Environment

Once You Know

By Richard Heinberg, originally published by Resilience.org

April 18, 2022

Once you know film still

Filmmaker Emmanuel Cappellin contacted me back in 2015 and explained a project he had in mind. It was ambitious and profound. He’d worked with famed French documentarian Yann Arthus-Bertrand, so I assumed he knew what he was up to, but it seemed that he wanted a substantial chunk of my time. Emmanuel asked deep and probing questions. He captured interview footage of me in California and Greece; he also interviewed other environmental writers and activists—Jean-Marc Jancovici, Saleemul Huq, and Susi Moser. The result, after years of editing, is “Once You Know,” a visually stunning and emotionally grounded examination of the personal and psychological impacts of our global overshoot crisis. Once you know that humanity’s climate-biodiversity-pollution-population-inequality dilemmas will not be painlessly solved, how will you continue to live your life? Can you still make a difference? There are no easy answers; therefore, few of us tend to talk honestly about the situation with our families and friends. Instead, most of us simply live in denial a lot of the time. This film is a denial buster and conversation starter.

On Earth Day (Friday, 22 April, 2022), Emmanuel, I, and the other cast members will participate in a special global screening event and online discussion. It will take place at 7 PM Central European Time, 1 PM Eastern Standard Time, and 10 AM Pacific Time Zone. Please join us for what promises to be a milestone in the ongoing discussion about our planetary future.

Book a screening of award-winning film Once You Know before April 22nd 2022 and meet the film protagonists at our Earth Day LIVE online event.

Teaser photo credit: Film still from the movie.

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.

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