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Brian Czech is the Executive Director of the Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy (CASSE). He spent nearly 20 years at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service headquarters (the first conservation biologist ever hired by the agency) before resigning in 2017 to run CASSE. Brian is the author of several books, including: “Supply Shock”, “Shoveling Fuel for a Runaway Train”, and “The Endangered Species Act: History, Conservation Biology, and Public Policy”. He has a Ph.D. from teh University of Arizona and is a thought leader in ecological economics.
In this episode, Brian discusses the Trophic Theory of Money, and why the expectation of unlimited economic growth may be a grand delusion. At the CASSE website (steadystate.org), you’ll see images and figures explaining why we all need to understand the global-scale context and crisis. Teasing out the difference between Environmental and Ecological Economics, Brian implores the audience to consider the emerging Gross National Happiness (GNH) index of Bhutan, rather than Gross Domestic Product (GDP), as a much better indicator of quality of life, well-being, and ecological sustainability. Indeed, asserts Brian, GDP is much more accurate and useful as a measure of environmental impact than it is an indicator of health, well-being and quality of life. He identifies conspicuous consumption as a key flaw in the growth economies of developed countries, and recognizes the cultural pathos underlying it. Encouraging each of us to demonstrate “Steady Statesmanship,” Brian sees that establishing a steady state economy is critical to our shared future and to our: national security, international stability, economic sustainability, and environmental protection.
Brian is working on Full and Sustainable Employment Act amendments to the existing Employment Act, among many other key initiatives. Learn more at steadystate.org. #steadystate
Transcript
(Automatically generated transcript for search engine optimization and reference purposes – grammatical and spelling errors may exist.)
Welcome to the YonEarth Communities Stewardship and Sustainability Podcast Series.
Today I’m so excited that we have visiting with us Brian Czech, hi Brian.
Hi.
Welcome to the programs, Eric.
Brian is an ecological economist and is the executive director of the Center for the
Advancement of the Steady State Economy, also known as Cassie.
Brian spent nearly 20 years at the United States Fish and Wildlife Service headquarters
before resigning in 2017 to run Cassie.
His books include Supply Shock, Shoveling Fuel for a Runaway Train, and the Endangered
Species Act, History, Conservation Biology, and Public Policy.
Brian has a PhD from the University of Arizona and is a leading figure in ecological economics.
I would like to also note that he was the first conservation biologist ever hired by the
US Fish and Wildlife Service and that Cassie has been awarded the Eco-Champion Award
by public employees for environmental responsibility known as peer for their work in the arena
of limits to growth and ecological carrying capacity and integrity YonEarth.
And Brian, I’m so thrilled we have the opportunity to speak together today and I think it’s
just hilarious.
Here we are at a park.
We’re having to meet up in Aspen.
We’re both traveling through the High Mountains of Colorado.
It’s been raining for, I don’t know, 20-25 minutes or something and we are under a beautiful
blue spruce which has more or less shielded all the rain from us so here we are.
And welcome Brian and thank you for taking the time to visit with us.
Thank you.
Thanks.
So why don’t you kick us off framing the conversation, what is all this about?
What is the issue when we’re talking about a steady state economy versus a perpetually
growing economy?
Well, I think it always helps to remind people what economic growth is.
It’s simply increasing production and consumption of goods and services in the aggregate.
And so that means growing human population and or per capita production and consumption
and it’s measured with GDP.
And that’s an acronym that stands for gross domestic product.
And we sometimes call it gross domestic problem because it’s beginning to cause more problems
than it solves.
Our of course tremendous benefits to economic production but there are at this stage in human
history tremendous impacts and any environmental impact it’s not just a tree hugger issue.
The environment is the foundation of the economy.
So there’s a we say that there is a fundamental conflict, fundamental because it can’t be gotten
out of with just technological progress, for example, a fundamental a fundamental conflict
between economic growth and four things, four categories of things, environmental protection,
economic sustainability, national security and international stability.
More or less in that order.
Although you might say well it’s the international stability that comes before the national
security because international instability is such a great threat as well to national security.
It’s so interesting you know I have been struck working in and around the field of economics
as it relates to environmental sustainability and that it has been the militaries by and
large the intelligence community and the reinsurance industries who were most advanced in understanding
some of these major systemic risks that we have been facing out you know several decades
creeping a bit closer now and that these issues of international stability, national security
are so intimately linked with environmental protection and economic sustainability from
a policy standpoint.
It seems golly at some of our I don’t want to use the term knucklehead on a recording
like this but some of our friends and colleagues in Congress and inside DC could do a little
better in understanding some of these connections and they’re really is we live in a giant ecology
planet earth it’s a contained and limited system a beautiful one and we share it with all
our other human brothers and sisters all around the planet.
So I just am so struck that getting into a conversation around economics and the assumptions
that we’re working within our culture when it comes to economics there’s a lot there
that needs to be looked at and examined for sure and the part about limits to growth I
mean that shouldn’t be that it’s not rocket science that you can’t have a perpetually growing
economy I mean what are we going to have a trillion quadrillion gazillion GDP when we think
in these ridiculous terms that’s when we usually start to get some buy and even from
conventional economists that well yeah sure they’re probably our limits to growth but they’re
so far out there that why you know why should we even bother thinking about that now but that’s
it that’s a whole different discussion all of a sudden then whether or not there is a limit
to economical once we all agree that yeah of course you can’t not you can’t have a perpetually
growing economy then the question is well where should we stop that growth of the economy when
when is it starting to cause more problems than it solves and a lot of us you know that that love
wide open spaces and big trees and wildlife and solitude you know we think it’s already post-optimal
that the economy is already too big for optimum conditions on the earth and I think there’s a lot
of people are starting to agree with this yeah it’s not just the natural world now it’s creeping
into our economies it’s harder and harder to maintain this level of economic activity in the US
and on the globe and and it is very yeah tightly connected with the international stability and
and national security not only from the pressures caused by international instability but the need
for economic sustainability to maintain for example a military right much less a healthy society
so I’m struck that we’ll be on this episode talking a bit about different aspects of the
economics and I forget who said it but somebody called economics the dismal science right I know
for sure it’s not every one of our favorite subjects but nonetheless I think it really is important
for us as citizens as voters as participants in this momentous time in the human story that we
have some working understanding of some of these economic principles and with that in mind I’m hoping
you know we’re talking about some debates that have been going on for decades even even a couple
centuries going back to the late 1800s the enlightenment period we had the Scottish enlightenment
most famous among them being probably Adam Smith who wrote Wealth of Nations published 1776
and across the water there we had the French physiocrats very focused on the natural foundation
of economic production and activity and I was hoping you could walk through when we’re talking
about primary secondary tertiary all these these steps and kind of what’s going on in that broader
economic picture just walk us through how that how we understand that to be working it would be
helpful I’m sure for many in our audience yeah well in in ecological economics we call that the
trophic structure of the economy so if we start with the economy of nature yeah which both
Francois Canay and the physiocrats and Adam Smith had a pretty good grasp you know they were
renaissance man they understood the the bigger picture of the world they knew a lot about agricultural
production and how the natural world worked and how that linked into economic activity yeah so
in the economy of nature you know you have the at the base of that the producers the plants
yeah called producers because they produce their own food via the process of photosynthesis yeah
and then what each the plants those are primary consumers and then what consumes the primary
consumers are secondary consumers like predators so that’s the that’s the very basics of the
structure of the economy of nature yeah and you know and there are service providers too like
decomposers and scavengers and pollinators so humans come along evolve and were created
they’re there now and and they’re part of this economy of nature and they’re at the pinnacle
of this trophic structure for one thing yeah they can eat anything else out there that’s edible
um and they also have to follow the same basic rules of the game they have their they have a
trophic structure in their economy they’re like a subset of that broader uh economy of nature
and if you take this subset out and analyze it it has its trophic structure so it starts with the
agricultural and extracted sectors those are the producers that would be like forests,
trees, fishing, mining these kinds of yeah taking from earth and earth’s productivity directly
exactly okay directly and then uh and then built upon that you have the the manufacturing sectors
and those are the basic trophic levels the heavy manufacturing you know like iron ore refining
all the way up to the lightest sectors like computer chip manufacturing yeah folks making cell phones
and yeah all that kind of business mm-hmm and mix all throughout that our service sectors just
like in the economy of nature and so and that it’s actually a good way to view the fundamental
conflict between economic growth and environmental protection because as that part of the economy
of nature continues to expand it’s like a like a trophic compression of all the other species below
in that the broader economy of nature so when you look at the list of um species that are endangered
this burgeoning list of threatened and endangered species and you look at the causes of their
endangerment it’s like a who’s who of the American economy right just this and that sector one after
another that is what’s pushed that’s what uh is liquidating the habitats that species require to
to make a living in and uh and and same thing with animal and plant species being squeezed out
by that growth of the human economy yeah well we’re certainly uh living in precarious times and uh
I just heard recently that at the time approximately of I want to say uh president
Franklin Roosevelt was it or maybe as Teddy Roosevelt there were about two billion people on the
planet and now just over a hundred years or about a hundred years later we have about seven and a
half billion people on the planet and you know many of my friends working in the realm of
of social justice as it relates especially to the environmental issues that were concerned with
um point out that some of the population discussion or debate is very loaded with
social justice issues and really ethical issues and issues that require us to look at
our human decency and matters of dignity and matters of the heart if you will
but that that all aside for just a moment just looking purely at the numbers of growing from
something like two billion to almost four times as much within just a few generations
that’s obviously a pattern you don’t want to uh to see perpetuating or or continuing for too
many more generations in this situation it should be obvious shouldn’t it yeah
India India alone has a billion people yeah and and people that are at the that do not consume
as wastefully in a per capita basis as they do in the US for example right and nevertheless you
can already see the signs of resource shortage the much of Tamil Nadu in southern India is without water
very clear it’s a perilous existence uh in cities like Chennai huge cities in southern India and
there’s no end in sight that the it’s not only climate change it’s the use of the water resources
there yep and water is the lifeblood of the economy i mean some people might say it’s oil
well okay you know it uh lifeblood uh energy the calories required one’s oil one’s water they’re
both required for this level of economic activity you know 82 trillion dollar global economy right now
and uh so the economy once again going back to the earliest minutes of this it’s it’s population times
per capita production and consumption yep either one’s too high gets to be too much
with the planet and the future economy yeah i just i have to point out or i know a few of my friends will
give me a hard time afterward with respect to the water and the oil uh peace so many folks now are
working on solutions to transition from oil clearly there are a whole number of reasons why
that’s worthwhile and thankfully underway water on the other hand there’s no substitute for water
water is life our bodies obviously are composed of it 70% are better uh same as the surface of the
planet itself uh interestingly and so clearly when we’re when we’re now confronted with situations
around the planet where more and more of us do not have access to water um that that ought to be
on its face enough for us to be thinking about these economic issues uh hands down absolutely and
um it’s i think that although it seems like economic growth is so in scanced as you know the primary
policy goal around the world it’s it you can see the the cracks in that firmament if you will
in a lot of countries now in a lot of parts of the world uh Bhutan moving to the pursuit of
gross national happiness just because they see all the unhappiness around the world associated with
pulling out all the stops for GDP growth right um you know and even before that at the
Thailand’s idea of the sufficiency economy rather than you know more and more every year
yeah um their precedence for this and uh it’s a logical way to go it’s the uh uh the the ethical way
to go and it’s the diplomatic way to go i mean when we call for a steady state economy in the US
uh obviously that’s not sufficient for global sustainability we so we have a vision for
steady statesmanship we like to call it an international diplomacy we have to figure out uh
where are the biggest problems in terms of the per capita consumption where is the most
wasteful consumption and and where our populations burgeoning so rapidly that the rest of the world
can absorb that those rates of immigration yeah both of these things have to really be wrestled
seriously in international diplomacy yeah uh growth is not the answer growth right
is just compounding both of those two problems yes yes absolutely hey you know i love uh the
discussion around the gross national happiness uh work that’s being done in Bhutan and i
imagine some of our audience may not be familiar is that something you can tell us a little more
a little more yeah um so the there was Bhutan was a kingdom yeah as little as seven years ago maybe
and the king of Bhutan um did look around and had become familiar with some of the uh
principles of ecological economics i think he was familiarized partially through uh the
convention on biological diversity that heads of state attended and um and you know and there’s
sort of a a bit of a common sense out there now around the world that there’s serious environmental
problems and that is such a spectacularly beautiful country and the people from Bhutan are
proud of that if you you know meet the people from there they are happy how couldn’t you be in
in such a spectacular place and and so they want to keep it that way they look out at what they have
and they don’t want that to change dramatically they don’t want bulldozers coming in and skyscrapers
messing up messing that up so so he uh uh said to the people you know GDP is not what we’re after
we’re after gross national happiness and and concurrently with that as you know he moved that
government into a ministerial government so that’s kind of a very nice uh sequence of events
both what we might call steady statesmanship corresponding with a more democratic form of government
absolutely beautiful absolutely beautiful i just want to make a quick note um for it slips my mind
and uh that reminds me of uh something we were discussing earlier uh which is often the
the activities we can engage in on a day-to-day basis that are most conducive to our health our well-being
our high quality of life our activities where we’re not buying and consuming here here we are
under a blue spruce it’s been raining a while we’ve been standing here a while it’s been
absolutely delightful we’re we’re getting so much benefit in the fresh air and uh i wish you
was throwing off a little more heat a little more heat but uh you know it has sheltered that’s
here here we are and we’re not we’re not spending money to be right here yeah good point because money
originates you know with that agricultural and extractive activity at the base um that goes
back to that the trophic structure of the economy and when it comes to monetary matters we we
call that uh well we call it the trophic theory of money because money does originate via the
agricultural surplus especially that frees the hands for the division of labor into all these
different activities economic activities but uh you know a lot of the pleasures of life like
you know the folks that just came around walking the dog with the little grandkids and stuff that
didn’t cost anything and uh and it’s not nobody’s paying for that or extracting resources uh in any
you know they obviously somebody had to make a living to feed the family yeah there’s the base
level nobody’s saying don’t have any economic activity to matter how much yeah the appropriate levels
yeah well i’m really struck uh about the fact that you’re doing a whole lot of work at the policy
level uh working with lawmakers etc and and what i want to make sure we get to that in a couple
minutes okay but of course with the why on earth community we also uh in addition to our civic
work and uh conversations with policy makers etc we are also very focused on what can we do in our
day-to-day lives uh folks from all sorts of backgrounds and one of the things you mentioned earlier
to me before we started the recording that uh really really stuck is your emphasis on spending less
simply spending less certainly uh when we were just talking about how uh more money the supply
of money and the flow of money money supplies like the m zero the m one the the liquid types of
money supplies and flows of money like GDP these are outstanding indicators of environmental impact
right at this point in history GDP is probably a better indicator of environmental impact than it
is with any kind of well-being and so yeah spending less that that entails a little less of that
economic activity you know why uh by purchase something that’s already provided by nature we
didn’t have to go out by a tent that would have required more surplus at that economic base
there’s already a tree here we can stand under um there’s examples just one after another
in the course of uh of a day of a human life um yeah it’s this this one will seem maybe kind of
corny but you when you wash your hands you don’t necessarily have to pull out a paper towel or run
some electric yeah dry area you know think about the uh 300 some million people in the country that
are doing that several times a day that stuff really adds up it really does it absolutely does
yeah paper cups straws off yeah all of that by what well you’re getting me rolling now sorry
but i i have to say it i can’t stand those hummers uh you know and thank goodness the the
hummer demand seems to have abated but for a while hummers were all the rage and you know during
the the uh golf wars besides what a horrible symbolism that was and what a uh awful example
of conspicuous consumption that is not only unsustainable but um you know way you know way
it alone was a threat to national security because it makes americans or whichever country’s
you know behaving like that makes us look bad it really looks like greedy pigs truly and then
you know and then we want to shut down the borders from people that have the orders of magnitude
less those two things combined uh look really bad right we’re not looking like uh good citizens
in the neighborhood exactly in this way yeah yep you know it reminds me too you know when we’re
taking a walk say or just having a nice chat in the park with somebody for a couple hours
we’re not contributing to GDP at that point however if in a scenario say i was walking down the street
i got hit by a car an ambulance had to come get me take me to a hospital meanwhile i got news
perhaps i was about to get a divorce or something i’m not actually married but uh you know and
have to get some lawyers in the mix at this that and the other you know i could have all of these
really terrible things happening to me but guess what those are all positive contributors to GDP
well good thing you didn’t get hit by a hummer it oh yeah it’d be even worse just the worst of all
worlds but i think it just illustrates that for for a lot of us uh maybe who we haven’t thought about
this quite as much GDP is not at all an indicator as to quality of life as to uh how well things are
going right you know to to be fair to conventional economics and conventional economists um in
countries with truly widespread poverty yes you know then GDP per capita is a useful metric
right but you know you can’t get carried away it’s not the only metric because of the examples
like the ones you just mentioned but uh certainly in a country where the vast majority is reasonably
well fed and sheltered and far beyond that frankly uh then the GDP per capita is causing
just as many problems as it’s solving and human health and uh social social life and uh political
life it’s um that’s why you know way back in the 1860s John Stuart Mill probably very familiar
with it was calling already for what he called a stationary state which had nothing to do with a
stagnating economy or society you know in a steady state economy there’s plenty of room for
technological replacement for consumer preferences to shift uh for all kinds of economic dynamism
dynamic changes in the economy it’s just the size of that thing that is what matters uh in terms of
sustainability that’s what matters the most and so John Stuart Mill recognized that way back in
the 1860s in England and said you know why don’t we focus more on quality of life outside of
this economic activity you know political life and civil civil life and civil rights and reforms
and um you know improving uh child’s education uh and all the other things that oftentimes are
actually competed for uh by you know regular economic activities that go into that are included
in GDP calculations yeah yeah absolutely absolutely I would love if we could share a little bit about
the Cassie position on economic growth and I want to mention that folks if you’d like to learn more
and you can actually there’s a great really quick video at steadystate.org and on there you can
also check out and if you would like to you can become a signer of the Cassie position on economic
growth by the way there are already 14,000 signatures signatories and 215 organizations as well have
endorsed this so I you can see here it’s a kind of a full page it’s which is a summary of something
that’s fairly complex but I thought it might be nice to read a few of the highlights if that sounds
good Brian yeah and uh you want you want me to go forward or you want to do it okay so it says
whereas economic growth as defined in standard economics textbooks is an increase in the
production and consumption of goods and services based upon established principles of physics and
ecology there is a limit to economic growth therefore we take the position that there is a fundamental
conflict between economic growth and environmental protection for example biodiversity conservation
clean air and water atmospheric stability and a steady state economy that is an economy with a
relatively stable mildly fluctuating production of population and per capita consumption is a
viable alternative to a growing economy and has become a more appropriate goal in large wealthy
economies and for many nations with widespread poverty increasing per capita consumption or
alternatively more equitable distributions of wealth remains an appropriate goal so what I
love about this framework is that it is it’s speaking to and encompassing a lot of complexity
but specifically is calling out that there there are different appropriate courses for the
wealthy more developed nations versus the poorest economies around the world and I really
appreciate that it recognizes that subtlety yeah we had to or just it makes ethical sense
and it makes political sense frankly yeah yeah I guess you showed that to them but you know the
Cassie position has 16 sentences and so Aaron just read like five that kind of summarized this
thing that’s already a summary of yeah see a complex issue yep so so you two can
sign on to this along with some very notable thought leaders like E.O. Wilson, Jane Goodall,
Vandana Shiva, David Suzuki, Chris Matthews, right so some folks who have also given this a whole
lot of thought have signed on and are considering this a very worthwhile cause
so Brian I thought it would be good to also discuss you know what when we’re talking with our
congresspeople lawmakers etc what are what are some of the key points and in what
ways do we best frame this discussion for them well right now we have a president Trump
who is obsessed with GEP girls and so if you’re a Democrat and you’re going to visit you know
a Democratic representative or senator why not tell them look Trump’s got this argument that he’s
such a success because that GDP growth rate is so high but look at all the stops he’s pulling out
for that he’s trashing the environmental regulations of the country are standing in international
diplomacy he’s pulling us out of international of crucial international agreements you know he’s
all over with the tariffs so what we what and when I say we I’m an independent personally politically
because because both parties are still so pro-growth but what a what a Democrat can do is like we
did with Cory Booker we went into Cory Booker’s office met with staff and said you know
given Trump’s argument why not take some baby steps away from condoning GDP growth okay
this at least baby steps and so you may have heard Cory Booker has said things lately like
GDP doesn’t speak to my constituents that’s a baby step and that’s key because once there is one
by one politician on the hill there will be other you know leak-frogging steps by other politicians
on the hill especially with a prominent one you know a presidential candidate like that so that’s
one thing we suggest ask your representative to take some baby steps you know rhetorical baby steps
to get the idea out there in the public and in the polity with all the policy makers that GDP
is in everything and then it won’t take long to point out that it really is a gross domestic
problem as well as its gross domestic product and and the the concept that there is such a thing as
post optimal growth growth that’s causing more harm than good that will that will start to percolate
and that’ll that’s steady statesmanship you know if this is growth that’s unsustainable
well that would be unsustainable degrowth what’s the sustainable alternative it’s this thing in
between that’s the steady state economy it’s a middle path I like that yeah the middle path
and what about those of us who would be speaking with Republican members of congress what
advice do you have on that on that side well so we feel at Cassie that we have a latent
connection with rural communities in particular farmers and hunters and fishermen they’re the
first ones that see the the detriment of an overgrown economy the green spaces gone the taxes
are getting so intense it’s hard to maintain a farm anymore or a ranch you know the hunting grounds
aren’t there anymore every place is posted so we think that some of our most natural allies are
actually Republicans you know they call themselves conservatives yeah well we say we’re the true
conservative you know conservation is a steady state economy it’s like in the tradition of
Teddy Roosevelt yeah in the tradition of TR that’s right yeah you know Teddy Roosevelt set aside all
of these national wildlife refugees and national forests and to and what those are are you know
you think of a national wildlife refuge what’s it a refuge from it’s a refuge from the economy
that’s right you know you put those signs out and you protect that from the bulldozers and and
even from from too much outdoor recreation sure you can’t have too much of any economic activity
but the main thing is you know the the economy in the aggregate all the sectors added up
yeah that’s really great Brian oh go ahead please yeah please so you know that’s that’s a real
general thing you can tell your politician we we are we have embarked on a long term legislative
project that Cassie yeah and that’s to amend the employment act which is the central macroeconomic
policy of the United States and after the 1978 amendments it was called the full employment
and balance growth act so Congress got the government not not only into economic stabilization
but into growth as a formal policy role and it’s reflected all over in fiscal and monetary
policy and trade policy too so what we have we are rewriting the employment act to what we call
the full and sustainable employment and it starts with a preamble that
Congress finds and declares that there is a limit to economic growth and that economic growth
is causing many profound problems in the USA and in the world and we are therefore
setting as a goal a long-term goal a sustainable steady-state economy and then the rest of the
act is going to be about the programs and procedures for transitioning from a growth economy
to the steady-state and nobody you know there’s not going to be any breaks that are slammed on
so that overnight a steady-state economy happens there will be decades of adjustments in monetary
policy in the banking system and in fiscal policy and the tax code and in the budgets federal
and state and local budgets and planning and zoning policies but certainly you know that there
there’s got to be some leadership at the federal level and meanwhile there’s a lot of opportunity
at local levels so we have another campaign we’re just starting called keep our counties great
campaign I love it because if you like your kind if you like what you see when you look out there
well you want to keep it that way and that is the steady-state economy
so how can we how can we get involved and support and help all this work that you’re doing
well like you said before start by visiting the website steady-state.org and sign the
Cassie position that’s sort of as you might imagine we’re swimming straight upstream the river
of political economy big money doesn’t want us around there’s certainly not going to donate to us
so the only other thing that speaks as loudly as money to the politician is signatures
so these signatures really do matter and of course if you feel so compelled as to donate obviously
donations are going to help we have we’re one of the leanest nonprofits out there we only have two
at this time full-time employees and two part-time and then we have a fairly robust internship
program and volunteer program we have Cassie chapters around the world join a Cassie chapter
become a chapter director if you you know how if you feel like you want to provide some leadership
in this you know read up more on the topic we have resources at the website books and journal articles
that will provide you with the tools that you need you know to be able to talk shop on steady-state
economics what else can you do well we already talked about spending last year but I would say
start using the phrase frankly steady-state economy because there’s there’s too much
lack of clarity out there right now about what the alternatives are hashtag steady-state
yeah yeah I say steady-state cool I dig it so Brian let me just remind our audience that
this is the Wiener’s communities stewardship and sustainability podcast series and today we
are speaking with Brian check the executive director of Cassie the center for the advancement
of the steady-state economy I want to be sure to give a shout out to our sponsors making this
podcast possible and all the work that we’re doing around the country with community mobilization
efforts that includes Patagonia Waylay Waters the International Society of Sustainability Professionals
Purium Earth Coast Productions the Lidge Family Foundation and the association excuse me the
association of Waldorf schools of North America Osna so thanks to all of you for your support and
a huge thank you to each of you individually individuals who have already signed up for our monthly
giving program this is such an important way to support the work we’re doing at the Wiener’s community
and already have had so many great folks join in this effort if you would like to join please
go to Wiener’s dot org that’s the letter Y on earth dot org and you can sign up at any level
that works well for you when you do we’ll be sure to send you a code for a free download of any of
the e-book and audiobook resources that you would like to have in your collection now also a very
special gift for our Cassie friends anyone in the Cassie network in membership can use the code Cassie
that’s C-A-S-S-E at Wiener’s dot org to get 50% discount on all of the e-book and audiobook
resources so just another way to thank you and all of your network for all the work you all are
doing and Brian it’s just been a pleasure to have this opportunity to connect with you I think it’s
so fun we were both traveling through the mountains and we were able to link up here and low and
behold it has stopped raining the sun is shining before we sign off I just want to make sure
is there anything else you’d like to to say in closing well it might be a little too detailed but
you mentioned the schools yeah that’s another resource we have available we have K-12 curriculum
available yeah we had a grant from the Whedon Foundation to produce this curriculum we have a
limits to growth game for age grades one through three as part of that but I I just noticed that
was something I forgot to add when you ask you know what else people might do and but I just want
to say thank you also I think anybody that’s listening to your podcasts by their nature are
the are kind of the ultimate solution to these problems I mean I don’t think they’re I think
sustainability is a steady state economy but there are all types of expertise required to
get us to into that place so thank you audience and thanks Aaron for having me on here they thank
you Brian it’s been great look forward to collaborating more with you too by the way
me too as we get going all right see you later bye everybody the why on earth community stewardship
and sustainability podcast series is hosted by Aaron William Perry offer thought leader and
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