David Fridley

Radical societal transformation is inevitable; a plan could make a difference between catastrophe and progress.

In our view, at some point scientists and policy makers must begin discussing the one scenario that world leaders seem to want to avoid at all costs, i.e., managed economic contraction. The irony is that this scenario could reliably cut greenhouse gas emissions and is achievable without appeal to magic (CCS or decoupling).

The universal availability and use of electricity has come to define modern life, at least for the vast majority of North Americans and western Europeans.

David Fridley and Richard Heinberg present on our energy future.

The various obstacles to alternative energy compound the fundamental challenge of how to supplant a fossil fuel–based supply chain withone driven by alternative energy forms themselves.

Everyone knows that it takes energy to produce anything. The energy used in mining, transport, processing, manufacturing, delivery, and disposal is “embodied” in every product we consume, from food to diapers to televisions and insurance policies. Our traditional way of looking at energy, however, highlights only current consumption, traditionally disaggregated into agricultural, industrial, transportation, commercial, and residential sectors.