Part two of a four-part video series. Released in conjunction with Afterburn: Society Beyond Fossil Fuels.

What will we do when the Great Burning comes to an end?

In this short video, Richard Heinberg explores why The Great Burning — the combustion of oil, coal, and natural gas — must come to an end during the next few decades. If the twentieth century was all about increasing our burn rate year after blazing year, the dominant trend of twenty-first century will be a gradual flame-out.

This video is the second in a four-part series by Richard Heinberg and Post Carbon Institute. (View Part 1, Part 3, Part 4.) The themes covered in these videos are much more thoroughly explored in Heinberg’s latest book, Afterburn: Society Beyond Fossil Fuels.

Special thanks to New Society Publishers for partnering with us on this fantastic series and to Shutterstock.com for granting image rights.
 
Forest fire image via usfsregion5/flickr. Creative Commons 2.0 license.