Post Carbon Institute Senior Fellow Richard Heinberg sat down to deliver a 22-chapter lecture series entitled “Think Resilience: Preparing Communities for the Rest of the 21st Century,” which explores how communities can build resilience in the face of our intertwined sustainability crises. The series is intended for students and concerned individuals of all ages.
Chapter 4: Depletion
Depletion is an inescapable fact of life: As soon as you’ve taken one sip of your coffee, or one bite of ice cream, you’ve begun to deplete that resource. Economists will tell you, “No problem. You can just run to the store and buy more, or find something else just as good as a substitute.” But does that work on a finite planet, and are all resources so easily substitutable?
Here Richard Heinberg explores the topic of depletion and why it matters so much — to our well-being today and the future of humanity and the planet tomorrow.
View Chapter 3: Population & Consumption
New chapters will be rolled out on a regular basis over the coming weeks, but you can also sign up to view all the videos right away.
makati1 on Wed, 26th Apr 2017 5:23 pm
There is no ‘resilience’. The human animal is wired to consume, not be intelligent. The end is ever nearer. Are YOU prepared?
deadlykillerbeaz on Thu, 27th Apr 2017 7:53 am
Chapter 23: Starvation
AFDF on Thu, 27th Apr 2017 7:57 am
@makati and deadly, i’m cool with doom but make sure you’re not playing into the narrative of the elites be it either status quo or emerging elites of any stripes.
remember human are parasites and they adapt quickly. their only mission is to leech. i kid you not because Frederic Bastiat said that’s our main purpose in life.
Davy on Thu, 27th Apr 2017 8:09 am
There is local resilience with managed chaos. Globalism is resilient as long as minimums are not breached and the core remains intact. Since we are in the vicinity of multiple minimums globally and we are seeing increasing financial collapse potential, globalism appears to be increasingly near thresholds of destructive change. Some of this change is potentially catastrophic. Locally and individually within an envelope of global decline, resilience can be built on. Fate leaves no local safe but those who build in resilience are certainly better able to respond to shocks. This is common sense. What is less apparent in our civilization built upon denial is the dangerous precarious state of globalism with a population in an order of magnitude of overshoot. That’s right, 9 out of 10 of us face certain collapse situations in an end of globalism. Techno optimist completely dismiss this idea that is increasing supported by honest science from scientist who are true to their calling.
makati1 on Thu, 27th Apr 2017 8:30 am
AFDF, what is YOUR experience and thoughts? I use other’s ideas to get a wider view of situations. I know they are just opinions, not fact. But, if you view a hundred different sources from different countries the picture becomes sharper.
Doom is obvious all around us. Insanity in America is spreading out from DC thru all of the MSM channels. Movies, magazines, newspapers, web sites, TV, etc. The U$ propaganda mills are running at full speed to blind the serfs to reality.
You have to stand outside that system to begin to see the reality of the situation. We are doomed. Nothing is going to change that fact. It is only a matter of time until the U$ collapse’, along with the rest of the West. The East will survive the collapse but not the change of climate. We all go when the system quits supporting us.
Apneaman on Thu, 27th Apr 2017 10:00 am
The Cancer keeps breaking records faster & faster.
April 26: CO2 = 412.63 ppm
https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/monthly.html
Apneaman on Thu, 27th Apr 2017 10:02 am
Worrisome first quarter of 2017 climate trends
The year is off to a toasty start globally … and not in a comforting way for those concerned about another year of high temperatures, sea ice record lows at both Poles, and mounting risks to coral reefs.
https://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2017/04/worrisome-first-quarter-of-2017-climate-trends/
Apneaman on Thu, 27th Apr 2017 10:07 am
Bloomberg catches up with me in my long running assertion that AGW is gonna break da bank.
Global Warming Costs Mount as Heatwave Hits Chile’s Glaciers
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-04-26/global-warming-costs-mount-as-heatwave-hits-chile-s-glaciers
Cloggie on Fri, 28th Apr 2017 2:59 am
But does that work on a finite planet, and are all resources so easily substitutable?
On a human time scale, solar radiation, edible flora and fauna, coffee are indeed infinite. And so are wood, iron, etc., etc and all the other materials that can be recycled.
What is indeed finite is fossil fuel, so we need to move away from it.
And in general the rule applies, the fewer people, the better.
Denis Frith on Wed, 3rd May 2017 2:06 am
The reality is that the technological systems of industrialized civilization consume irreplaceable natural resources. People only consume replensible natural resources and make decisions, good and bad.