Richard Heinberg on Power

In the newest edition of #TheSteadyStater, Brian talks with @richardheinberg of the Post Carbon Institute about his new book POWER. As Heinberg puts it, power is everything. Can humanity learn how to keep it in check? @postcarbonhttps://t.co/0jDTEdDnFC

— CASSE (@SteadyStateEcon) October 4, 2021

Power by Richard Heinberg

Heinberg’s latest title, Power, traces how four key elements developed to give humans extraordinary power: tool-making ability, language, social complexity, and the ability to harness energy sources — most significantly, fossil fuels https://t.co/AotlgPKGBK @richardheinberg

— newsocietypub (@NewSocietyPub) September 14, 2021

POWER: Limits and Prospects for Human Survival, the newest book by @richardheinberg, published by @NewSocietyPub, is now available in bookstores everywhere!

Grab your copy: https://t.co/3gpgZ4vsjq pic.twitter.com/8xf1SlqddC

— Post Carbon Institute (@postcarbon) September 14, 2021

Partisan Closed-Mindedness

Heinberg fails to read Turchin correctly and realize that his analysis (and critique) of elites applies not just to Trump, but also to the Democrats and the Deep State.

We have a different administration & the pandemic has abated enough so that office workers are back in cubicles, kids are in school, and airplanes are again shuttling passengers around. Does the nation have a new lease on life?

My newest at @commondreams: https://t.co/GQM4SZSBv7

— Richard Heinberg (@richardheinberg) July 27, 2021

Trying to Build a Better Future

A growing number of young people know what must be done to cure our ailing global economy.

How do we equip this new generation of local economists?

How do we strengthen their values, align their initiatives, unify their voices, and amplify their impact?https://t.co/T68N2NK4jX

— Schumacher Center for a New Economics (@Center4NewEcon) June 8, 2021

This #WorldLocalisationDay, build beautiful human connections through your skills, passions, abilities and needs. 🌱🌏

Join our #OffersandNeedsMarket Friday June 11, 9am -11am PDT, for free!

Thanks to @RobertWanalo and @localfutures_ #postgrowth https://t.co/l7Hc1Oi1uw

— Post Growth Institute #BlackLivesMatter (@postgrowth) June 8, 2021

I'm honored to be a contributor for this inspiring week of events, talks, and workshops with @localfutures_ in celebration of #WorldLocalizationDay.

The program is entirely free and I hope you can join us. https://t.co/lziy5OSVGU https://t.co/njKvD1Lbn1

— Richard Heinberg (@richardheinberg) June 9, 2021

A Special Offer for Preording Heinberg's Power

When you preorder @richardheinberg's forthcoming book, POWER: LIMITS AND PROSPECTS FOR HUMAN SURVIVAL, you'll get immediate online access to all of the content as well as invitations to join Richard for exclusive webinar discussions about the book. https://t.co/7JuNCtTQ1X pic.twitter.com/BffrF77wIJ

— Post Carbon Institute (@postcarbon) May 26, 2021

Energy in the Future

A couple of days ago I happened to pick up an old book on one of my shelves—Palmer Putnam’s Energy in the Future, published 1953. Here was a time capsule of energy concerns from nearly a lifetime ago—and it got me thinking.

My newest on @buildresilience:https://t.co/FLYYX5RPNK

— Richard Heinberg (@richardheinberg) May 19, 2021

Power by Richard Heinberg

Next week I'll be leading a webinar based on my forthcoming book, Power: Limits and Prospects for Human Survival. It traces the relationships between social and physical power, showing how our unique abilities evolved.https://t.co/fP9zIgwDiB pic.twitter.com/5oDK7OFk3u

— Richard Heinberg (@richardheinberg) April 27, 2021

Writing POWER was the most fascinating intellectual journey of my lifetime, and I consider this book the capstone of my career. I hope that you will find the subject as compelling as I do, so that together we can summon the understanding needed to traverse the rough waters ahead. pic.twitter.com/PVp1F2zSc0

— Richard Heinberg (@richardheinberg) April 27, 2021

Emotional Resilience

Psychology of the left. Of course Heinberg assumes that his narrative is the correct and reasonable one.

Those of us who understand the systemic crises we face have a special responsibility to build our own emotional resilience and to be open-minded so that we can help others in our communities.

My newest piece, published this morning by @commondreams:https://t.co/9JwszXar4E

— Richard Heinberg (@richardheinberg) January 14, 2021

Heinberg on Limits

Listen to Back in America, the #podcast, latest episode with @richardheinberg https://t.co/WggvmgMLkb

▶️ Has America Reached Its Limits? Biden, Climate, The End of Fossil Fuel pic.twitter.com/C8l4RlaLhC

— Back In America - The Podcast -Stan Berteloot 🇪🇺 (@Back_in_America) December 14, 2020

The Best the Left Can Do

Heinberg recognizes some of the problems, but his understanding is shaped by his preferred narrative. But he offers no solution to division other than liberalism and "democratic governance," which is statism according to his preferences.

Neither party is equipped to reach across the divides that separate Americans, and the political system is set up to make it nearly impossible for a third party to take root.

My newest piece, published by @commondreams:https://t.co/lquo1jizjb

— Richard Heinberg (@richardheinberg) November 20, 2020

More liberalism on display here:

"...Rather than pursuing the unsustainable neoliberal world market and the xenophobic and nationalist measures taken by more and more governments, we should choose another path: that of ecological and social relocalisation... "https://t.co/FaaI2XWNEs.

— Local Futures (@EconofHappiness) November 21, 2020

Richard Heinberg and Helena Norberg-Hodge

In the second episode of the #SchumacherConversations podcast, @HelenaNHodge and @richardheinberg discuss the role of food systems in addressing climate change, how COVID-19 exposed the shortcomings of the dominant economic paradigm, and more:https://t.co/xf0KOYUBm6

— Schumacher Center for a New Economics (@Center4NewEcon) November 18, 2020

Richard Heinberg

The thread running through this month’s Museletter is energy. “A Simple Way to Understand What’s Happening and What to Do” explains the systemic consequences of fossil fuel depletion; “Has Oil Peaked?” points to key developments in the peak oil discussion.https://t.co/2F5370L1Ad

— Richard Heinberg (@richardheinberg) November 3, 2020

His newsletter.

Yes, Probably

Has oil peaked? https://t.co/dLIXHZPrfr pic.twitter.com/BoE0RqOeFU

— Resilience.org (@buildresilience) October 9, 2020

Richard Heinberg

Heinberg on Building Resilient Communities

Richard Heinberg: building resilient communities, transitioning from fos... https://t.co/pNyFxVVCpV @postcarbon @richardheinberg

— Back In America - The Podcast -Stan Berteloot 🇪🇺 (@Back_in_America) September 10, 2020

Inifinite Growth and Collapse

Economic growth—our modern day religion? Increasingly interested in the idea we need a new secular faith to unite humanity in a common cause of ecological sustainability, wellbeing, and love. https://t.co/eGvGGjFPQl via @CUSP_uk

— Aaron Magner (@aaronmagner) July 28, 2020

"Resilience comes from diversity and distributed decision-making, and from drawing on the intelligence of the people close enough to the problem to understand what needs to be done."https://t.co/9HaY4X2X8K

— Transition Network (@transitiontowns) July 28, 2020

Collapse: a Helpful Guide for the Perplexed https://t.co/2yYnpxv7aK pic.twitter.com/YGBH3frYiB

— Resilience.org (@buildresilience) July 27, 2020

Doom or denial: Is there another path? by Richard Heinberg

Today's the day!

Register below to watch an engaging pre-recorded conversation between @richardheinberg and @HelenaNHodge being released at 2pm EDT.https://t.co/OeTYBwur2A

— Schumacher Center for a New Economics (@Center4NewEcon) July 16, 2020

#SustainableProsperity must encompass human flourishing within the ecological limits of a finite planet. But to what extent can sustainable wellbeing be achieved alongside personal values focused on money, image and consumer goods? >> https://t.co/9aGIK8IM7N cc #Flow #Materialism

— CUSP (@CUSP_uk) July 28, 2020

Prosperity beyond death | Working Paper by Will Davies confronting a core existential problem of contemporary #capitalism: "the extent to which the need to sustain the common world has become channeled into an instinct to sustain private property." >> https://t.co/nbBm4loqC4

— CUSP (@CUSP_uk) July 28, 2020

Heinberg on Renewal Energy

My newest piece on the @postcarbon blog:https://t.co/Rn7W2qI41D

— Richard Heinberg (@richardheinberg) May 21, 2020

PCI

Eduardo Sasso Reviews Planet of the Humans

Planet of the Humans: Reviewing the Film and its Reviews

Fact-checking and physical limitations aside, a deeper and more fundamental issue that Planet of the Humans unveils is that of the societal story that we continue to tell ourselves, in one shape or another—be it green, orange, right, left, or center. And it’s the 300-year-old, now-taken-for-granted story of our increasingly urbanized, Techno-Industrial Age: namely, that we are the captains of our souls and the masters of our fates, and that we attain that fate through technology, production, and consumption.

In short, this societal narrative (including many ‘green’ versions of such narrative) has made us believe that we are above, front-and-center, while everything else is below, in the backstage. Under this worldview, ‘nature’ is not a ‘Home’ but a ‘resource’; we are not earthly humans but technological ‘citizens’ (and now virtual ‘Internauts’); countries are not made of communities of earth-dwellers but of abstract ‘markets’ of X or Y number of ‘consumers’. And thus our very language betrays us.

Scholars call this ‘anthropocentrism’ blended with ‘economism’. Others label it ‘speciesism’ and ‘technopoly’, even as one corporation praised it by making us sing “You got the whole world in your hands, with Mastercard at your command.”

As materialist historian Yuval Noah Harari has shown in the sixteenth chapter of Sapiens, this story championed by today’s economic system has become so pervasive that it now has all the elements of religion—however secular its scope. It tells us what to believe (economic growth will lead to the benefit of all), how to behave (rational and disciplined at the workplace, unrestrained and narcissistic at the shopping mall), and what to value (“Life is Now”, as Visa trumpeted rather conveniently, and dogmatically).

The embedded documentary itself can be found here.

Find Your Tribe

Coronavirus, economic networks, and social fabric by Richard Heinberg
In Tough times, Our Community Becomes Our Safety Net by Quint Studer (Resilience)

Related:
Call to Action for the US Transition Movement by Marissa Mommaerts

Energy Prospects: Little to Smil About? by Chris Smaje

Anyway, this is all vaguely relevant to my present theme, which is some thoughts on Vaclav Smil’s Energy and Civilization: A History (MIT Press, 2017). It’s hard to keep up with Smil’s output, since he seems to produce about three books every year, but I find him an interesting writer.

Choosing to Get Off Fossil Energy—Our Best Local Choices by Gerald Iversen

Richard Heinberg talks about local options for getting off fossil fuels on this episode of the Simpler Living Podcast.

Donald Trump: The Peak Oil President?

Richard Heinberg (PCI)

Related:
2017: The Year When the World Economy Starts Coming Apart by Gail Tverberg (Resilience)

Fake News, Failed States by Bart Hawkins Kreps (Resilience)

Gene Logsdon, 1932 – 2016 (Resilience)

To confront power, one must first name it: Neoliberalism and the sustainability crisis by Kurt Cobb (Resilience)

The Moral and Ethical Weight of Voluntary Simplicity: A Philosophical Review by Samuel Alexander, Jacob Garrett

Forging Permaculture Hand Tools, Part 1 by Tim Wickstrom (Resilience)