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 Friday, December 19, 2014 The Oil Price Crash of 2014 Oil prices have fallen by half since late June. This is a significant development for the oil industry and for the global economy, though no one knows exactly how either the industry or the economy will respond in the long run. Since it’s almost the end of the year, perhaps this is a good time to... Read more |
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Views Thursday, November 06, 2014 How to Shrink the Economy without Crashing It: A Ten-Point Plan The human economy is currently too big to be sustainable. We know this because Global Footprint Network, which methodically tracks the relevant data, informs us that humanity is now using 1.5 Earths’ worth of resources . We can temporarily use resources faster than Earth regenerates them only by... Read more |
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Views Tuesday, September 02, 2014 Why Peak Oil Refuses to Die Perhaps you’ve seen one of the recent barrage of articles claiming that fears of an imminent peak and decline in world oil production have either been dispelled (because we actually have plenty of oil) or are misplaced (because climate change is the only environmental problem we should be concerned... Read more |
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Views Wednesday, July 30, 2014 New Russia Sanctions: Washington, Delusional About US Energy Capacity, Lashes Out The New York Times reports that “The United States and Europe kicked off a joint effort on Tuesday intended to curb Russia’s long-term ability to develop new oil resources.” The new sanctions would deny Russia access to western technology needed to access polar oil and deepwater oil, as well as... Read more |
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Views Wednesday, July 23, 2014 Two Realities: On Debating 'Growth' on a Finite Planet Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference. –Robert Frost Our contemporary world is host to two coexisting but fundamentally different—and, in at least one crucial respect, contradictory—realities. One of these might be termed... Read more |
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Views Sunday, June 22, 2014 Want to Change the World? Read This First History is often made by strong personalities wielding bold new political, economic, or religious doctrines. Yet any serious effort to understand how and why societies change requires examination not just of leaders and ideas, but also of environmental circumstances. The ecological context (climate... Read more |
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Views Thursday, June 05, 2014 What Latest IEA Report Tells Us: 'The Fossil Fuel Party Is Over' The International Energy Agency has just released a new special report called “ World Energy Investment Outlook ” (pdf) that should send policy makers screaming and running for the exits—if they are willing to read between the lines and view the report in the context of current financial and... Read more |
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Views Thursday, May 22, 2014 California's Shale Fail: The Case of 13 Billion Barrels of Missing Oil In 2011, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) of the US Department of Energy commissioned INTEK Inc., a Virginia-based consulting firm, to estimate how much oil might be recoverable from California’s vast Monterey Shale formation. Production of tight oil was soaring in North Dakota and south... Read more |
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Views Thursday, May 08, 2014 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? Let’s wait to stock up on party favors, though. After all, the Anthropocene could... Read more |
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Views Wednesday, March 26, 2014 Natural Gas Export Stupidity Read more |