Ode to a fallen oak
I was out for a bike ride with my 10 year old last weekend, and on the cycle path, a large oak tree had come down in a recent storm, blocking the whole path. The middle section had been...
President Declares ‘War on Entropy’
Enjoy this satirical look at the politics of energy by PCI Senior Fellow Richard Heinberg. CDN News, October 25 (Washington, DC) At a hastily organized news conference, president Obama this morning called for a new national effort to restore...
Magic Pudding Economics
Credit: Fuzzy Logic Science Show | Download How long can the world economy keep growing? How close to the limits are we? According to our guest today, we are nearing the end of cheap resources that have powered wealth creation, and it’s...
Gas Bubble Leaking, About to Burst
For the past three or four years media sources in the U.S. trumpeted the “game-changing” new stream of natural gas coming from tight shale deposits produced with the technologies of horizontal drilling and hydrofracturing. So much gas surged from...
A Bolder Clean Water Act for the Next 40 Years
The Connecticut River, New England’s largest, at Holyoke Dam in Massachusetts during the dry summer of 2012. Thanks to the Clean Water Act, many rivers like the Connecticut are cleaner today, but dams and droughts create new challenges to...
Scapegoat-in-Chief: The Race for the Oval Office
The first two U.S. presidential debates have been painful to watch. Both candidates are running on platforms constructed from verbal hallucinations about the nation’s past, present, and future. And the American people are being asked to choose between...
The End of Growth – Auckland, New Zealand, September 2012
Post Carbon Senior Fellow Richard Heinberg took his challenging and compelling messages on resilience, sustainability and a healthy future to Auckland on September 30, 2012. He asked and answered some of the most challenging questions we face today.
Ethics Matter: A Conversation with Bill McKibben
Credit: Carnegie Council | Download ..what brings Bill McKibben to Carnegie Council today is not only the attention he has paid to global warming; it’s what he says is the solution. McKibben believes our best hope lies not in appealing to our...
Power Play: Creating Local, Sustainable Power Sources
Credit: Vermont Edition | Download Forget massive, centralized power production – writer Greg Pahl says communities can plan and finance their own local energy sources. Pahl is the author of the new book, Power From The People: How to Organize, Finance, and...
Why Growth Is Ending (the elevator pitch)
Diminishing Returns. Of the three phases of the industrial period (coal/steam/railroads, 1800-1930; oil/electrification/automobiles, 1930-1980; and computers/cell phones/Internet, 1980-present), the second yielded the lion’s share of growth. By the 1980s, electrification and car-buying had reached a point of diminishing returns in...