“Heinberg explains that the reason the coming crash threatens our survival is that our society is too dependent on growth. If growth fails, we crash. Growth is going to fail because of climate change, energy resource limits, the increase in the food required by our growing population, soil erosion, deforestation, species extinctions, declining fresh water, ocean acidification, and our fragile economic system.”
GR: I read an interesting article by Richard Heinberg published on the Post Carbon Institute website on Thursday. The article offers two responses to the coming crash that improve our chances for surviving The solutions are quite clearly presented and I think you will agree with me that they make sense.
The crash will occur because our energy-dependent industrialized societies cannot sustain their current level of energy consumption. As Heinberg points out, it is possible to live a good life on a smaller energy budget. And this means that our civilization can survive a major reset without total failure. My only quibble with the article is that Heinberg seems to assume that carbon emissions have begun to fall. We just learned that this isn’t true. This is a problem we need to deal with now.
Heinberg explains that the reason the coming crash threatens our survival is that…
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The Secular Jurist 
Read both Roger’s article and Heinberg’s… superb! Excellent! And written simply and clearly for even a 6th grader to understand.
Yes, the weaning-off of fossil fuels must happen now. Period.
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Hope it’s not too late.
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There’s a limit to continuous growth. We have only to look at the cycle of life on Planet Earth: birth-death-regeneration.
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Exactly. If you get a chance, read fellow blogger Robert Fanney’s latest book called “Growth Shock.”
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Thanks for the referral, Robert.
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Robert, thanks for posting this. In the interest of lending fuel to the conversation, here’s a link to another post on the actions we need to take: https://garryrogers.com/2016/12/25/global-warming-feedbacks-and-human-population.
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Thanks, Garry!
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There is only one species on the planet which there is a surplus of – and that’s humans. Historically, what have our ruling classes done with surplus populations?
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Reduced them through war and other means.
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