GrowthBusters: A Groundbreaking Documentary for 2011

Do concerns about water shortages, peak oil, species extinction, and deforestation keep you up at night? Do you experience dread thinking about overpopulation and unchecked consumption? Have you or your family ever wondered if there is a better gauge of happiness and success than the accumulation of more stuff and a rising GDP? If the answer is yes than don’t wait another minute, contact the professionals: GrowthBusters!

The Ghostbusters had it easy; they were up against ghosts that could be locked in “containment units.” Dave Gardner, producer, writer and director of the upcoming documentary, GrowthBusters: Hooked on Growth, on the other hand, is battling the intangible — the core beliefs and behaviors that keep us addicted to perpetual growth in a world with limits.

“I watched my hometown going to great lengths to turbocharge its growth, even as we were rationing water and watching traffic delays quadruple,” said Gardner. “That made me wonder what we were expecting to get from growth? Why were we willing to give up quality of life, clean air and abundant water? As I began to dig into this, I unearthed a monster: a nearly universal worship of growth everlasting. A film had to be made.”

GrowthBusters is unique among environmental documentaries in that it does not dispense facts about global warming, biodiversity loss or peaking resources; instead it examines the cultural barriers that prevent us from acting rationally in the face of these crises. The film explores the taboo around discussing population and why we have placed more value in a booming economy than a healthy, sustainable planet.

GrowthBusters: Hooked on Growth is scheduled to premiere in October 2011 — the same month that world population will surpass 7 billion.

Photo: Dave Gardner

Oddly enough, Coca Cola and the Gap have not been knocking down Gardner’s door for product placements. The film has come together out of Gardner’s own pocket, a very few modest foundation grants, and with the help of hundreds of volunteers and thousands of individual supporters.

Environmental Graffitti