The End of Big Solutions
The world has changed dramatically since the start of the second Trump administration. But how best to describe this shift? Many see it as potentially the end of American democracy,…
Richard Heinberg
The Evolution of Modernity
The human world of the early 21st century is dominated by science, cities, and high technology. However, both our modern way of life and our way of thinking about the world…
Putting Nature at the Center
Life may be unique to Earth. Even if single-celled organisms can readily evolve in conditions that exist on millions or billions of other planets, we have no actual evidence that complex, multi-cellular…
Are we too smart for our own good?
Evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr (1904-2005)—who, I’m told, was a very smart person—concluded, late in life, that high intelligence may be a lethal mutation. In this article, we’ll explore some reasons for…
Environmental-Political Collapse Accelerates
The stench of failure emanating from the recently completed COP29 international climate negotiations in gas-rich Azerbaijan is deepening the gloom already enveloping the western world’s managerial class since the (re-)election…
Envisioning a Livable Future
Sir David King, former chief scientific advisor to the UK government, recently wrote that, “On our present path, civilization as we know it will disappear.” More than a century’s worth…
Beyond Growth: A Journey through the Landscape of Sustainable Economics
Growth is a story of success—until it isn’t. In most people’s minds, “growth” is inevitably associated with biological development: food crops and babies grow. In those instances, growth is understood…
What Would a Real Renewable Energy Transition Look Like?
Humanity’s transition from relying overwhelmingly on fossil fuels to instead using alternative low-carbon energy sources is sometimes said to be unstoppable and exponential. A boosterish attitude on the part of many…
Restoring Nature Is Our Only Climate Solution
Why there is no viable techno-fix to climate change, and why trees, soil, and biodiversity are our real lifelines. Climate change is a huge, complicated problem. Therefore, many people have an…
A Make-or-Break Moment in Humanity’s Perilous Journey
The polycrisis marks a historic inflection point in the story of civilization. Once we’re past a rapidly approaching moment, society won’t be able to maintain business as usual, even with…
Why Artificial Intelligence Must Be Stopped Now
The promise of AI is eclipsed by its perils, which include our own annihilation. Those advocating for artificial intelligence tout the huge benefits of using this technology. For instance, an…
We Need a Plan for the Transition to Renewable Energy
by David Fridley and Richard Heinberg Radical societal transformation is inevitable; a plan could make a difference between catastrophe and progress. The transition to renewable energy is inevitable given the…
Climate Change and Energy Transition: The 2023 Scorecard
by Richard Heinberg and J. David Hughes The numbers are in. Last year was the hottest on record by a wide margin. The planet is now 1.48 degrees Celsius warmer than it was before…
Can we save the world without free will?
Many articles on environmental topics are secular homilies, bristling with shoulds and shouldn’ts. Don’t use a gasoline-powered leaf blower. Buy an electric car instead of a gas-powered car. Eat organically grown food. Use…
Polycrisis, Unraveling, Simplification, or Collapse: Coming Soon to a Planet Near You?
Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the resulting disruption of multiple global supply chains, policy think tanks have increasingly adopted the term polycrisis to signify humanity’s…
Artificial intelligence and the fate of the world
Eliezer Yudkowsky, co-founder of the Machine Intelligence Research Institute, thinks artificial intelligence (AI) will kill us all. He frequently poses the following question. Imagine that you are a member of an…
Capturing Carbon With Machines Is a Failure—So Why Are We Subsidizing It?
Policymakers are pouring money into techno-fixes to solve the climate crisis, even though scientific studies indicate nature-based solutions are all-around more effective. Human activity—mostly the burning of fossil fuels—has raised…
The Truth About Our Failure to Curb Carbon Emissions
We all know what needs to be done: reduce carbon emissions. But so far, we members of global humanity just haven't been able to turn the tide. The latest IPCC report documents…
Why News of Population Decline and Economic Slowdown Isn’t Necessarily a Bad Thing
The Wall Street Journal called China’s slowdown “disappointing.” But for the environment, it is welcome news. On January 17, 2023, China’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) announced that the country’s population fell…
Humanity Faces Converging Debt Crises
High levels of global debt are likely to turn what could be a controllable shift from expansion to contraction into a blowout of unfulfilled expectations and obligations, leading to widespread…
A Realistic ‘Energy Transition’ Is to Get Better at Using Less of It
Being an early adopter of solar technology has given me personal insight into some of the practical limitations and difficulties of the energy transition. In 2022, I authored two articles expressing doubts about…
Why Understanding Limits Is the Key to Humanity’s Future
Recent news articles about a breakthrough in nuclear fusion research heralded the potential for “limitless” energy. Whenever I read that word limitless I wince, because I’ve learned to view it as a subtle instruction…
The Renewable Energy Transition Is Failing
Despite all the renewable energy investments and installations, actual global greenhouse gas emissions keep increasing. That’s largely due to economic growth: While renewable energy supplies have expanded in recent years,…
Is the Energy Transition Taking Off—or Hitting a Wall?
With the Inflation Reduction Act, the federal government is illogically encouraging the increasing use of fossil fuels—in order to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels. The passage of the Inflation Reduction…
Can We Abandon Pollutive Fossil Fuels and Avoid an Energy Crisis?
Similar to the two navigational hazards mythologized as sea monsters in ancient Greece—Scylla and Charybdis—which gave rise to sayings such as, “between the devil and the deep blue sea” and…
The Only Long-Range Solution to Climate Change
This article is adapted from POWER: Limits and Prospects for Human Survival (New Society Publishers, September 2021) by Richard Heinberg Climate change is often incorrectly described as an isolated pollution issue. In…
Questions to Richard Heinberg from a 15-Year-Old Student
Callum Alexander from Scotland recently contacted me with a few queries about renewable energy. I thought they were interesting questions that might occur to others, so I asked his permission…
What If Preventing Collapse Isn’t Profitable?
The real downside of the green-profit narrative has been that it created the assumption in many people's minds that the solution to climate change and other environmental dilemmas is technical,…
Coronavirus, Economic Networks, and Social Fabric
Connections will be strained in the coming weeks—some of them interpersonal and local, some economic and global. It’s up to us to nourish the connections that are most essential, while…
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…
What a Waste
Our modern industrial economy traces a straight line from resource extraction to manufacturing to sales to waste disposal. Since Earth has finite resources and limited ability to absorb pollution, the straight-line…
Sooner or Later, We Have to Stop Economic Growth — and We’ll Be Better for it
Both the U.S. economy and the global economy have expanded dramatically in the past century, as have life expectancies and material progress. Economists raised in this period of plenty assume…
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…
Human Predators, Human Prey
This is Part I of a 3-part essay that uses predation as a metaphor to unpack power relations in human societies. Introduction A lion runs down a gazelle; a raiding…
Ted Nordhaus Is Wrong: We Are Exceeding Earth’s Carrying Capacity
In his article, “The Earth’s Carrying Capacity for Human Life is Not Fixed,” Ted Nordhaus, co-founder of the Breakthrough Institute, a California-based energy and environment think tank, seeks to enlist…
Systemic Change Driven by Moral Awakening Is Our Only Hope
Our core ecological problem is not climate change. It is overshoot, of which global warming is a symptom. Overshoot is a systemic issue. Over the past century-and-a-half, enormous amounts of cheap energy…
Saudis And Trump: Gambling Bigly
“My grandfather rode a camel, my father rode a camel, I drive a Mercedes, my son drives a Land Rover, his son will drive a Land Rover, but his son…
Puerto Rico Is Our Future
News reports tell of the devastation left by a direct hit from Category 4 Hurricane Maria. Puerto Ricans already coping with damage from Hurricane Irma, which grazed the island just…
Energy And Authoritarianism
Could declining world energy result in a turn toward authoritarianism by governments around the world? As we will see, there is no simple answer that applies to all countries. However,…
Why Climate Change Isn’t Our Biggest Environmental Problem, And Why Technology Won’t Save Us
Our core ecological problem is not climate change. It is overshoot, of which global warming is a symptom. Overshoot is a systemic issue. Over the past century-and-a-half, enormous amounts of…
Disengage From The Spectacle
Behold today’s edition of Empire’s End—the biggest, best-ever 24/7 reality TV show! It’s been decades in preparation, with a budget in the trillions, a cast of billions! Its hero-villain is…
A Hard-Nosed Optimism
In last week’s essay I used the phrase “hard-nosed optimism” to describe the attitude needed now as “an alternative to the lies of divisive bullies who take advantage of the…
Inauguration Day: A Good Day For A Walk In The Woods
Not since the Civil War has an American presidential Inauguration Day been so fraught with fear and dread (on February 23, 1861, Abraham Lincoln traveled to his inauguration under military…
Localism In The Age Of Trump
2016 will be remembered as the year Donald Trump—a wealthy, narcissistic political novice with a strong authoritarian bent—was elected president of the United States after campaigning against economic globalization. The…
Exploring The Gap Between Business-As-Usual And Utter Doom
Predicting the future is a fool’s errand, but everybody does it. As long as we’ve had language—for tens of thousands of years, at last estimate—we’ve been able to formulate the…
“You Can’t Handle The Truth!”
Movie buffs will recognize this title as the most memorable line from “A Few Good Men” (1992), spoken by the character Colonel Jessep, played by Jack Nicholson (“You can’t handle…
What We As A People Can Do
Co-Written by Richard Heinberg, David Fridley Ed. note: This is Chapter 10 of Richard Heinberg's and David Fridley's new book, Our Renewable Future, now available from Island Press. Post Carbon…
Lessons Along The Path To 100 Percent Clean Energy
In early May of this year, Portugal ran on renewable electricity alone for four consecutive days. And later that same month, on May 15, Germany filled almost all its electricity needs with solar, wind,…
Energy And Justice
The equity and justice questions won’t go away. From the perspective of global elites, something must be done to level the playing field and take everyone’s interests into account (whether…
Renewable Electricity: Falling Costs, Variability, And Scaling Challenges
Costs to utility companies from the introduction of distributed solar PV are somewhat balanced by the fact that added solar capacity helps reduce the strain on electric grids on summer…
The Boiling Pot
On the surface, things appear normal. The status quo of life in America circa 2016 isn’t to everyone’s liking, but at least the system is still working after a fashion.…
Our Renewable Future
Ed. note: This is the introduction to Richard Heinberg's and David Fridley's new book, Our Renewable Future, now available from Island Press. Post Carbon Institute's companion website, ourrenewablefuture.org has also…
Tiptoeing Through The Renewable Energy Minefield
I spent the last year working with co-author David Fridley and Post Carbon Institute staff on a just-published book, Our Renewable Future. The process was a pleasure: everyone involved (including…
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