The Greening the Apocalypse team talk peak oil with Richard Heinberg, Senior Fellow with the Post Carbon Institute. Richard is regarded as one of the world’s foremost advocates for a shift away from our current reliance on fossil fuels. He’s the author of 13 books, including some seminal works with titles like The End of Growth: Adapting to Our New Economic Reality, and Powerdown: Options and Actions for a Post-Carbon World. His latest book is Our Renewable Future: Laying the Path to One Hundred Percent Clean Energy (available for free online!) co-authored with Berkeley energy expert David Fridley. If you want to do an online course with Richard checkout Think Resilience. This is the first of a two part interview.
Later in the show we talk about the concept of ‘energy slaves’. Check out this video an Olympic cyclist vs. a toaster.
First broadcast at Greening the Apocalypse on 30 May 2017
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: energy transition, peak oil
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