Richard Heinberg

Richard is Senior Fellow of Post Carbon Institute, and is regarded as one of the world’s foremost advocates for a shift away from our current reliance on fossil fuels. He is the author of fourteen books, including some of the seminal works on society’s current energy and environmental sustainability crisis. He has authored hundreds of essays and articles that have appeared in such journals as Nature and The Wall Street Journal; delivered hundreds of lectures on energy and climate issues to audiences on six continents; and has been quoted and interviewed countless times for print, television, and radio. His monthly MuseLetter has been in publication since 1992. Full bio at postcarbon.org.

Beyond Growth: A Journey through the Landscape of Sustainable Economics

Richard Heinberg traces the intellectual throughline of post-growth concepts and the history of degrowth and related economic movements. He takes a systemic approach that touches on Indigenous economics, ecology, physics, archaeology, energy, cultural history, philosophy, and climate science.

October 31, 2024

A Dozen Years of Economic Thumb Twiddling

Post Carbon Institute colleagues Richard Heinberg and Rob Dietz discuss the history of economic growth, the rise of ecological economics, the aftermath of the economic turmoil of 2008, and how to go from obsessing over growth to embracing a right-sized economy.

October 31, 2024

To Grow or Not to Grow: That Isn’t the Question

Richard Heinberg reviews the growth-versus-degrowth debate, explores the wide range of degrowth objectives and strategies, and lays out why advocating for voluntary degrowth makes sense now, even if nature-imposed contraction will come first.

October 31, 2024

Growth, Degrowth, and Green Growth: A Conversation with Peter Victor

Peter Victor is one of the world’s foremost post-growth theorists. In this Q&A article, Richard Heinberg gathers insights from Peter about what will be needed to downsize the economy toward a sustainable scale.

October 31, 2024

Democracy at the Crossroads: An Interview with David Stasavage on Polarization

Post Carbon Institute Senior Fellow and author Richard Heinberg interviews David Stasavage, author of The Decline and Rise of Democracy: A Global History from Antiquity to Today. David summarizes polarization and capacity to deal with crises in democracies and autocracies, discusses the challenge of scale in modern democracies, and shares how past democracies like Athens and the Iroquois Confederacy dealt with polarization.

September 17, 2024

Global trends are polarizing us: Can democracy handle it?

Richard Heinberg explores questions about democracy and political polarization in the context of profound changes in environmental, economic, and technological conditions, including whether democracies or autocracies are better able to respond to crises.

September 5, 2024

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