No discussion of energy or economic growth is complete without the invaluable insights of Richard Heinberg. He is the author of ten books including:

• The End of Growth: Adapting to our New Economic Reality (June 2011)
• Blackout: Coal, Climate, and the Last Energy Crisis (2009)
• Peak Everything: Waking Up to the Century of Declines (2007)
• The Oil Depletion Protocol: A Plan to Avert Oil Wars, Terrorism and Economic Collapse (2006)
• Powerdown: Options and Actions for a Post-Carbon World (2004)
• The Party’s Over: Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies (2003)

He is Senior Fellow-in-Residence of the Post Carbon Institute and is widely regarded as one of the world’s foremost Peak Oil educators. He has authored scores of essays and articles that have appeared in such journals as Nature, The Ecologist, The American Prospect, Public Policy Research, Quarterly Review, Z Magazine, Resurgence, The Futurist, European Business Review, Earth Island Journal, Yes!, Pacific Ecologist, and The Sun; and on web sites such as Alternet.org, EnergyBulletin.net, TheOilDrum.com, ProjectCensored.com, and Counterpunch.com.

This talk was given at Totnes, the first Transition Town, which together with Rob Hopkins has set a standard for being informed and offering solutions.

In this film clip Richard introduces 5 principles that must be adopted which mirror the basic tenets of a Steady State Economy, and in doing so suggests that we are on the verge of the Sustainability Transition.

http://www.postcarbon.org/

http://transitionculture.org/