MuseLetter #220 / September 2010 by Richard Heinberg Download printable PDF version here (PDF, 120 KB) This month’s Museletter is made up of two pieces and includes the preface to the new paperback edition of Peak Everything: Waking Up to the Century of Declines which will be released in paperback this month (September) by New […]

MuseLetter #219 / August 2010 by Richard Heinberg Download printable PDF version here (PDF, 108 KB) (Author’s note: This is the Introduction to an inspirational / financial-advice / environmental / diet / dating / self-help / survivalist / humor book that I started to write—and quickly decided should never be finished. Maybe I shouldn’t have […]

MuseLetter #218 / July 2010 by Richard Heinberg Download printable PDF version here (PDF, 125 KB) This month’s Museletter is a collection of three pieces. The first two examine the impact of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The third is a tongue in cheek look at industry responses to peak oil. Deepwater Horizon: The Worst-Case, […]

MuseLetter #217 / June 2010 by Richard Heinberg Download printable PDF version here (PDF, 117 KB) Following the failure of the latest efforts to plug the gushing leak from BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil well in the Gulf of Mexico, and amid warnings that oil could continue to flow for another two months or more, perhaps […]

MuseLetter #216 / May 2010 by Richard Heinberg Download printable PDF version here (PDF, 107 KB) The conventional wisdom in energy-and-environment circles is that China’s economy, which is growing at a rate of eight percent or more per year, is mostly coal powered today and will continue to be so for decades to come. Coal […]

MuseLetter #215 / April 2010 by Richard Heinberg Download printable PDF version here (PDF, 104 KB) Economic History in 10 Minutes Throughout over 90 percent of our species’ history, we humans lived by hunting and gathering in what anthropologists call gift economies. People had no money, and there was neither barter nor trade among members […]

Silly me. Here I had thought that world leaders would want to keep their nations from collapsing. They must be working hard to prevent currency collapse, financial system collapse, food system collapse, social collapse, environmental collapse, and the onset of general, overwhelming misery—right? But no, that’s not what the evidence suggests. Increasingly I am forced to conclude that the object of the game that world leaders are actually playing is not to avoid collapse; it’s simply to postpone it a while so as to be the last nation to go down, so yours can have the chance to pick the others’ carcasses before it meets the same fate.

It was the pivotal international conference of the new century. Tens of thousands showed up, including heads of state, officials at all levels of government, representatives of environmental organizations, and ordinary citizens from nearly 200 countries. Scientists had warned that, without a strong agreement to reduce carbon emissions, the consequences for civilization and the world’s ecosystems would be cataclysmic.

MuseLetter #211 / December 2009 by Richard Heinberg Download printable PDF version here (PDF, 109 KB) richardheinberg.com 1. Is "Clean Coal" a Dead End? Note: this article is being featured in the first issue of the new magazine Solutions. Many energy experts, politicians on both sides of the aisle, and representatives of the coal industry […]

MuseLetter # 210 / November 2009 by Richard Heinberg Download printable PDF version here (PDF, 122 KB) richardheinberg.com 1. Dilemma & Denial A couple of weeks ago Jerry Mander and I were discussing the best word to use in the heading for the back cover copy of a new short book being co-published by International […]