Today, it is especially difficult for most people to understand our perilous global energy situation precisely because it has never been more important to do so.

Today, it is especially difficult for most people to understand our perilous global energy situation precisely because it has never been more important to do so.

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.

Economic growth as we have known it is over and done with.

When we decline to talk about what is real simply because it's uncomfortable to do so, we seal our own fate.

If we do nothing, we still get to a post-carbon future, but it will be bleak. However, if we plan the transition, we can have a world that supports robust communities of healthy, creative people and ecosystems with millions of other species.

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.