collapse

The Reality Report interviews David Holmgren. David co-invented permaculture over 30 years ago and has been a practitioner and teacher ever since, both at his home in Australia and as a consultant around world. This second installment covers four "energy descent" scenario groups that correspond to potential variation in the severity of both peak oil and climate change. Scenarios are also viewed as choices, with certain factors, such as social scale and resource availability, influencing the descent path. With transcript.

Richard Heinberg, author of “Peak Everything”, reviews the accelerating events since mid-2007, including the credit crunch and fossil fuel price volatility, noting that we’ve missed most of the best opportunities to manage collapse. He asks, “how far down the staircase of complexity will our global civilization have to go until we’re sustainable?” His answer: when managed properly, with deliberate simplification, not as far as we might otherwise. In addition to long term efforts to relocalize our economies, he advocates developing community “resilience” to withstand short-term catastrophic events like food shortages or extreme weather. Noting that healthy fear can move us into action, he encourages an attitude of clarity, concern and informed action in this “calm before the storm” that he feels is soon coming to an end. Episode 115. With transcript.

"What's going to happen to our kids?" When Bruce Anderson read "The Limits to Growth" in the 1970s, he learned that nothing in nature grows forever -- including the human economy. As we rapidly use everything up, we're now reaching those limits and entering a crisis of adaptation. He raises the moral, ethical and emotional aspects of a challenge humans have never faced before. He feels we're up against limitations of thought, of the heart, almost at a mythic level. Episode 116.

According to Professor Guy Prouty, every civilization rises, evolves, and then collapses to a simpler structure -- and this will include our own. Comparing America with the Western Roman Empire, Prouty notes the over-reach of our military, the unsustainability of capitalism, peak oil, and climate change. And, this time, we may see a global collapse. Transitioning to a simpler society will require us to change behavior and consciousness: decrease energy, get out of debt, decentralize, de-consume, grow our own food, build community, see ourselves as connected to the planet. Collapse is not the end, he says. It's part of a natural cycle. Episode 112.

Richard Heinberg: No one knows the long-term carrying capacity of planet Earth for humans, absent cheap fossil fuels, but it’s likely a lot fewer than seven billion. The implication is not just sobering; it’s paralyzing. So what to do with such traumatic knowledge?

Tim Bennett and Sally Erickson discuss the influences behind this heartfelt and riveting documentary on "Life at the End of Empire." Framed in Tim's personal story of awakening to the big global issues threatening everyone's survival. It will touch you and make you think. Episode 72.