The industrial civilisation is based on the consumption of energy resources that are inherently limited in quantity and that are about to become scarce. When they do, competition for what remains will trigger dramatic economic and geopolitical events; in the… — Richard Heinberg Copy Share Image
What's new is high oil prices and the economy hates high oil prices. — Richard Heinberg Copy Share Image
If we aim for what is no longer possible, we will achieve only delusion and frustration. But if we aim for genuinely worthwhile goals… — Richard Heinberg Copy Share Image
Today, it is especially difficult for most people to understand our perilous global energy situation precisely because it has never been more important to… — Richard Heinberg Copy Share Image
The idea that we industrialized humans are immune to the natural laws that have restrained growth in other species-and humans in past social regimes-is… — Richard Heinberg Copy Share Image
Early ecologists soon realised that, since humans are organisms, ecology should include the study of the relationship between humans and the rest of the biosphere. ... We don't often tend to think about the social sciences (history, economics and politics) as subcategories of ecology. But since people are organisms, it is apparent that we must first understand the principles of… — Richard Heinberg Copy Share
As political theorist Michael Parenti points out, historians often overlook Fascism's economic agenda--the partnership between Big Capital and Big Government--in their analysis of its authoritarian social program. Indeed, according to Bertram Gross in his startlingly prescient Friendly Fascism (1980), it is possible to achieve fascist goals within an ostensibly democratic society. — Richard Heinberg Copy Share
Oil depletion and climate change will create an entirely new context in which political struggles will be played out. Within that context, it is… — Richard Heinberg Copy Share Image
We are about to enter a new era in which, each year, less net energy will be available to humankind, regardless of our efforts or choices. The only significant choice we will have will be how we adjust to this new regime. That choice - not whether, but how to reduce energy usage and make a transition to renewable alternatives… — Richard Heinberg Copy Share
The real problem is that we use too much oil. It's that simple and that difficult. If we truly want to reduce our vulnerability… — Richard Heinberg Copy Share Image
Surveying the available alternative energy sources for criteria such as energy density, environmental impacts, reliance on depleting raw materials, intermittency versus constancy of supply,… — Richard Heinberg Copy Share Image
When a caterpillar eats a leaf, then a thrush eats the caterpillar, or when a hawk eats the thrush only 5 to 20% of… — Richard Heinberg Copy Share Image
The industrial civilisation is based on the consumption of energy resources that are inherently limited in quantity and that are about to become scarce.… — Richard Heinberg Copy Share Image
![“When a caterpillar eats a leaf, then a thrush eats the caterpillar, or when a hawk eats the thrush only 5 to 20% of usable energy is transferred from one level to the next. ... Thus herbivores will account for a much smaller fraction of the biomass [than plants] and the carnivores for a still…” quote by Richard Heinberg](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/5a7/richard-heinberg-28724_accounts_when-a-caterpillar-eats-a-leaf-then-a-th_1543538.jpg)