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Think Resilience Lesson 3: Population and Consumption

By Richard Heinberg, originally published by Resilience.org

April 10, 2017

Post Carbon Institute Senior Fellow Richard Heinberg sat down to deliver a 22-chapter lecture series entitled “Think Resilience: Preparing Communities for the Rest of the 21st Century,” which explores how communities can build resilience in the face of our intertwined sustainability crises. The series is intended for students and concerned individuals of all ages.

Chapter 3: Population and Consumption

Human impact on the environment results not just from population size, and not just from the per capita rate of consumption, but from both together. In this video we explore how adoption of tools, language, agriculture, and most especially fossil fuels allowed humans to temporarily overcome the carrying capacity of the planet to support our growing population and consumption, and why those trends can no longer continue.

View transcript

View Chapter 1: Introduction

View Chapter 2: Energy

New chapters will be rolled out on a regular basis over the coming weeks, but you can also sign up to view all the videos right away.

Image Credits

 

Richard Heinberg

Richard passed away unexpectedly in July 2026. Read this rememberance by Asher Miller.

Richard Heinberg was regarded as one of the world’s foremost advocates for a shift away from our current reliance on fossil fuels. He was the author of fourteen books, including some of the seminal works on society’s current energy and environmental sustainability crisis. Richard was Senior Fellow of Post Carbon Institute for nearly twenty years.

Richard 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 was quoted and interviewed countless times for print, television, and radio. His monthly MuseLetter was published for 400 consecutive months starting in 1992, and was included in Utne Magazine’s annual list of Best Alternative Newsletters.

Full bio at postcarbon.org.

Tags: carrying capacity, limits to growth


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