Sustainability and Resource Depletion: Survival Challenge for the 21st Century

Google Tech Talks
October 2, 2008

ABSTRACT

Award-winning author Richard Heinberg (The Oil Depletion Protocol; Peak Everything) identifies the essential axioms of sustainability and ties them to current economic trends such as the high and volatile prices of oil and other commodities. Species survival will require more than "Sustainability Lite"a vague commitment to more environmentally benign practices, but instead an all-encompassing effort to live within the ultimate resource limits of the planet.

Speaker: Richard Heinberg
Richard Heinberg, the author of eight books, is a Senior Fellow of the Post Carbon Institute and is widely regarded as one of the worlds foremost Peak Oil educators. He writes a regular column for The Ecologist magazine and has authored scores of essays and articles that have appeared in such journals as The American Prospect, Public Policy Research, Quarterly Review, The Futurist, and European Business Review; and on web sites such as Alternet.org, EnergyBulletin.net, TheOilDrum.com GlobalPublicMedia.com, and ProjectCensored.com. He has appeared in many film documentaries, including Leonardo DiCaprios 11th Hour.

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[WVrrus]

How can we survive, if this video gets less than 7 thousands views, while videos like "stupid someone doing something stupid" gets countless millions of views?

I guess that's a damn good question...

[bailyrg]

Crude oil "production" (video 22') is a misnomer, it should be called "annual extraction rate".

Why haven't more people seen this? Google should promote these vidoes via the official blogs. But maybe people's youtube attention span is shorter than... er, ONE HOUR. How about chopping into 6 10min segments google?

[MrIzzyDizzy]

for this particular type of 1000s of much food - read that article at zeitnews (prevous post)- to see it if you have no understanding of the math - look at zeitgesit addedndum -zeitgesit moving forward - and the venus project and zeitgesit movement lectures - particularly for food as outlined - look at the tumbling plant hydroponics of the omega gardens - we need to build hydroponic skyscrapers - in proximity to population with renewable energy and robotics - abundance for all! -peace

[MrIzzyDizzy]

these food factories can be placed anywhere - requiring less transportation - also almost forgot 1/10 the minerals(fertilizer) . also this can be done with far less human work - and can be done 24/7 -365 anywhere on earth - can be done with robotics - can be done with renewable energy . this many 1000 fold increasd production with less resources - is possible in a resource based economy - more info .....zeitnewsblog.blogspot.com­/2011/03/meeting-human-needs-h­ow-resource-based.html -

[MrIzzyDizzy]

his answer requires alot of education around the world and probably people would rebel when forced to abortions - and isnt needed with proper technology - we can sustain 100 billion or more - this does not include the eventual possible nano- technology converting anything to anything on a molecular level - basic example is advanced hydroponics which can be built 130 stories tall use no insecticide or herbicide(by round up) 1/10 the water 1/1000 the land 4000 times as much- cont

[davetek490]

@myownfreesociety2 Good point. The Anasazi are a very good example. I think the example is very indicative of our own society's future, that if a society grows to a complexity that the underlying resources can't support, it declines.

We have been living off of our tech; the great advances in tech in 50's 60's and 70's were mostly due to competition and very cheap energy. Think of it: Energy cheap - Apollo prgm, energy more expensive - Shuttle, energy much more expensive - Soyuz capsules

[davetek490]

@LibertyJedi You're right about population growth not being an issue, provided that everyone excepts the fact that we have a finite world and every new person creates additional stress in terms of resource use. That's true for renewables and non-renewables. Also, I think your determination that population numbers are a safe haven from oppression is a pure social and political issue. One that can and should be solved whether the overall population is increasing or decreasing. 

[Dimitri0809]

@poosta7

Magic isn't necessarily a bad thing to believe in, if it can be achieved then why not.

[LibertyJedi]

Population growth as a problem is a joke. If u have liberty population growth is great! It adds to the diversity of man and with freedom it creates greater innovations that man uses against nature. His reference to complexity of society makes no reference to the tragedy of the commons, which is the real misuse of resource(s) to support people that add very very little value: government and it agenda to steal from you & promote it's own propaganda.

[LibertyJedi]

@myownfreesociety2 Agreed.

[poosta7]

Our only hope for the future is to develop an Evidence Based Belief System...because the choices we make are based on what we believe and our choices always have consequences. Accordingly we need to base our beliefs on the best evidence available. If you "believe" in magic and not in reality the choices we make will have negative consequences....

[myownfreesociety2]

"Native Americans did things with the 7th generation in mind."

Are you kidding me? This guy is a joke. They drove all of the large land mammals in the Americas extinct, used slash and burn agriculture, and deforested huge parts of the Southwest! Native Americans' culture was only as "sustainable" as their ability to destroy.

His 2nd axiom is disproven by the graph he uses to demonstrate it! Despite population increasing 6 times over, we have more resources now than ever.