Welcome to The Steady Stater Podcast! (On hiatus.)
See past episodes below, and stay tuned for re-launching in 2024.
We’re glad you dropped by! The Steady Stater is CASSE’s podcast, established August 3, 2020, and hosted by CASSE’s own Brian Czech. It is the only podcast in the world dedicated to advancing the steady state economy. Czech and guests offer unique and compelling dialogue on the steady state economy, limits to growth, the degrowth movement, and related affairs in science, society, politics and policy.
We hope you enjoy the show!
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Thanks for this podcast with Leon K. I’m not sure I agree with all the perspectives offered, however. Speaking from a relatively “empty” Canada, an argument can be made that growing to 100 million (i.e. more or less tripling our current population) would be a good thing. The vast majority of Canadians also embrace immigrants wholeheartedly and, as our PM never stops saying, believe that diversity is our strength. Of course the rich countries must help poor countries to provide a decent life for their citizens so they don’t feel compelled to emigrate, but immigration there always will be and some rich countries are well positioned to receive them (taking care not to cream off the top to the disadvantage of the origin country).
With a sparse population spread over a vast territory, it is a daily experience that certain endeavours here in Canada just don’t have the population basis to succeed and thrive.
Big picture, of course the world’s population must stabilize or we’re doomed. But as your guest indicated, a lot has happened in the last 50 years re women’s fertility rate. I believe the UN foresees a levelling off at some point. Drastic measures such as China has taken with the one child policy (which the podcast did not discuss), besides being coercive, are a risky way of going about it (they’re now saddled with a lopsided population pyramid). Girls’ and women’s education and empowerment, building up of social safety nets and general increase in the standard of living are a surer and more humane way to achieve stabilization.
Please, please , think of population solutions in terms of encouraging access to birth control and abortion, and not only that education is the required route. Women and girls who do not have Western educations are capable of making wise decisions if they are allowed. And don’t allow our knowing that “birth control has been used as genocide against oppressed populations mean that we can’t push for access to reproductive health. We need it badly, in the US and worldwide, big consumers and low consumers.
Stop the push back. Help!
This leads to the decision that men are the issue with the societies which push-down women in stature and family-planning. And this includes many nations and cultures, even first world where some families are still lead by “real men” who demand their wives produce offspring because the bible says so. We are fighting CO2 but I think we should be doing something else, but much of that is taboo.
Really enjoyed Brian’s humorous presentation on Holey Bags, etc.. Echoed some of the same observations and thoughts I occasionally make in the early morning hours before sunrise.
Hello Brian and team,
Paul Chilcott here from over the pond in Wales. I`ve just listened to your Catching Up With CASSE podcast and thought I`d drop you a line. I`ve been following CASSE around 4 years, and although some of the technical aspects of economics is sometimes beyond me there are some fundamental common sense themes running through your commentary on the global economy. I honestly think the greatest threat to planet Earth at the moment is the army of classical economists that still rule the roost where policy is concerned around the world.
I may be jumping the gun a little, but I would like to see your thoughts on the outcome of COP26. As a member of several environmental organisations, I have seen their immediate feedback following the closure of COP26, but as yet no references to the limits to growth or the conflict between growth and the protecting the environment. Do you have any plans to cover this ?
Keep up the good work !
Cheers, Paul.
Hi Paul. Steady Stater producer James here. Really sorry for the delay in getting back to you — your comment got lost in the shuffle unfortunately as it didn’t show up at the end of the page. But anyway, thanks so much for supporting CASSE for 4 years and for your friendly words.
We certainly would have loved to write an article or other commentary on how growth impacted what happened at COP26. With our limited time the idea didn’t quite make the cut, but as you might expect, we believe growth is the fundamental reason for our lack of progress on climate at these negotiations. It’s certainly a topic worthy of a deep dive in the future given the increasing focus on the summits. Also, we asked several of our recent guests questions about COP (both before and after the summit) and if you haven’t heard those episodes they all had good things to say:
Episode 47 with Sandy Irvine
Episode 51 with Phoebe Barnard
Episode 53 with Stephen Mulkey
Additionally, we are always taking submissions for posts on the Steady State Herald blog if you feel like taking a stab at it yourself! Take care.
Cheers,
James.
Paul – if you would like to “meet” an economist who is also knowledgeable about and supportive of our environment seek out the book “Green and Propserous Land” by Dieter Helm. (try PostScript books) He has a clear vision of how restoring our world can be economically positive if we do it right. After all, as Satish Kumar said, the economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the economy
I really appreciate your talk on EO Wilson and other heroes. However, one of my heroes is The Nature Conservancy. What I admire about this organization is the way they will carefully plan and then purchase significant pieces of land in which to save particular species and/or the native habitat in general. They don’t discuss politics and they don’t criticize what is. They just get the job done. I like the way they hire the local people and work to change attitudes toward nature as needed. And now you say that they preach that growth and nature protection are compatible. Well, I don’t see that. I just see that they help local people to live alongside nature. So that seems practical. And meanwhile, they keep purchasing areas and saving threatened species. Thank you. I admire and much like your news and information.
Thank you I enjoyed the podcast with Michael Bayliss. I am a Melbournian who is pleased to have found this website and will listen to some more of your podcasts.
Thank you for providing this enlightening podcast.
Brian mentioned that a steady-state economy will mitigate the issues with an economy that is fluctuating in size. I would like to hear your opinion on how the transition from a non-steady-state economy to a steady-state economy will affect us. In the western world, the sizes of the economies are too big which during the transition is going to require degrowth.
Just listened to most of the podcasts. I enjoyed listening to them and I’ll look for new ones. One of the issue in recent news is how the stock market has stayed strong while there are so many problems caused by the pandemic. What do you recommend to be looking at instead of GDP? I haven’t heard any discussion of that in any of the podcasts I’ve listened to far. if you have an article or more to recommend I’d like to know that as well.
I did go to https://steadystate.org/joe-biden-donald-duck-and-a-steady-state-soul-of-america/. In the podcast and in the article you say POSTERITY. Are you aware that in the graphic in the article the Y-axis says “Concern for PROSPERITY”?
How do I sign up for the podcast?
Hi Don,
Thank you for your interest in the podcast! You can subscribe to the podcast and receive weekly notifications for new episodes by following the show on either Spotify or Apple Music. You can also sign up for weekly email notifications by subscribing to the Steady State Herald blog (Go to ‘Track’ > ‘Steady State Herald (Blog)’ > add your email to the sign-up bar on the right). In addition to the blog, subscribers receive a weekly podcast email. We are working on adding a subscription bar (exclusively for podcast notifications) to this page and will notify you when we do so.
I just found your podcast and I’m enjoying it immensely. I’ve been a big fan of Herman Daly since graduate school when he was writing articles in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists.
You should consider interviewing economist Michael Hudson on your show. He has the best analysis I’ve seen yet of the rentier sector and how it is warping the economy. If there is any hope for putting a steady state economy in place, it will require somehow defanging the rentier class, which is getting it’s bloated profits from “economic growth”. I wish there were more “cross-pollination” among economists who all understand the need for changing the economic system but who are off in different cubbyholes concentration on little specialty issues. If there were more communication and debate we might actually be able to formulate that “systemic change” that everyone calls for.
Thank you for the 1/8/21 Insurrection at the capital podcast. Another connection between the 1/6 Trump-inspired right wing extremist actions at the capital and endless growth is their shortsightedness. Both endless growth and vandalism are a short sighted waste of resources.
I think it might be generous to say that Trump comprehends GDP. His focus was the stock market, and his belief was that if the market was up he would be re-elected. His corporate tax cuts (at a time when the economy did not need a stimulus) gave corporations the money to buy back stocks and drove up stock prices. Environmental deregulation drove up stock prices. Trump’s downplaying-ignoring the Covid pandemic was done to prevent a normal downturn in the stock market near election time. But artificially inflating stock prices is shortsighted and eventually leads to catastrophic downturns that harm almost everyone.
Trump’s shortsightedness and selfishness were extreme. But isn’t it similarly shortsighted and selfish to think that humans can have unlimited population (=economic) growth? Yet most humans believe we don’t have to consider how many of us the earth can support. We’ve gotten a dangerous president out of office, we shouldn’t forget to confront and reduce our own selfish, shortsighted Trumpisms.
Brian,
I greatly appreciate your efforts; I have long been almost entirely in agreement with you.
But I’m not willing to think Left-wingers are any more noble than Right-wingers.
Surely you know most of the Left reflexively denounces over-population activism as fascist.
Left-wing ecological awareness nowadays takes a back seat to all kinds of concerns — even to violent Black career criminals (saintly martyrs of current Leftist theology) resisting arrest.
The only ecological problem the Left seems serious about is carbon emissions. We’re told we have to do literally EVERYTHING we can to reduce them — meanwhile the Left insists on inviting everyone on Earth (i.e., “open borders”) to its most notorious carbon emitter.
This blatant hypocrisy should be, calmly, confidently & FACTUALLY, exposed.
Regards,
— Pat Kittle
Santa Cruz, CA
growthism links to violence
because exploitation of resource and low status labour
is a sacrifice of appropriate mental boundaries
and abandonment of the pursuit of ethical principles.
they’ve already crossed the boundaries that keep us mentally healthy
I have a hypothesis that I have not heard elsewhere. The living planet functions on only the carbohydrate energy of photosynthesis (at most 5% of incoming solar converted). Everything that we ‘import’ from outside that carbohydrate budget contributes to our out-competing the rest of life, until there is no life left and we suffer the fate of all species that overgraze; the end. Our fundamental problem is not accepting the limit imposed by the carbohydrate budget and since we are the apex organism entropy dictates the least amount of energy is available to us, which means our overshoot is massive.
What an extraordinarily parochial discussion, conducted as if the US is the entire world, and the only place where it’s worth establishing a steady state economy.
The only solution you discussed for stabilising US population was restricting immigration. But it doesn’t matter which side of the US border people are – they will still have an impact on global ecology. So restricting immigration doesn’t help mitigate climate change and other global ecological stressors at all; it only helps in reducing local and regional ecological pressures.
You completely omitted to discuss properly the most effective ways to stabilise population which are educating women (see https://www.wired.co.uk/article/educating-girls-climate-change) and giving them proper access to reproductive healthcare (which can also help minimise abortion if one is opposed to that).
You did not discuss the various ways in which US foreign policy contributes to immigration pressures on the US: https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/central-america-migrant-crisis-foreign-policy-trump/.
You did not discuss the human rights atrocities that have been associated with ‘population control’, which is an incredibly important part of why discussions around population have fallen into disrepute: https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-17612550.
You did describe the relationship between population and consumption, and how ecological impact is a function not just of population, but of consumption, but did not properly expand on this issue, nor on how technology is also part of that equation.
I challenge you to repeat this discussion, but with some black women from developing countries included in the conversation.
You’re welcome. We are happy to provide a platform for listeners to provide their thoughts and suggestions for podcast topics.
Of course, it’s nice when commenters are a little more understanding and reasonable. Not every podcast can cover every issue surrounding a topic. Always we must prioritize. Our calculus for what to prioritize, when and with whom, is neither simple nor recklessly derived. Here, I’ll only point out that we hadn’t yet had a single episode focused on population, so we cautiously worked our way into a subset of the material with a knowledgeable guest who likely provided many listeners with facts and points they weren’t yet familiar with. Our listeners were reminded that CASSE, unlike the big environmental organizations, is straightforward about the need to stabilize population.
Furthermore, a careful listener would have also noticed that the issues you wanted discussed were alluded to in the podcast and/or came out in the discussion at the complementary article ( https://steadystate.org/population-growth-the-ironic-vexer/ ). I can add that these issues were already slated for upcoming podcasts, too.
So, please be aware that there are considerations you may not be aware of — not to mention the limitations of a 25-minute podcast produced amidst an intense schedule of a small non-profit — before introducing your comment with a scathing and presumptuous rebuke.
I apologise for being unnecessarily scathing. And yes, 25 minutes is not a great deal of time in which to address a complex issue.
However, I cannot see how the complementary article addresses most of my substantive comments. Again, it focuses overwhelmingly on immigration controls as a way of stabilising population, which as I mentioned above is problematic for several reasons.
You don’t address the paradox of advocating that the US imposes a domestic policy of population stablisation on countries which in some instances it has *destabilised* either politically or through the out-of-control ‘war on drugs’, or both.
Telling other countries what to do is yet another form of colonialism. ‘Soft power’ is in the end usually more effective.
I think it’s time CASSE moved on, past self-congratulation for grasping the population issue nettle and making jabs at big NGOs, to making prescriptions that are more based in historical and political reality.
You point the finger at the Sierra Club, amongst others, but in articles like this one…
https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/2019-6-november-december/editor/time-fix-population-fixation
… they show they neither ignore the issue as you assert, but in fact have a more holistic grasp of the issue than does CASSE.
(I have no affiliation of any kind with the Sierra Club.)
Thanks for being less scathing, but let’s be clear on the position and message of CASSE. We have said all along (nearly two decades now) that the 800-pound gorilla of economic growth has two arms: population and per capita consumption. We have said all along that the greatest challenge to sustainability in recent decades has been the decadent burgeoning of per capita consumption in the USA and other wealthy countries. We have said all along that the USA — as it extracts rents from all over the world — is no judge of poverty-stricken countries with regard to population or consumption. We have said all along, though, that population stabilization remains a fundamental aspect of sustainability.
The fact that Sierra magazine has an article about population is a far cry from the Sierra Club taking a position with clear policy prescriptions. I wonder if the article would have even appeared, if not for the challenges from organizations such as CASSE that have called them out for failing to take a stance on population OR economic growth. Furthermore, “Time to Fix the Population Fixation” is hardly a helpful attitude.
Our recent article and podcast did have somewhat of an emphasis on immigration, partly because immigration is fundamental to any holistic population equation which must account for births, deaths, immigration, and emigration. Immigration happens to be very relevant in countries where it accounts for the lion’s share of population growth. And, we had a deficit in messaging on this topic.
So, we’re out there on the record: We say tightening borders is indeed steady-state policy, BUT ONLY WHEN accompanied by the transition away from GDP growth to a steady state economy, AND while assisting poverty-stricken countries with development aid. We are NOT calling for shutting down the borders at this time, while the USA is still hellbent on GDP growth. I believe our position will come to be seen as the most rational, ethical, and sustainable approach.
Thanks for your advocacy of steady state. Any anthropocentric view of the planet will lead to mistaken answers. we need to figure out how the planet works, and view ourselves objectively as any other organism. I think the major schism in the stasis of the natural order was when a particular species (us) tapped into an energy source external to the native energy budget. Energy is the basis of everything. One species now consumes energy equal to 20% of the native energy budget. It does not matter what social, legal, economic or philosophical systems we adopt, the more energy we consume with a source external to what life has existed on for 2.5 billion years, the more the living systems of the planet will suffer.
On “The Unified Theory of Biodiversity Conservation”: as one whose efforts are mainly to live the steady state more than to theorize, Brian’s Unified Theory is a great help in finding clarity in my own living as well as for sharing my paths with others. I was prompted to take notes as I had done in grad school, suddenly feeling 40 years younger as I did.
I would guess, for example, that the production and use of an electric car (I choose an icon of some environmental policies) would dip into various “causes of species imperilment”: mining, road construction, urbanization, etc. that would deplete natural capital stocks. Still guessing, I would ask if not an electric car would extract more than it saves. As a bicycle-as-transportation advocate, this might be a knee-jerk reaction on my part. But it seems to be that an electric car and all the R&D it requires is part of the Faustian bargain referred to near the end of Brian’s podcast. What do I know? I hope this is a legitimate question.
please offer a transcript of each podcast. I can read much faster than I can listen. You have the advantage of including graphs and tables.
thx,
rich
hear hear, I support that
Hello Richard, and Rich. We’ve been working on our transcriptions and hope to start posting them with all new and recent episodes very soon. We’ll keep you posted.
Hello again Richard. I wanted to let you know that we’ve now uploaded transcripts for all our podcast episodes from the past two months, and are working our way backwards through our directory. The transcript for the newest episode should be up within a few days and each week going forward. You can find them by clicking on each individual episode at this link and selecting the transcript tab: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1244474
Hope this helps! Thanks for your support.
I loved the podcast with Dave Gardner.
There are two cultural pillars that justify perpetual economic growth that were not mentioned…
1. “Jobism”
Jobism is the notion that we must keep creating jobs, that all income distribution must be associated with jobs, and that the majority of the meaning in our life is derived through our job (it is interesting that Dave mentioned at 4:00 that he found his work with degrowth to be much more fulfilling than his career). I think that jobsim will serve as an absolute obstacle to the steady state/degrowth movement. “What about jobs” will be the rallying cry of everyone that wants to maintain the broken status quo. But they do have a point, the needed increase in efficiency and decrease in consumption will reduce the number of resources that we need/use- including human resources. This means net job loss in the long term. Human labor is becoming increasingly obsolete and ever more destructive. Jobs require resources to create, administer, and maintain. We will need to move beyond constantly touting job creation and focus instead on sharing the jobs that genuinely contribute to human health and well-being and creating a mechanism that provides income to people that is not connected to employment. Those who support perpetual economic growth will always be able to “create” more jobs, competing with them in that regard is a losing proposition. We are not going to job create our way to a more socially and ecologically sustainable future.
Continued on next post…
2. The fallacy of infinite/insatiable wants and the false dichotomy of wants vs. needs.
The idea of infinite and insatiable wants provides a foundational argument for perpetual economic growth. The notion that there is something called “wants” also gives rise to the false dichotomy of wants vs needs. I think that the idea of wants is a completely artificial construct. The concept of wants is dubious because it seeks to create a new framework to explain phenomena that can easily be attributed to our ill-fated and/or foolhardy attempts to meet our needs. The idea that there is a driving force in human behavior that differs greatly from instinct (in that it has no connection to needs/survival) and is indeterminate, limitless, and quenchless, should be supported by an overwhelming amount of evidence. It isn’t.
If we make the distinction between needs and satisfiers (like Max Neef) we begin to shine a very different light on what motivates people’s actions. If we see needs as the driver of human behavior and recognize that we can address our needs in a myriad of ways, we can fail to address them in a myriad of ways, and we can be led astray in our efforts to meet our needs- the concept of wants becomes unnecessary or even spurious.
Chris – I see what you are saying, but have to reply that in the more developed and rich countries, we are constantly told about all the “stuff” we should – nay MUST – have. And so much of it is just wants rather than needs. The economy ‘as is’ demands that people keep on buying “stuff” much of which is short lived and rapidly replaced. This is intimately connected with the creation of jobs ( seen as a vote winner) and the continuing extractive degradation of our world. Have a look at what the Story of Stuff people have to say https://www.storyofstuff.org/
I enjoyed Brian’s conversion with Timothée Parrique on degrowth and look forward to continuations. In the early 2000s I participated in the French degrowth movement, and was once part of a public panel presentation with Serge Latouche. One image from the first international degrowth conference, were the number of participants arriving by bicycle, myself among them. From my perspective, the degrowth movement began with a convergence with people who advocated for the bicycle as transportation. Hope to hear more about this from Mr Parrique. Here in Paris we read a print journal called La Décroissance at most newstand kiosks, and it seems to do quite well. Also, I would suggest that the original degrowth has filtered into other activist organizations, like the one I belong to Attac, whose core issue is taxing financial transactions, but which is heavily involved in environmentalism, advocating for a change in way of life as opposed to tech solutions to climate change. Finally, Mr Parrique may wish to comment on the influence of Ivan Illich on the European degrowth movement. Looking forward.
Any chance you could re-broadcast at 11 am EST or repeat somewhere at that later time. I’m on the West coast US
Hello Carolyn,
All of our episodes are available to be streamed 24/7. The Steady Stater is a podcast, not a radio show, so episodes are always accessible on the internet. In fact, if you scroll up on this very page, you will find the podcast audio player, where you can select and listen to any episode you wish. You can also tune into the show on apps like Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and iHeart Radio. Or you can click here to be taken to the podcast website: https://steadystater.buzzsprout.com/
That was a very enlightening interview with Daly. Great interview !!!
It made me understand that I need to bring up the plutocracy issue in my own class. It incentivized me to reread the textbook Ecological Economics, which I have read once.
I was surprised to hear the concern for Steady State Economics being viewed as a Trojan Horse for neoclassical economics and markets. I was expecting just the opposite concern — that Steady State Economics would be viewed as a Trojan Horse for a Centrally Planned Economy (Socialism) that would prevent the formation of new businesses and the expansion of current businesses which are seeking to expand their markets by expanding consumption and consumerism.
On your podcast on markets and capitalism, my great thanks to both Herman and Brian for your wisdom. The clarity of vision is laudable but I am saddened that such ideas are not at the forefront of our policy makers. My question: would a basic universal income put a dent in the plutocracy or on the contrary allow the plutocracy to continue rolling over us? A second question: could Steady State perhaps make inroads with local policy makers at the local level?
Yes, the big question is how to have a UBI that is not just an automatic subsidy to landlords and employers. In order to prevent that, you would have to first create a set of conditions that would be far harder to implement than UBI itself. We would have to disconnect work and housing, or at least the large part of it, from the marketplace. Add in free healthcare, free childcare, and free public transportation and you might be able to start thinking about a way to satisfy the needs of the population without the need for growth. On a local level it would be possible – many corporations already make themselves more attractive by offering some of these free services to their employees. Unfortunately, they use it as a tool for growth that has consequences for the same local job and housing markets. Basically, we could start by nationalizing Silicon Valley.
I am new to the Steady Stater and catching up by listening to the episode with David Paxson. Brian listed the population organizations and David agreed the list sounded comprehensive. But the list did not include Population Connection (ZPG) which bills itself as the largest population organization. Was that an oversight, or to you not consider PopConn to be a legitimate population activism org?
Love what you are doing and thanks.
Hi Brad. That was clearly an oversight on our part. Yes, Population Connection is definitely one of the leading population organizations. Our apologies to them, and thank you for the comment.
this is very boring – why does the interlocuteur take this student so seriously?
Hard to listen to because of his “tinny-sounding” room and microphone. Anyone doing a lot of over-phone interviews should get good-sounding equipment.
I have to go back and listen again, might EQ the audio to make it easier to do so.
For anyone else that has found this problem with recent episodes: we apologize for any issues. Please know that we are continuing to work on improving our technical production of the podcast, as well as in providing transcripts of episodes for those that would prefer them.
You may also be glad to know that we’ve had some further communication with John here, who has kindly offered up some of his audio engineering expertise.
James, really good work to improve the sound quality of the podcasts. Brian and guests are sounding great now and it’s good progress. Keep up the good work on the tech side.
Hello Brian,
While the steady stater podcast is very informative, and I’m grateful such content exists on degrowth economics, I am perpetually put off by the sound quality. I must say, I prefer this show’s earlier episodes much more. The current Star Wars-esque introduction music and Darth Vader voice over is… unsettling to say the least. It doesn’t conjure images of forestry, ecology, economics, animal welfare, etc. Rather, it brings to mind a French legion on the verge of war, which is not the kind of message this otherwise well-intentioned podcast should be sending. Bring back the other editor if you can. Hoping you right the ship eventually.
Sincerely,
Johnny Maynard
Hi Brian et al,
I just sat down for at least 4 episodes of the podcast this evening (Chris Matthews, In Memoria, Stephen Mulkey).
(You know, Stephen Mulkey sounds a wee bit like the actor Sam Elliott and, after going to the https://environmentalcentury.net website, I have to say there is a smidgen of visual resemblance as well. I’d be interested in hearing Professor Mulkey perform some alternate voiceovers for those Dodge Ram pick-up ads that Sam Elliott has done for years. :) )
I appreciated your conversation with him and his candor. His “cut to the chase” approach is refreshing and a welcome change from — what I recently wrote in a comment to a piece on The Conversation website — the “asymptotic optimism” (a term I just coined) that I see amongst many advocates of serious action on climate change. That is, a continual forecasting of the approaching Doom but, just as in the calculus, it never arrives. I also like his straight talk about what is to be done with fossil fuels: “…[geoengineering is] a dangerous distraction from the work at hand which is killing, without remorse and as fast as possible, the fossil fuel industry.”
It doesn’t help that other material in the popular press often advocates (read “shills for”) technological “solutions”. Recently, there was an article in Wired (whose content, in my opinion, runs the gamut from absolutely brilliant to absolute trash) on CCS which entirely downplayed the issue of cost as well as any notion of possible showstoppers on the technological side. I did my part in replying to the author, with a few points of rebuttal, on his Twitter feed in which he announced the publication.
We just have to keep at it. Good on you for your continuing work and bringing this information to a wide community.
Hello Ken. Thanks a lot for listening to the podcast and for your comment.
Yes, we also enjoy Stephen’s more candid moments! Calling a spade a spade would certainly seem to fit the kind of roles that Sam Elliott tends to play too (great observation on the voice similarity!)
Reading the technology press can certainly be a gamble for those of us in the post-growth camp, since a serious questioning of what technology can deliver would undermine their own existence. But as with any media you just have to consider the source, and hopefully find some wisdom. Thanks for your kind words and efforts!
Hi Brian,
Firstly, thank you for this informative and fascinating podcast. I found CASSE back in March 2021 by way of The Steady Stater and happily signed the position as a result. It’s about time a well-organized, passionate group takes on unending economic growth. However, I’m disheartened by the pause-in-show. I haven’t seen a new episode in the past three weeks. And to the best of my knowledge, there’s been no update for your adoring fans. I recall there was also a significant pause last summer. Not me, but a few of my buddies who I put onto the show have grown frustrated with the abrupt stops. What’s going on?
– Reginald
Hi Reginald (and subscribers at large). Steady Stater production is temporarily on hold as we seek to fill several vacant positions at CASSE and tend to some other pressing needs, driven partly by CASSE programmatic priorities and partly by the news cycle. Thank you for your patience.
Brian Czech
I’m disappointed to hear that Chris Matthews is OK with industrial wind turbines, given that they’re the most visible form of Green Growth sprawl ever invented. How is Big Wind not the epitome of growthist hypocrisy?
Does he not understand their current and future scale, and that they can’t exist without fossil fuels for construction and maintenance? Beyond vague ERoI math of them actually mitigating CO2, there’s nothing ecological about their growing presence on open space that would have remained undeveloped.