MuseLetter #389 / August 2025 by Richard Heinberg Download printable PDF version Lately I’ve been reading Andrew Schelling’s Tracks Along the Left Coast, a biography of linguist, anthropologist, and anarchist Jaime de Angulo (1887-1950). De Angulo was a| Richard Heinberg
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MuseLetter #388 / July 2025 by Richard Heinberg Download printable PDF version In the course of human events there are times when everyone seems determined to pick sides and brawl. A prime example was the| Richard Heinberg
MuseLetter #387 / June 2025 by Richard Heinberg Download printable PDF version AI Utopia, AI Apocalypse, and AI Reality Recent articles and books about artificial intelligence (AI) offer images of the future that align like| Richard Heinberg
MuseLetter #386 / May 2025 by Richard Heinberg Download printable PDF version A Dead World, Plastic-Wrapped to Preserve Freshness In the classic 1967 film The Graduate, a family friend of lead character Benjamin Braddock (played by Dustin Hoffman) offers him career advice: “One word. Plastics!” I was 16 when The Graduate was released, and, […] The post Museletter #386: A Dead World, Plastic-Wrapped to Preserve Freshness appeared first on Richard Heinberg.| Richard Heinberg
MuseLetter #385 / April 2025 by Richard Heinberg Download printable PDF version The End of Big Solutions The world has changed dramatically since the start of the second Trump administration. But how best to describe| Richard Heinberg
MuseLetter #384 / March 2025 by Richard Heinberg Download printable PDF version The Evolution of Modernity The human world of the early 21st century is dominated by science, cities, and high technology. However, both our modern| Richard Heinberg
MuseLetter #383 / February 2025 by Richard Heinberg Download printable PDF version Putting Nature at the Center Life may be unique to Earth. Even if single-celled organisms can readily evolve in conditions that exist on| Richard Heinberg
MuseLetter #382 / January 2025 by Richard Heinberg Download printable PDF version Are We Too Smart for Our Own Good? Evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr (1904-2005)—who, I’m told, was a very smart person—concluded, late in life,| Richard Heinberg
MuseLetter #381 / December 2024 by Richard Heinberg Download printable PDF version Dear reader, Thank you for your interest in, and support for my ongoing explorations of topics related to the survival of nature and| Richard Heinberg
MuseLetter #380 / November 2024 by Richard Heinberg Download printable PDF version Envisioning a Livable Future Sir David King, former chief scientific advisor to the UK government, recently wrote that, “On our present path, civilization| Richard Heinberg
MuseLetter #379 / October 2024 by Richard Heinberg Download printable PDF version Beyond Growth: A Journey through the Landscape of Sustainable Economics Growth is a story of success—until it isn’t. In most people’s minds, “growth” is inevitably associated with biological development: food crops and babies grow. In those instances, growth is understood to be good—though […] The post Museletter #379: Beyond Growth appeared first on Richard Heinberg.| Richard Heinberg
MuseLetter #378 / September 2024 by Richard Heinberg Download printable PDF version Us vs. them: Understanding the roots of political polarization and what you can do about it July 13, 2024, Butler, PA: Former president and current presidential candidate Donald Trump survives an assassination attempt at an election rally; the gunman and a bystander are killed, with […] The post Museletter #378: Us vs. them – Understanding the roots of political polarization and what you can do about it ...| Richard Heinberg
MuseLetter #377 / August 2024 by Richard Heinberg Download printable PDF version Humanity’s transition from relying overwhelmingly on fossil fuels to instead using alternative low-carbon energy sources is sometimes said to be unstoppable and exponential.| Richard Heinberg
MuseLetter #376 / July 2024 by Richard Heinberg Download printable PDF version Restoring Nature Is Our Only Climate Solution Climate change is a huge, complicated problem. Therefore, many people have an understandable tendency to mentally| Richard Heinberg
MuseLetter #375 / June 2024 by Richard Heinberg Download printable PDF version This is Part 1 of an exploration of the current state of the climate crisis. Part 1: The Predicament People have widely varying| Richard Heinberg
MuseLetter #374 / May 2024 by Richard Heinberg Download printable PDF version This month's Museletter begins with an invitation to join Post Carbon Institute's new programme Resilience+ to explore ways of navigating the polycrisis. That is followed by my first essay for Resilience+ looking at the effect of these crises on mental health. In addition, […] The post Museletter #374: Invitation to a Journey appeared first on Richard Heinberg.| Richard Heinberg
This article was originally published by World Literature Today The Chinese philosopher Sun Tzu wrote that, in warfare, it is essential to know both your enemy and yourself. Today, humanity has “enemies,” including climate change and nuclear| Richard Heinberg
MuseLetter #373 / April 2023 by Richard Heinberg Download printable PDF version The first piece in this month's Museletter 'How to Build a Climate Bomb' is an essay on the perils of geoengineering. That is| Richard Heinberg
MuseLetter #372 / March 2024 by Richard Heinberg Download printable PDF version The March Museletter is made up of three essays. The first shines a light on the existential risks posed by Artificial Intelligence. Next up is a piece giving my take on the decision by world geologists not to recognise the current geological epoch […] The post Museletter #372: Why Artificial Intelligence Must Be Stopped Now appeared first on Richard Heinberg.| Richard Heinberg
by Richard Heinberg and David Fridley Radical societal transformation is inevitable; a plan could make a difference between catastrophe and progress. Introduction The transition to renewable energy is inevitable given the current climate crisis and| Richard Heinberg
MuseLetter #371 / February 2024 by Richard Heinberg Download printable PDF version February's Museletter kicks off with "I hear voices", a thought piece that takes the form of a self-therapy session on responses to the| Richard Heinberg
MuseLetter #370 / January 2024 by Richard Heinberg Download printable PDF version January's Museletter begins with an essay revisiting the ancient Chinese classic, "Tao Te Ching," drawing inspiration for the challenges of today. Some of| Richard Heinberg
MuseLetter #369 / December 2023 by Richard Heinberg Download printable PDF version Holiday greetings to you, valued reader. May your Solstice be a time of stepping back, finding new meaning in your life, and enjoying| Richard Heinberg
MuseLetter #368 / November 2023 by Richard Heinberg Download printable PDF version Every Thursday our next-door neighbor hires a worker to use a leaf blower. This infernal machine drives me nuts. Rather than letting a| Richard Heinberg
MuseLetter #367 / October 2023 by Richard Heinberg Download printable PDF version The World’s Top Industrial Countries Are in Treacherous Waters The following essay was written prior to the Hamas attack on Israel, and the| Richard Heinberg
MuseLetter #366 / September 2023 by Richard Heinberg Download printable PDF version Why 2% Is the Most Dangerous Number No One Is Talking About We’ve had a summer from hell, with July 2023 temporarily claiming| Richard Heinberg
MuseLetter #365 / August 2023 by Richard Heinberg Download printable PDF version You May Think You’re Immune to Cult Thinking, but We’re All Susceptible Times of societal upheaval or rapid social change tend to generate| Richard Heinberg
MuseLetter #364 / July 2023 by Richard Heinberg Download printable PDF version Are these the end times? Peter Turchin’s latest book, End Times: Elites, Counter-Elites, and the Path of Political Disintegration, is receiving glowing reviews.| Richard Heinberg
MuseLetter #363 / June 2023 by Richard Heinberg Download printable PDF version This month's Museletter is about crisis and acceleration. The first essay, "Polycrisis, Unraveling, Simplification, or Collapse: Coming Soon to a Planet Near You?,"| Richard Heinberg
MuseLetter #362 / May 2023 by Richard Heinberg Download printable PDF version Human activity—mostly the burning of fossil fuels—has raised Earth’s atmospheric carbon content by 50 percent, from 280 parts per million (ppm) to 420 ppm. Since the| Richard Heinberg
MuseLetter #361 / April 2023 by Richard Heinberg Download printable PDF version Post Carbon Institute: Looking Back, Looking Forward This year Post Carbon Institute turns 20, so it’s a good time to take stock. What| Richard Heinberg
MuseLetter #360 / March 2023 by Richard Heinberg Download printable PDF version Why We Can’t Just Do It This month's Museletter kicks off with a short response to the latest IPCC report and why we're| Richard Heinberg
MuseLetter #359 / February 2023 by Richard Heinberg Download printable PDF version This month's Museletter leads with an article looking at various debt timebombs threatening us all. It also includes the concluding part of my| Richard Heinberg
MuseLetter #358 / January 2023 by Richard Heinberg Download printable PDF version Recent news articles about a breakthrough in nuclear fusion research heralded the potential for “limitless” energy. Whenever I read that word limitless I wince, because I’ve| Richard Heinberg
MuseLetter #357 / December 2022 by Richard Heinberg Download printable PDF version Dear MuseLetter reader, 2022 was the 30th year for this publication, and it's been heartening to see these essays being distributed through an| Richard Heinberg
MuseLetter #356 / November 2022 by Richard Heinberg Download printable PDF version This month's Museletter begins with a tribute to Herman Daly, the father of ecological economics. Also included are the first two parts of| Richard Heinberg
MuseLetter #355 / October 2022 by Richard Heinberg Download printable PDF version This month's Museletter consists of two essays. The first, "Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies," looks at parallels between today's energy/economy| Richard Heinberg
European energy ministers have told political leadership that nations must somehow reduce electricity consumption by 10 percent.| Richard Heinberg
What's really needed is a realistic sense of what's possible, and a dogged determination to heal division, protect nature and culture, and build sustainable alternatives.| Richard Heinberg
Are the 2020s just like the 1970s? If only!| Richard Heinberg
Very few Americans have any inkling just how profound the current energy crisis already is, and is about to become.| Richard Heinberg
In the 1970s, global political and corporate elites had all the information they needed to put the world on a path toward long-term stability. Systems science was sufficiently advanced that a team of its practitioners organized a scenario study to see how trends in industrial production, population, food, pollution, and resource usage might interact over the next few decades; the study showed that continued growth in population and industrial production would prove unsustainable.| Richard Heinberg
MuseLetter #349 / March 2022 by Richard Heinberg Download printable PDF version Dear subscriber, This month has seen the start of a historic and tragic invasion. In this month's Museletter I've examined some of the| Richard Heinberg
MuseLetter #348 / February 2022 by Richard Heinberg Download printable PDF version The Limits to Growth at 50: From Scenarios to Unfolding Reality A half-century ago, the worlds of science, public policy, and economics were| Richard Heinberg
Only rarely does a book truly change the world. In the nineteenth century, such a book was Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species. For the twentieth century, it was The Limits to Growth. Not| Richard Heinberg
MuseLetter #347 / January 2022 by Richard Heinberg Download printable PDF version This month's Museletter kicks off with an essay on the important role of social cohesion in holding societies together and addressing crises. That| Richard Heinberg
MuseLetter #346 / December 2021 by Richard Heinberg Download printable PDF version Dear Reader, This Month’s edition consists of two essays—“The End of Growth: Ten Years After” and “Energy Reality for the USA.” As we| Richard Heinberg
There were always two reasons to reduce society’s reliance on fossil fuels: pollution and depletion.| Richard Heinberg
I propose a new bio-social principle in evolution—the optimum power principle—to describe these pathways toward moderation.| Richard Heinberg
Power is the key to solving climate change—but not necessarily in the way that many pundits claim.| Richard Heinberg
MuseLetter #342 / August 2021 by Richard Heinberg Download printable PDF version Callum Alexander from Scotland recently contacted me with a few queries about renewable energy. I thought they were interesting questions that might occur| Richard Heinberg
MuseLetter #341 / July 2021 by Richard Heinberg Download printable PDF version A little over a year ago I wrote an essay titled The United States: An Obituary. It was the tail end of the| Richard Heinberg
We intuitively understand that power—whether it’s physical or social power—is good only when it remains within certain bounds, restricted by checks and balances.| Richard Heinberg
It’s gob-smacking to think that such a planning process actually could have started as early as 70 years ago, and that, at this late date, it has still barely begun.| Richard Heinberg
MuseLetter #338 / April 2021 by Richard Heinberg Download printable PDF version The Evolution of Social Power This article is the second in a series based on Richard's forthcoming book, POWER: LIMITS AND PROSPECTS FOR| Richard Heinberg
MuseLetter #337 / March 2021 by Richard Heinberg Download printable PDF version Dear readers, This Month's MuseLetter includes two essays. The first is a glimpse at my new book, POWER, which will be out in September| Richard Heinberg
A review of How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need by Bill Gates, and Under a White Sky: The Nature of the Future by Elizabeth Kolbert| Richard Heinberg
MuseLetter #336 / February 2021 by Richard Heinberg Download printable PDF version Capitalism, the Doomsday Machine (or, How to Repurpose Growth Capital) David Fleming, the late British economist, contributed many blazing insights; one that’s captivated| Richard Heinberg
The following is Richard Heinberg’s contribution to a two-way discussion with Adam Dorr, an environmental social scientist at the nonprofit think tank Rethinkx. The exchange was hosted by Pairagraph, a platform for written dialogue between pairs of notable individuals. For| Richard Heinberg
MuseLetter #335 / January 2021 by Richard Heinberg Download printable PDF version Insurrection, pandemic, and censorship On January 6, thousands gathered in Washington, DC to hear an inciteful speech from President Trump, then forcefully breached| Richard Heinberg