Richard Heinberg has influenced the work of those who are searching for a way out of today’s interlocking crisis of climate, finance and resource depletion. I visited him in Sept. 2010 at a crucial moment. He had just written the new preface for his 2007 book Peak Everything, Waking Up to the Century of Declines. Analyzing the events of the past three years Heinberg writes in his update that the question of when we will reach the peak of the resources that we made ourselves dependent on has finally been answered – and the time is NOW. The economic crisis, he says, is not a dip from which we will recover. Humanity has achieved an unsustainable pinnacle of population size and consumption rates, and our species needs to learn right now to live within the resource limits of the Earth.
This interview brings up the intriguing history of the limits to growth movement, what other energy sources and raw material are close to peak, the need to reform the financial system and the growth imperative built into policy. Heinberg’s work inspired the transition town movement – and he gives a brief survey of the recent successes.
Heinberg is the author of eight other books, including The Party’s Over, and Blackout, Coal, Climate, and the Last Energy Crisis. He is currently Senior Fellow-in-Residence at Post Carbon Institute, a nonprofit organization dedicated to building more resilient, sustainable, and equitable communities. His appearance in the movies: The End of Suburbia and Leonardo DiCaprio’s 11th Hour popularized and demystified the concept of peak oil and so many other diminishing resources.
For a broadcast quality mp3 version of Part ONE click HERE
For a broadcast quality mp3 version of Part TWO click HERE
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