Richard Heinberg
Richard Heinberg is a senior fellow at the Post Carbon Institute and the author of thirteen books, including his most recent: "Our Renewable Future: Laying the Path for One Hundred Percent Clean Energy" (2016). Previous books include: "Afterburn: Society Beyond Fossil Fuels" (2015), "Snake Oil: How Fracking's False Promise of Plenty Imperils Our Future" (2013); "The Party’s Over: Oil, War, and the Fate of Industrial Societies" (2005); "Peak Everything: Waking Up to the Century of Declines" (2010); and "The End of Growth: Adapting to Our New Economic Reality" (2011).
Articles by this author
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Views Thursday, February 25, 2021 Capitalism, the Doomsday Machine (or, How to Repurpose Growth Capital) David Fleming, the late British economist, contributed many blazing insights ; one that’s captivated my attention recently has to do with capital. Fleming counted six kinds of capital (natural, human, social, scientific/cultural, material, and financial), and noted that all six can be used in... Read more |
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Views Thursday, January 14, 2021 Insurrection, Pandemic, and Censorship On January 6, thousands gathered in Washington, DC to hear an inciteful speech from President Trump, then forcefully breached the US Capitol Building in an effort to disrupt the peaceful transition of presidential power—an institutional foundation of democracy. Some among the mob entering the... Read more |
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Views Friday, November 20, 2020 The Real Plan? To Make America Ungovernable The US presidential election of 2020 is now behind us—or is it? President Trump has yet to concede his defeat, and many Republican lawmakers have demanded recounts and backed lawsuits. Some commentators fear that the current administration is laying the groundwork for a coup d’état by preventing... Read more |
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Views Wednesday, September 23, 2020 What If Preventing Collapse Isn't Profitable? The notion that modern industrial civilization is fundamentally unsustainable and is therefore likely to collapse at some point is not a new one. Even before the Limits to Growth report of 1972, many ecologists were concerned that our continual expansion of population and consumption, based on the... Read more |
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Views Wednesday, June 10, 2020 United States: An Obituary The United States of America was problematic from the start. It was founded on genocide and slavery, and, while frequently congratulating itself on the rights and freedoms it granted its citizens, never managed to confront the demons in its past. The question would arise repeatedly, generation... Read more |
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Views Thursday, April 09, 2020 Pandemic Response Requires Post-Growth Economic Thinking Amid a horrific human tragedy of sickness and death, much of it taking place in hospitals staffed by brave but overworked and under-equipped doctors and nurses, we are all learning once again what it feels like when economic growth comes to a shuddering stop and the economy goes into reverse—... Read more |
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Views Saturday, March 14, 2020 Coronavirus, Economic Networks, and Social Fabric The COVID-19 pandemic offers intriguing insights into how networked our modern world has become, and how we’ve traded resilience for economic efficiency. Case in point: someone gets sick in China in December of 2019, and by March of 2020 the US shale oil industry is teetering on the brink. What’s... Read more |
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Views Sunday, August 25, 2019 Two Arguments for Localism Argument 1: Localism is inevitable. Globalization was made possible by long-distance transport, communications, and capital flows. It fits with widespread assumptions about progress and economic growth leading to a better future. But there are good reasons to think that our current bout of... Read more |
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Views Thursday, January 17, 2019 Could a Green New Deal Save Civilization? The idea is infectious. Could a big government jobs and spending program succeed in kicking into gear the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy, and ultimately save us from catastrophic climate change? The energy transition is currently going way too slowly; it needs money and policy... Read more |
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Views Thursday, October 18, 2018 When It Comes to Sustainability, We’re a Society of Distracted Drivers Driving is dangerous. In fact, it’s about the riskiest activity most of us engage in routinely. It requires one’s full attention—and even then, things can sometimes go horribly awry. The brakes fail. Weather turns roads to ice. A driver in the oncoming lane falls asleep. Tragedy ensues. But if we’... Read more |