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Richard Heinberg

Richard Heinberg Books

Journalist

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“All of the easy oil is gone and what's left is requiring more energy and money and this has an effect on everything. Our problem is that we've created an infrastructure that's so dependent on oil. As oil becomes more expensive we're going to be locked into the transportation modes that our economy depends on. So we really need to start building an alternative economy before we get caught in a trap of our own making.”

ProblemEnergyEasyEconomyBuildingTransportation
Author:Richard Heinberg
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“Surveying the available alternative energy sources for criteria such as energy density, environmental impacts, reliance on depleting raw materials, intermittency versus constancy of supply, and the percentage of energy returned on the energy invested in energy production, none currently appears capable of perpetuating this kind of society.”

KindEnergyMaterialsSourceCapableImpactEnvironmentalProductionsAvailableOilAlternativesVersusReliancePercentagesCriteriaRaw MaterialsConstancyDensityEnergy SourcesPerpetuatingAlternative EnergyPeak OilEnvironmental ImpactEnergy Production
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“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.”

BigsGovernmentPoliticalSocialGoalEconomicAchieveProgramDemocraticAnalysisFriendlyAgendasHistorianFascismPartnershipGrossFascistsBig GovernmentDemocratic SocietyTheoristsSocial Programs
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“If we aim for what is no longer possible, we will achieve only delusion and frustration. But if we aim for genuinely worthwhile goals that can be attained, then even if we have less energy at our command and fewer material goods available, we might nevertheless still increase our satisfaction in life.”

IfsStillsMightEarthEnergyGoalAchieveMaterialsIncreaseAimSatisfactionAvailableCommandFrustrationDelusionGoodsFewerWorthwhileNeverthelessEarth DaySatisfaction In Life
Book:The End of Growth: Adapting to Our New Economic Reality
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“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 end, it may be impossible for even a single nation to sustain industrialism as we have know it in the twentieth century.”

KnowsMayEndsEnergyNationsImpossibleEconomicCenturyEventsResourcesRemainsCompetitionEnvironmentalDramaticQuantityConsumptionTwentieth CenturyTriggersCivilisationScarceGeopolitical
Book:The Party's Over: Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies
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“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 ecology if we are to make sense of the events in the human world.”

PeopleIfsThinkingWorldShouldFirstsHumansSocialPrinciplesStudyEventsEconomicsEnvironmentalMake SenseOrganismsEcologyRealisedSocial ScienceBiosphere
Author:Richard Heinberg
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“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 - will have profound ethical and political ramifications.”

YearsPoliticalChoicesEnergyEffortProfoundEnvironmentalAvailableSignificantAlternativesErasEthicalTransitionRegimesHumankindUsageNew EraRamifications
Book:The Party's Over: Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies
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“...the era of cheap oil and natural gas is coming to a crashing end, with global oil production projected to peak in 2010 and North American natural gas extraction rates already in decline. These events will have enormous implications for America's petroleum-dependent food system”

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Book:Peak Everything: Waking Up to the Century of Declines
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