12 Quotes by Richard Heinberg

Capitalism , as Marx defined it, is a system in which productive wealth is privately owned. Communism (which Marx proposed as an alternative) is one in which productive wealth is owned by the community, or by the nation on behalf of the people.

Oil 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.

The science is in: either we go cold turkey on our coal, oil, and gas addictions, or we risk raising the planet’s temperature to a level incompatible with the continued existence of civilization.

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.

It is possible to point to hundreds, thousands, perhaps even millions of imaginative, courageous programs to reduce, recycle, and reuse – yet the overall trajectory of industrial civilization remains relatively unchanged.

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

What’s new is high oil prices and the economy hates high oil prices.

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.

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