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.
Richard Heinberg...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
Richard HeinbergWhen 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 smaller fraction.
Richard HeinbergAll 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.
Richard HeinbergOil depletion and climate change will create an entirely new context in which political struggles will be played out. Within that context, it is not just freedom, democracy, and equality that are at stake, but the survival of billions of humans and of whole ecosystems.
Richard HeinbergThe 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.
Richard Heinberg