How do population, water, energy, food, and climate issues impact one another? What can we do to address one problem without making the others worse? The Post Carbon Reader features essays by some of the world’s most provocative thinkers on the key issues shaping our new century, from renewable energy and urban agriculture to social […]

This report is intended as a non-technical examination of a basic question: Can any combination of known energy sources successfully supply society’s energy needs at least up to the year 2100? In the end, we are left with the disturbing conclusion that all known energy sources are subject to strict limits of one kind or another. Conventional energy sources such as oil, gas, coal, and nuclear are either at or nearing the limits of their ability to grow in annual supply, and will dwindle as the decades proceed—but in any case they are unacceptably hazardous to the environment.

Coal fuels about 50 percent of US electricity production and provides a quarter of the country’s total energy. China and India’s ferocious economic growth is based almost entirely on coal-generated electricity. Coal currently looks like a solution to many of our fast-growing energy problems. However, while coal advocates are urging full steam ahead, increasing reliance […]

How can we continue feeding humanity in a future of declining resources and environmental crisis? This report explores the growing vulnerabilities of the current food system, and the steps needed to transition to a post-carbon food system. Summary The American food system rests on an unstable foundation of massive fossil fuel inputs. It must be […]

Post Carbon’s proposal for the Obama Administration’s response to economic, environmental, and energy challenges.

Post Carbon Cities: Planning for Energy and Climate Uncertainty (2007) was the first major guidebook on peak oil and global warming for people who work with and for local governments in the United States and Canada. It provided a sober look at how these phenomena are quickly creating new uncertainties and vulnerabilities for cities of […]

The 20th century saw unprecedented growth in population, energy consumption and food production. As the population shifted from rural to urban, the impact of humans on the environment increased dramatically. The 21st century ushered in an era of declines, in a number of crucial parameters: Global oil, natural gas and coal extraction; yearly grain harvests; […]

Since oil is the primary fuel of global industrial civilization, its imminent depletion is a problem that will have profound impact on every aspect of modern life. Without international agreement on how to manage the decline of this vital resource, the world faces unprecedented risk of conflict and collapse. The Oil Depletion Protocol describes a […]

If the US continues with current policies, the next decades will be marked by war, economic collapse, and environmental catastrophe. Resource depletion and population pressures are about to catch up with us, and no one is prepared. The political elites, especially in the US, are incapable of dealing with the situation, and have in mind […]

The world is about to run out of cheap oil and change dramatically. Within the next few years, global production will peak. Thereafter, even if industrial societies begin to switch to alternative energy sources, they will have less net energy each year to do all the work essential to the survival of complex societies. We […]