Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
For the past couple of decades, we at Post Carbon Institute have been pointing out that a transition to alternative energy sources will necessarily be slow and incomplete. Given that oil is a depleting, polluting, non-renewable resource, industrial society is due for a reckoning. We are all in an extended Wile E. Coyote moment.
There are already plenty of economic and political actors defending the hyper-technological renewables. The time has come to shift our discourses toward technics that will enable us to change the energy matrix while also achieving an ecosocial transition.
Without a hairs’ breadth in between, the world lurched from a global pandemic into a cost of living crisis and the worst energy crisis since the 1970s.
What began as a “global energy crunch” one year ago, as we discussed with Will Kennedy in Episode #158, has now become a global energy crisis.
Instead of prioritizing growth, we must aim for rapid reduction in overall energy usage, with an emphasis on equity—both equity between the rich and poor within nations and globally.
As the Ukraine-Russia war continues, a special plenary session would bring together a broad range of critical actors in the global food system to advance integrated solutions to protect the food security of the most vulnerable.
The world’s poorest bear no responsibility for the war in Ukraine and have no capacity to bring it to an end. Other than the Ukrainians themselves, however, they will be hurt worst by its prolongation.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is inextricably linked to the global energy crisis.
This may become the winter of our discontent as people around the world face a widening energy crisis: rationing because supplies are limited due to delivery shortages, production limits, cost, or by government mandate.
As the world now gets to grips with the realities of making a rapid transition away from fossil fuels in the next decade, is it time to look again at how quickly we moved back in the 1970s, when we had to?
The energy turning point is unequivocal. In the years preceding the historic Brexit referendum, and the marked resurgence of nationalist, populist and far-right movements across Europe, the entire continent has faced a quietly brewing energy crisis.
Our energy and climate systems are being pushed to the edge. With global supplies entering a new era of insecurity, the scramble to prop up business as usual has intensified.
