Richard Heinberg, Author At Countercurrents

Articles by: Richard Heinberg

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 Earth’s atmospheric carbon content by 50 percent, from 280 parts per million (ppm) to 420 ppm. Since the start of the Industrial Revolution, we’ve released approximately 950 billion metric tons of carbon into the air.[Read More…]

by Richard Heinberg — 25/05/2023 — Comments are Disabled — Climate Change

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 that carbon emissions are still increasing, despite all the promises and efforts of the past few decades. The report tells us there’s only a narrow (and rapidly shrinking) pathway to[Read More…]

by Richard Heinberg — 22/03/2023 — Comments are Disabled — Climate Change

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 in 2022 by 850,000 people from 2021, which was the first population decline witnessed by the country in six decades. This has mostly resulted from low birth rates stemming from the imposition[Read More…]

by Richard Heinberg — 01/03/2023 — Comments are Disabled — World

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 suffering. An enormous debt bomb threatens the U.S. federal government and the nation’s financial system unless warring politicians can agree on a plan to defuse it. However, there are even[Read More…]

by Richard Heinberg — 23/02/2023 — Comments are Disabled — World

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 society’s transition from fossil fuels to renewable solar and wind power. In this final article in the series, I’ll explain why my conclusions are based on experience as well as[Read More…]

by Richard Heinberg — 17/02/2023 — Comments are Disabled — World

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 to readers to “please stop thinking now.” After decades of false promises to deliver limitless energy, we need to start thinking instead, and search for limits both obvious and hidden. Doing so[Read More…]

by Richard Heinberg — 21/01/2023 — Comments are Disabled — Counter Solutions

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, world energy usage has ballooned even more—with the difference being supplied by fossil fuels. The more the world economy grows, the harder it is for additions of renewable energy to turn[Read More…]

by Richard Heinberg — 23/11/2022 — Comments are Disabled — World

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 Act (IRA) constitutes the boldest climate action so far by the American federal government. It offers tax rebates to buyers of electric cars, solar panels, heat pumps, and other renewable-energy and[Read More…]

by Richard Heinberg — 06/10/2022 — Comments are Disabled — World

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 “between a rock and a hard place,” modern energy policy has its own Scylla and Charybdis. On the one hand is the requirement to maintain sufficient energy flows to avoid[Read More…]

by Richard Heinberg — 04/05/2022 — Comments are Disabled — World

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 this flawed framing, humanity has simply made a mistake in its choice of energy sources; the solution entails switching sources and building enough carbon-sucking machines to clear the atmosphere of[Read More…]

by Richard Heinberg — 15/09/2021 — Comments are Disabled — Counter Solutions

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 to publish our dialog. Callum: If you replace a coal- or gas-fired power plant with a solar and/or wind farm (with a back-up reliable energy source), will you reduce or[Read More…]

by Richard Heinberg — 08/08/2021 — Comments are Disabled — Counter Solutions

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, and that policy makers and industrialists will implement it for us, so that the way we live doesn’t need to change in any fundamental way. That’s never been true. The[Read More…]

by Richard Heinberg — 24/09/2020 — Comments are Disabled — Counter Solutions

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 finding backups for those that can no longer be relied on. The COVID-19 pandemic offers intriguing insights into how networked our modern world has become, and how we’ve traded resilience[Read More…]

by Richard Heinberg — 15/03/2020 — 1 comment — World

A sign for Transition Linlithgow in Scotland, part of the Transition Towns initiative. (Photo: John Lord/flickr/cc)

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 globalization is actually a brief, fragile, and highly problematic phase of human history. Societies seem to pass[Read More…]

by Richard Heinberg — 26/08/2019 — Comments are Disabled — Counter Solutions

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 economy is unsustainable; it is designed for eventual failure. Why not make the economy circular, with waste from one process feeding into other production processes, thus dramatically reducing the need[Read More…]

by Richard Heinberg — 20/03/2019 — Comments are Disabled — Counter Solutions

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 that growth is good, necessary even, and should continue forever and ever without end, amen. Growth delivers jobs, returns on investment and higher tax revenues. What’s not to like? We’ve[Read More…]

by Richard Heinberg — 14/01/2019 — Comments are Disabled — Counter Solutions

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’re asleep at the wheel, the likelihood of calamity skyrockets. That’s[Read More…]

by Richard Heinberg — 19/10/2018 — 5 comments — Climate Change

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 band brandishing clubs, bows, and arrows descends on a tribal village; a loan shark confronts a delinquent borrower. In each of these three scenarios one party seeks to gain at[Read More…]

by Richard Heinberg — 08/08/2018 — 2 comments — Resource Crisis

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 readers in his optimistic vision of the future. It’s a future in which there are many more people on the planet and each enjoys a high standard of living, while[Read More…]

by Richard Heinberg — 31/07/2018 — Comments are Disabled — Resource Crisis

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 from fossil fuels enabled the rapid growth of resource extraction, manufacturing and consumption; and these in turn led to population increase, pollution and loss of natural habitat and hence biodiversity.[Read More…]

by Richard Heinberg — 16/05/2018 — 1 comment — Resource Crisis

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 will ride a camel.” – Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum, first Prime Minister of United Arab Emirates Try this simple mental exercise. Imagine a hypothetical Middle Eastern monarchy in which: Virtually[Read More…]

by Richard Heinberg — 18/11/2017 — 1 comment — Resource Crisis

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 days before, were slammed with an even stronger storm on September 20, bringing more than a foot of rain and maximum sustained winds of at least 140 miles per hour.[Read More…]

by Richard Heinberg — 28/09/2017 — 2 comments — Counter Solutions

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, pursuing the question leads us on an illuminating journey through the labyrinth of relations between energy, economics, and politics. The International Energy Agency and the Energy Information Administration (part of[Read More…]

by Richard Heinberg — 27/09/2017 — 1 comment — Resource Crisis

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 cheap energy from fossil fuels enabled the rapid growth of resource extraction, manufacturing, and consumption; and these in turn led to population increase, pollution, and loss of natural habitat and[Read More…]

by Richard Heinberg — 19/08/2017 — 2 comments — Resource Crisis

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 far more colorful and pathetic than Tony Soprano or Walter White. One day he and his team of oddball supporting characters appear to be winning bigly; the next, they’re crashing[Read More…]

by Richard Heinberg — 16/03/2017 — 1 comment — Counter Solutions

Sunrise on the Cannonball River and the Oceti Sakowin camp, Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. Photo by Thane Maxwell.

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 elites’ failures in order to promote their own patently greedy interests.” This is the optimism Antonio Gramsci probably had in mind when he coined the memorable phrase, “Pessimism of the[Read More…]

by Richard Heinberg — 15/02/2017 — 1 comment — Counter Solutions

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 guard, arriving in Washington, D.C., in disguise). The incoming president is the most unpopular of any to assume office since modern polling began. In a single news cycle this past[Read More…]

by Richard Heinberg — 20/01/2017 — 2 comments — Environmental Protection, World

'Trump’s ascendancy probably represents not a victory for localism or even populism,' writes Heinber, 'but merely a co-optation of legitimate popular frustrations by a corporatist huckster who intends to lead his merry band of cronies and sycophants in looting what’s left of America’s natural and cultural resources.' (Photo credit: EtiAmmos/Shutterstock.com)

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 events are fresh enough in many people’s minds that feelings are still raw and the implications are both unclear and, for many, terrifying. For those who have spent years, in[Read More…]

by Richard Heinberg — 09/12/2016 — 1 comment — Counter Solutions

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 question, “What will tomorrow bring?” The answers have ranged from idyllic to hellish, though the reality has been, more often than not, “a lot like today.” Since the Industrial Revolution,[Read More…]

by Richard Heinberg — 21/09/2016 — 1 comment — Alternative Energy

“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 the truth!” is #29 in the American Film Institute’s list of 100 top movie quotes). I hereby propose it as the subtext of the recently concluded Republican and Democratic national[Read More…]

by Richard Heinberg — 02/08/2016 — 1 comment — Resource Crisis

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 Institute’s companion website,ourrenewablefuture.org has also just been launched and contains additional content not in the book. Sound national and international climate policies are crucial: without them, it will be impossible to[Read More…]

by Richard Heinberg — 15/07/2016 — 1 comment — Counter Solutions

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, and hydro power. This is good news: it tells us we’re making progress toward a zero-carbon energy system. But it also helps us see the challenges to a full renewable[Read More…]

by Richard Heinberg — 12/07/2016 — Comments are Disabled — Alternative Energy

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 through an overarching global framework or through piecemeal national and regional efforts), or those who feel excluded will disrupt efforts toward an orderly energy transition. From the perspective of those with far lower levels of power and wealth, there is no reason to support efforts to reduce fossil fuel consumption if those efforts only preserve or exacerbate economic inequality.

by Richard Heinberg — 30/06/2016 — Comments are Disabled — Counter Solutions

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 days when demand soars and utilities must buy additional power at high rates. Nevertheless, as more residential and business customers install their own PV systems, revenues to the utility industry are starting to decline.[72] Industry-sponsored studies warn that the trend could eventually lead to a radical transformation of energy markets, on a scale similar to the restructuring of the telecommunications industry following the advent of the Internet and cell phones.

by Richard Heinberg — 27/06/2016 — 1 comment — Alternative Energy

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. The price of oil is going up a bit: that means the cost of driving is also creeping higher, but steeper prices provide a little welcome relief for an oil[Read More…]

by Richard Heinberg — 18/06/2016 — Comments are Disabled — Climate Change

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 just been launched.The book is available to order and also to read on the website as a complete set of online chapters. By Richard Heinberg & David Fridley The next[Read More…]

by Richard Heinberg — 18/06/2016 — Comments are Disabled — Alternative Energy, Counter Solutions

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 the twenty or so experts we interviewed or consulted) was delightful to work with, and I personally learned an enormous amount along the way. But we also encountered a prickly[Read More…]

by Richard Heinberg — 18/06/2016 — Comments are Disabled — Alternative Energy

Articles by: Richard Heinberg

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