t=end-insanity-nuclear-disarmament-global-demilitarization

It's Really Not All About Money - by Froma Harrop

https://www.creators.com/read/froma-harrop/09/23/its-really-not-all-about-money

Photo credit: Al Araby CC BY-SA 3.0 DEED

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

Campaign launch behind us, Dave and campaign team discuss strategies to get attention and spread the word about our ecological overshoot emergency. RFK, Jr.’s candidacy and the spoiler effect are also on the table. And we review volunteer needs and what campaign contributions will allow us to do.  

Please do what you can to help:

Like and share our Wake Up, America campaign video: https://youtu.be/vtV_FPRbCJM

https://davetheplanet2024.com/donate

https://davetheplanet2024.com/volunteer

https://davetheplanet2024.com/subscribe

See the video version of this episode here: https://youtu.be/LZzvrDa4Qo0

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

Growth profiteers want you to believe growth is making your life better. When the bloom comes off that rose, they want you to believe growth is inevitable. In this episode, Dave debunks a recent newspaper column, Curbing Population Growth is Hard to Do, which seems designed to quell rising public awareness and concern about the unsustainability of continued population growth: “the overall picture is that rapid population growth is a permanent part of life in Colorado.”

Contrary to widespread misassumptions, population growth is NOT inevitable, it’s not beyond our control. We can end public policies that subsidize growth. We can ensure couples are fully informed about overshoot, are free of pronatalist pressure, and are fee to make well-considered, responsible family-size decisions. We can embrace the trend to smaller families. The U.S. can take accountability for its ecological footprint and therefore population size – moving to stop exploiting immigrants, while welcoming refugees.

We can encourage our cities and states to end Ponzi demography, stop competing for population growth, and focus on shrinking their footprints while sustainably meeting the needs of their residents. We can discard those archaic growth-based metrics for success, and start defining and creating a healthy 21st century economy. If I’m elected, we’ll do that at the national level, and I’ll lead the nation in supporting this paradigm shift in all our communities.

Bending the curve, making U.S. and world population peak sooner and contract toward a level that can allow us to restore balance with nature, doesn’t require any coercion or loss of liberty. Everywhere in the world that girls are educated, women have access to family planning and abortion, and women have decision-making power, family sizes go down. More freedom will lead to more freedom.

Mentioned in This Episode:

Curbing Population Growth is Hard to Do – by Tom Cronin and Bob Loevy

https://gazette.com/colorado_politics/curbing-population-growth-is-hard-to-do/article_bdb2ed9e-5d51-11ee-95d4-6f2bb8c87818.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. 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