Another Great One Dies
Richard Heinberg, one of my core mentors, is gone
It’s 2004. I’m recovering from a second colon cancer surgery. The first one a year earlier had me look hard and long at my life as an unstoppable activist - who’d been stopped. What was driving me? Does my life need to change?
I did change. I moved to a small town and art packed my days - writing, painting, singing and dancing. My well filled. I made friends, and felt a soothing rhythm from the ordinariness of the village and its rag tag people.
Then, bedridden, I read Richard Heinberg’s (who passed this week) book, The Party’s Over. The party he referred to was the 200 years of economic growth from oil. No matter how much fracking, no matter how much deep sea drilling, oil is finite and the oil-dependent economy is heading for collapse. The capture of Venezuela, the war with Iran, the threats to Greenland are all about oil. But it’s finite.
Gentle Mentor, Truth Teller
Richard’s clarity and kindness went right into my heart, and his recommendations were all what I’d been promoting for a decade. My activist was ignited again, not to stop the system but to help my community, and others, adapt. With kindness.
Relocalization became my byword. I partnered with a man who got it at the scale I did, even though that was the only thing I was attracted to. I helped start a Transition Town initiative. I wrote a book about local food. And on and on and on unto this very day.
Eventually I joined the Board of Post Carbon Institute where Richard was a Senior Fellow, so got to work with him.
And now he’s joined the ancestors
A week ago, after just a 2 week fight with cancer, he died. All who knew him, or of him, are devastated - and we were in the hundreds of thousands. An obituary is here.
I want you to know Richard through this video series, Think Resilience, a gentle introduction to our predicament. Many are resistant to this information because it cuts right into our lives and livelihoods, but Richard makes it go in smooth. If you are willing to watch at least part of it, you will know me better. You can go to this page and pick a book to read, plus his short essays are on Resilience.Org
One consolation. Richard left behind an immense body of work. His last book, Power, was, he felt, a fulfillment of all of his books. We can learn from him endlessly, and return to him when confused or afraid and wanting to DO SOMETHING about the unraveling. He left painfully, but quickly, which was a blessing in a way, though his partner and all of us out here who admired him, might not agree.
I'm so very sorry for your loss Vicki. Our loss actually. He was a gift to this troubled but still beautiful world.
Sorry to hear this.
I do wonder about Heinberg's message from time to time. It seems like he was wrong about a key matter. But if I'm mistaken, please enlighten me...
The oil-dependent economy is indeed headed for collapse. But on what sort of time-scale? Fracking has not made oil no longer finite. But as far as I can tell fracking has postponed collapse by a good margin; enough that I expect collapse will be triggered by some other unsustainability. The critique Heinberg made of fracking was that it yielded a negative return on energy investment, i.e. the energy in the gas and oil produced, was less than what was required to extract it. It should've accelerated collapse. But all I see is the boon. We had the great recession, but since then we've seen America become a net oil/energy producer! This after supposedly peaking in oil production circa 1973. I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop, but at this point I don't think it will. If you know something I don't, I'd love to hear it. Thanks.