POWER FROM THE PEOPLE
Peak oil and climate change dictate that we get society off fossil fuels, fast. But wind, solar, biofuels, hydropower each have major drawbacks compared to the versatility, ubiquity, and energy content of fossil fuels. It’s hard to see how...
My TEDx Talk: Collective Intelligence for Sustainable Cities
TEDx Mission recently invited me to speak at their San Francisco event on how cities are using collective intelligence approaches to address climate change and climate change adaptation. Crowdsourcing and savvy planning are producing healthier quality of life and more...
The Peak Oil Crisis: Summer’s End
As Labor Day nears, a quiet summer seems poised to turn into an autumn to remember. Our concern here, as it has been for many years now, is the price and availability of oil products vital to our civilization....
The Main Street To Recaptured Capital
By Mike Rotkin, Solutions Journal As a former mayor of Santa Cruz, California, I have had a sustained interest in alternative investment strategies for local communities. Most of the proposals I’ve studied and worked on tend to be either...
DON’T WORRY, DRIVE ON: Fossil Fools & Fracking Lies
In recent months we’ve seen a spate of assertions that peak oil is a worry of the past thanks to so-called "new technologies" that can tap massive amounts of previously inaccessible stores of "unconventional" oil. "Don’t worry, drive on,"...
Collective Intelligence–Cities as Global Intelligence Platform
Post Carbon Institute Fellow Warren Karlenzig delivers at TEDx. Social media and collaborative technologies–layered with smart systems combining geo-location data with human experience–will make cities the driving sustainability force in a dawning planetary era. Cities will anticipate new risks...
Don’t Worry, There’s Plenty of Oil
In recent months we’ve seen a spate of articles, reports, and op-eds claiming that peak oil is a worry of the past thanks to so-called “new technologies” that can tap massive amounts of previously inaccessible stores of “unconventional” oil....
Rob Hopkins talk to the 2012 World Student Environmental Summit
Rob Hopkins recorded this speech to inspire the 5th edition of the World Student Environmental Summit in Lausanne.
The end of the Industrial Revolution
What a privilege it is to be alive in these times, in such a significant period in human history. It’s not always easy to see moments of great historical importance when you’re in the middle of them. Sometimes they’re...
Building Resilience in a Changing Climate
Climate shocks are on the way. We’ve already spewed so much carbon into the atmosphere that a cascade of worsening crop failures, droughts, floods, and freak storms is virtually guaranteed. You, your family, and your community will feel the...