Richard Heinberg’s 2021 book Power: Limits and Prospects for Human Survival traces how humans have come to overpower the earth’s natural systems and oppress one another—with catastrophic implications. We are proud to provide these excerpts in partnership with New Society Publishers.
An impressive, sweeping, and thought-provoking narrative.
—Dennis Meadows, coauthor, The Limits to Growth
Power: Chapter 7. The Fate of the Superorganism
Ecologists have been telling us that “small is beautiful” since the 1960s, but trends have gone in just the opposite direction, resulting in the flourishing of the Superorganism. Nobody designed this vast, intricate web of global interconnectedness, and no one can control it.
September 12, 2022
Power: Chapter 6. Involuntary Power Limits: Death, Extinction, Collapse
If we are indeed in an overshoot phase, we must do what we can to avert or minimize a die-off event.
August 18, 2022
Power: Chapter 5. Overpowered: The Fine Mess We’ve Gotten Ourselves Into
Power is essential; without it, we would be literally powerless. But one can have too much of a good thing. How much power is enough? How much is too much?
July 15, 2022
Power: Chapter 4. Power in the Anthropocene
With fossil fuels and electrification, and thus greater mobility and instant communications, we have indeed become a human “hive.”
June 28, 2022
Power: Chapter 3. Power in the Holocene
Whether in family, school, work, or politics, we’re all immersed in the pathologies of power. If we’re lucky, we learn to navigate these waters without being harmed irreparably, and without harming others. Many are not so fortunate.
May 20, 2022
Power: Chapter 2. Power in the Pleistocene
The power to communicate aesthetic pleasure and thereby to feel profound affinity with other people, including individuals of other species, propel human culture forward in ways that are hard to measure, but that are impossible to ignore. These are powers that provide hope for our future.
April 27, 2022