Can We Afford the Future?
As a child of the 1950s I grew up immersed in a near-universal expectation of progress.
end of growth
Richard Heinberg: After the Burn
After a two-century-long burning bender, the globe is in for a heck of a hangover.
What is Wealth?
For a lot of people with money, they have wrapped their identity up in it. That is their narrative.
“Don’t Owe. Won’t Pay.” Everything You’ve Been Told About Debt Is Wrong
The legitimacy of a given social order rests on the legitimacy of its debts.
Paul Krugman’s Errors and Omissions
In a New York Times op-ed published September 18 titled “Errors and Emissions,” economist-columnist Paul Krugman took a swipe at my organization, Post Carbon Institute, lumping us together with the Koch brothers as purveyors of “climate despair.” But not only does Krugman misrepresent our position, he himself is guilty of 5 errors and 3 omissions.
Are we on the path of ‘Limits to Growth’?
Researchers are finding that the business-as-usual scenario in the 1972 "Limits to Growth" study is unfolding before our eyes. Will reality follow that scenario further into the beginning of industrial decline this decade?
Why Peak Oil Refuses to Die
Peak oil and climate change are two sides of the same coin. The coin itself represents our reliance on fossil fuels and their unique energetic benefits.
Two Realities
Our contemporary world is host to two coexisting but fundamentally different—and, in at least one crucial respect, contradictory—realities. Political Reality and Physical Reality.
What Does a Post-Growth Economy Look Like?
No respectable person in American politics dares to question the virtue of economic growth even though it is increasingly clear that life on Earth will collapse if current patterns of extraction and consumption continue. So what is the responsible path forward?
Boom or bust time for critical thinking?
Following the massive bailouts, stimulus spending and quantitative easing of recent years, everyone breathed a sigh of relief and went back to sleep, says Richard Heinberg. But the coming global energy crisis will likely provide the jolt that wakes everyone up again.
What to Do While Waiting (for the Crash)
Author Richard Heinberg on geopolitics, finance, and environment of the slow crash. Global Crossing and Green Festivals President Kevin Danaher on transition to green economy. Unicyclist for climate Joseph Boutelier.
The Anthropocene: It’s Not All About Us
Time to celebrate! Woo-hoo! It’s official: we humans have started a new geological epoch—the Anthropocene. Who’d have thought that just one species among millions might be capable of such an amazing accomplishment?