Recorded on:Sep 30, 2025
Description
To view the graphs Nate is referring to in this episode, please click here.
In this week’s Frankly, Nate returns from New York City Climate Week with fresh reflections on the disconnect between our economic narratives and biophysical realities. Using his background in finance, Nate observes that while the prioritization of financial abstractions and claims continue to accelerate, with gold and silver prices reaching record-setting highs, the ledger is being balanced with parallel declines in our planetary health and social resilience. This tradeoff is harder and harder to ignore as newly crossed planetary boundaries continue alerting us to the fact that we are operating outside of our Earth’s ability to maintain biospheric stability.
Nate also gives an update on Peak Oil, drawing on the International Energy Agency’s recent report regarding the implications of oil and gas field decline rates. He emphasizes that the question at hand is not if these energetic supply constraints will affect the trajectory of human systems – rather, the question is when it will come into effect, and how we will respond as a human species.
Given the increasing number of reports on declining oil forecasts, how much longer can our society remain energy-blind? Where might our priorities shift if we truly understood the biophysical limits shaping our future? Lastly, if we were to zoom out towards a wider boundary lens, what types of societal responses become possible that could steer us towards better human and planetary futures?
Show Notes & Links to Learn More
00:00 – Graphs Nate references in this episode can be found here, or in the report.
00:08 – Climate Week NYC
02:15 – Exter’s Pyramid
03:45 – John Cairns Jr. – “The Human Economy is a Subset of the Biosphere”
04:15 – What is a human energetically worth?, Nate Hagens – “Economics for the future – Beyond the superorganism”
05:45 – IEA – “The Implications of Oil and Gas Field Decline Rates”
07:40 – How crude oil is used to make plastic
08:55 – The Oil Drum
09:55 – The Red Queen Effect
12:25 – Peak oil (general), Peak oil hit in November 2018
17:00 – Western dependence on gulf oil, Ukraine attacks on Russian oil refineries
18:18 – Johan Rockström
18:25 – Seventh planetary boundary breached
19:30 – highs in silver and gold prices
Comments
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One of the great human beings, doing one of the great jobs.
In my own journey, The Oil Drum was a significant chapter and the Great Simplification is a must-watch got-to still – although mostly for reinforcement nowadays.
Thanks Nate.