The Only Long-Range Solution to Climate Change
This article is adapted from POWER: Limits and Prospects for Human Survival (New Society Publishers) by Richard Heinberg Climate change is often incorrectly described as an isolated pollution issue. In this flawed framing, humanity has simply made a mistake...
Questions to Richard Heinberg from a 15-Year-Old Student
Callum Alexander from Scotland recently contacted me with a few queries about renewable energy. I thought they were interesting questions that might occur to others, so I asked his permission to publish our dialog. Callum: If you replace a...
Billionaire Pandemic Wealth Gain Could Pay For Biden’s American Families Plan
Over the last 16 months, since the formal beginning of the pandemic lockdown, the combined wealth of 713 U.S. billionaires has surged by $1.8 trillion, a gain of almost 60 percent. The total combined wealth of U.S. billionaires increased...
America’s (Likely) Violent Future
A little over a year ago I wrote an essay titled The United States: An Obituary. It was the tail end of the Trump regime and the early days of the novel coronavirus pandemic; dread was in the air, and I...
Hidden Drivers Wrap-up, or… the Story of the Throbbing Amygdala (Episode 47 of Crazy Town)
Asher Miller Jason Bradford Rob Dietz
It’s the end of the world as we know it. OK, maybe not just yet, but it is the end of Crazy Town’s third season. If you’ve been able to look past some of the more absurd parts of...
Playing with FIRE
In 2017, I was on the speaking circuit for the FIRE (financial independence retire early) vast community of super smart, spreadsheet literate people working towards early retirement. Few understood the inner dimensions of the path they were on, and...
Maximum Power and Scarcity, or… the Story of the Birdbrained Backhoe on the Beach (Episode 46 of Crazy Town)
Asher Miller Jason Bradford Richard Heinberg Rob Dietz
The “maximum power principle” may sound like the doctrine of an evil supervillain, but it actually applies to all living creatures. The principle states that biological systems organize to increase power whenever constraints allow. Given the way humans adhere...
Feedback Loops and Climate Catastrophe, or… the Story of the Baseball Bloodbath (Episode 45 of Crazy Town)
Asher Miller Jason Bradford Rob Dietz
Did you ever think a baseball melee could effectively explain nuanced topics like cybernetics and systems dynamics? This episode examines the fascinating world of positive feedback loops, which play an outsized role in the not-so-positive phenomena of climate change,...
Too Much Power
This article, the third in a series, is based on the author’s forthcoming book, POWER: LIMITS AND PROSPECTS FOR HUMAN SURVIVAL. You can read the first article in the series here, and the second here. For information about the book and...
Net Energy and Sustainability, or… the Story of the Overstuffed Strongman (Episode 44 of Crazy Town)
Asher Miller Jason Bradford Rob Dietz
All of humanity’s feats, whether a record-setting deadlift by the world’s strongest man or the construction of a gleaming city by a technologically advanced economy, originate from a single hidden source: positive net energy. Having surplus energy in the...