Home » Posts tagged 'richard heinberg' (Page 3)
Tag Archives: richard heinberg
A simple way to understand what’s happening … and what to do
A simple way to understand what’s happening … and what to do The world seems to be coming apart at the seams. It’s critical to understand why, so that we can avoid the worst and find the best responses so as to move toward the environmentally and socially healthy future we want. It turns out that […]
Has oil peaked?
Has oil peaked? Last month, the world’s 4th largest oil company—BP—predicted that the world will never again consume as much petroleum as it did last year. So, have we finally hit peak oil? And if so, what does that mean for our economy and our world? There was fierce controversy in the first decade of this century […]
What If Preventing Collapse Isn’t Profitable?
What If Preventing Collapse Isn’t Profitable? The real downside of the green-profit narrative has been that it created the assumption in many people’s minds that the solution to climate change and other environmental dilemmas is technical, and that policy makers and industrialists will implement it for us, so that the way we live doesn’t need […]
Doom or denial: Is there another path?
Doom or denial: Is there another path? I was recently asked to comment on a dustup between some members of Extinction Rebellion (see Thomas Nicholas, Galen Hall, and Colleen Schmidt, “The Faulty Science, Doomism, and Flawed Conclusions of Deep Adaptation”) and Jem Bendell, founder of Deep Adaptation (see his “Letter to Deep Adaptation Advocate Volunteers […]
Avalanche
Avalanche How bad could it get? For the United States, it seems there is no bottom. Back in March, I wrote that the nation’s response to the coronavirus pandemic would likely shape its economic, political, and geopolitical fortunes for years or decades to come. Four months later, it’s time for a check-in. How’s that pandemic response going? […]
United States: An Obituary
United States: An Obituary The United States of America was problematic from the start. It was founded on genocide and slavery, and, while frequently congratulating itself on the rights and freedoms it granted its citizens, never managed to confront the demons in its past. The question would arise repeatedly, generation after generation: rights and freedoms […]
Nobody takes the renewable energy transition seriously
Nobody takes the renewable energy transition seriously “A goal without a plan is just a wish.”—Antoine de Saint-Exupéry Despite all the demands from climate activists, scientists, and even policy makers, hardly a single country is taking the shift to renewable energy seriously. Even countries and regions that claim to be working toward an energy transition are failing […]
Review: Planet of the Humans
Review: Planet of the Humans A few days ago, Emily Atkin posted a reaction to Michael Moore’s latest film, Planet of the Humans (directed and narrated by Jeff Gibbs), in which she began by admitting that she hadn’t seen the film yet. When writers take that approach, you know there’s already blood in the water. (She has since watched […]
Fraying Food System May Be Our Next Crisis
Fraying Food System May Be Our Next Crisis If you’re already overwhelmed with news of the pandemic and are coping with depression, read no further. However, if you’re a crisis responder by inclination or profession, you might start thinking food. Experts who study what makes societies sustainable (or unsustainable) have been warning for decades that […]
Earth Day 50, Under Lockdown
Earth Day 50, Under Lockdown April 22 was supposed to be a day of global celebration and protest. Fifty years ago, up to ten percent of Americans participated in thousands of local events on the first Earth Day. That mass action, which would have been widely commemorated this year, propelled early environmental policy victories that, […]
Pandemic Response Requires Post-Growth Economic Thinking
Pandemic Response Requires Post-Growth Economic Thinking The end of growth is painful. We had a foretaste of it in 2008, but the current crisis promises to be much worse. Amid a horrific human tragedy of sickness and death, much of it taking place in hospitals staffed by brave but overworked and under-equipped doctors and nurses, […]
How Does Pandemic Change the Big Picture?
How Does Pandemic Change the Big Picture? As of 2019, the Big Picture for humanity was approximately as follows. Homo sapiens (that’s us), a big-brained bipedal mammal, had spent the Pleistocene epoch (from 2.5 million years ago until 12,000 years ago) developing its ability to control fire, talk, paint pictures, play bone flutes, and make tools and clothes. Language […]
Power, the Acceleration of Cultural Evolution, and Our Best Hope for Survival
Power, the Acceleration of Cultural Evolution, and Our Best Hope for Survival These days I’m deep in the process of writing a book on power—both physical power (humanity’s power over nature) and social power (the power of some people over others). The book’s first few chapters explore the historical process by which we developed our […]
Book review of Heinberg’s “Afterburn: society beyond fossil fuels”
Book review of Heinberg’s “Afterburn: society beyond fossil fuels” Preface. This book has 15 essays Heinberg wrote from 2011 to 2014, many of them available for free online. These are some of my Kindle notes of parts that interested me, so to you it will be disjointed and perhaps not what you would have chosen as […]
What a Waste
What a Waste Our modern industrial economy traces a straight line from resource extraction to manufacturing to sales to waste disposal. Since Earth has finite resources and limited ability to absorb pollution, the straight-line economy is unsustainable; it is designed for eventual failure. Why not make the economy circular, with waste from one process feeding into […]
