Welcome to Crazy Town
Once you’ve started feeling the heaviness of humanity’s collision course with the climate and other life-support systems of our planet, how do you handle it?
The House is on Fire
Life in the early phases of civilizational collapse is filled with absurdities that beg for artful satire. Where is Franz Kafka when we need him? Surely, he could offer a better metaphor than my hackneyed image of a house...
New Study Shows Wealth Inequality Hits Communities of Color Hardest
The story of the growing inequality in the United States has many dimensions. There is the overarching story of the last four decades of polarizing income, wealth, and opportunity. But the many ways these inequalities manifest depend on people’s...
Could a Green New Deal Save Civilization?
To fully and systematically address the climate/energy crisis, the plan will have to be far broader in scope than what is currently being proposed. And while we need to mobilize society as a whole with a World War II-level...
The Government Shutdown Expands the Ranks of ‘Underwater Nation’
As the government shutdown drags on, the image of federal workers lining up at food pantries has dramatized just how many workers live financially close to the edge. By one estimate, almost 80 percent of U.S. workers live paycheck...
Sooner or Later, We Have to Stop Economic Growth — and We’ll Be Better for it
Originally published at Ensia. Both the U.S. economy and the global economy have expanded dramatically in the past century, as have life expectancies and material progress. Economists raised in this period of plenty assume that growth is good, necessary...
Living in the Concretaceous Period
While biologists have long agreed that humans are the dominant lifeform of the Anthropocene, some geologists now argue that, during the pivotal Concretaceous phase, it was the automobile that served as the true apex species.
Richard Heinberg on Our Bonus Decade – podcast
If you’re someone who’s curious about the geopolitical implications of carbon fuel and the ecological havoc it wreaks, you’ve probably come across some of Richard Heinberg‘s work.
The Big Picture
It is only by pulling together that we can hope to salvage and protect what is most intrinsically valuable about our world, and perhaps even improve lives over the long term.
Oil, Power and War – Foreword
The post below is the Foreword, written by Richard Heinberg, to Matthieu Auzanneau’s new book Oil, Power, and War: A Dark History published by Chelsea Green Publishing. For information on where to get hold of a copy see the...