How Much of the Worsening Energy Crisis is Due to Depletion?
But as long as we keep extracting and burning coal, oil, and natural gas, our depletion problem likewise keeps simmering away in the background. This winter, the pot may boil over.
powering down
COP26 and the Five Stages of Grief
The output of COP26 needs to be, as BreakThrough put it, “a ‘big minus’ in emissions, not ‘net zero’ emissions”. But it also needs to communicate acceptance an honest and a truthfulness, that the climate and ecological emergency goes far far deeper than just electric cars and heat pumps, it demands a fundamental reimagining of everything.
Winter’s discontent
This may become the winter of our discontent as people around the world face a widening energy crisis: rationing because supplies are limited due to delivery shortages, production limits, cost, or by government mandate.
Review: Power by Richard Heinberg
A brilliant and searching probe into power in all its forms, this book shows how our species’ pursuit, overuse and abuse of power is plunging us ever deeper into existential crisis.
Why is the political process so slow to respond to our ecological crisis?
All paths out of overshoot (genuine solutions) involve a contraction of the species and a decline of material/energy throughput. There are no exceptions.
From Popovers to Popunders: The Kind of Decarbonization That Can Succeed
A downsizing economy will require a smaller and smaller energy supply; in time, energy demand will become modest enough that it can be fully satisfied with renewable sources, sustainably deployed.
The Only Long-Range Solution to Climate Change
The only real long-range solution to climate change centers on reining in human physical, social, and economic power dramatically, but in ways that preserve human dignity, autonomy, and solidarity.
A Prayer for Nonbelievers
Maybe we need to let go of the comforts of fashionable cynicism and find the courage to affirm such things again. Maybe a prayer for nonbelievers, to quote a line from the song, is what we need just now. We’ll just have to see.
Where We Mine: Resource Politics in Latin America
Ideas are effective when people see themselves in them and want to fight for them, rather than something that is purely intellectual. We need to think in terms of the questions and ideas that can galvanise the militant and collective action that this moment requires.
The Age of Low Tech by Philippe Bihouix: review
‘Let’s always ask ourselves: Can I do without? Can I do less? Can I make it easier? And by the way, why do I have to do that? And couldn’t I do with what already exists?’
Restless and Relentless Minds: Thinking as a “Species out of Context”
I have no comprehensive proposal for how we can get to “fewer and less,” nor does anyone else. The scale and scope of the challenge is unprecedented, and beyond the reach of conventional policy proposals. But we can enhance our chances of success by cultivating restless and relentless minds.
Revisiting The Limits to Growth
The choice is that either we end up with unmanaged decline, which would be catastrophic, or a managed levelling out of our economies, shaped by a shift in social values and expectations.