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Power: Limits and Prospects for Human Survival
How have humans become powerful enough to disrupt the world's climate, trigger the sixth mass extinction, and cause serious harm to the biosphere? And with all the abilities and technologies we've accrued, why do we so often oppress instead of uplift one another? Join us as we explore the hidden driver behind the converging crises of the 21st century. It all comes down to power - our pursuit of it, overuse of it, and abuse of it. Learn how different forms of power arose, what they mean for us today, and why giving up power just might save us. This podcast is based on the groundbreaking book, Power: Limits and Prospects for Human Survival by Richard Heinberg, one of the world's foremost experts on energy and sustainability. For more information, please visit https://power.postcarbon.org/.
Episodes
10 episodes
How to Navigate Power with Wisdom
First wisdom, then action. Richard Heinberg shares insights from his deep dive into the nature of power and power relationships. He addresses the three main "power tools": money, weapons, and communication technologies with humble and thoughtfu...
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21:08
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Powered Down and Better Off
Learn how humanity can exercise collective self-restraint to navigate the social and environmental crises of the 21st century. The world is in overshoot. There are too many people consuming too much stuff, and we're facing climate change, biodi...
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Episode 8
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1:01:10
Optimal Power
Overpopulation, overconsumption, and overexploitation of Earth's resources go way beyond the realm of simple problems with straightforward solutions. Instead, they are dilemmas that require tradeoffs and difficult decisions. To guide such decis...
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Episode 7
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54:25
Overpowered: The Days of Climate Chaos
As exploitation of fossil fuels powered exponential growth in population and consumption, humanity began running into problems. Serious problems. The existential kind, like the potential for runaway global warming and the onset of the sixth mas...
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Episode 6
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55:05
Fossil Fuels Changed Everything
Over the 19th and 20th centuries physical power, social power, and economies grew explosively. The main cause was humanity’s exploitation of fossil fuels. Sources of oil, coal, and natural gas – a vast underground storehouse of ancient sunlight...
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Episode 5
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1:01:12
The Rise of Social Inequality
Richard Heinberg, renowned energy and sustainability expert, explores the development of social power – simply defined as the ability to get other people to do something. Whether through money, violence, writing, or other means, humans have dev...
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Episode 4
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51:12
Fire, Tools, and Language
Join renowned energy and sustainability expert, Richard Heinberg, as he describes the flow of power in hunter-gatherer communities of the Pleistocene. As people learned to wield fire, deploy an array of tools, and coordinate actions through inc...
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Episode 3
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44:38
Power in Nature
To understand humanity's relationship with energy and power, and to get a handle on why we're experiencing a polycrisis of climate change, social inequality, and loss of biodiversity, you have to go back to the beginning – all the way back to t...
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Episode 2
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51:19
Introduction to Power
Climate change, biodiversity loss, resource depletion, poverty, and inequality are all symptoms of one overarching problem: the way we humans accumulate and use power. If we want to address this problem and reduce the chances of a chaotic colla...
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Episode 1
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41:25
Trailer for Power: Limits and Prospects for Human Survival
How have humans become powerful enough to disrupt the world's climate, trigger the sixth mass extinction, and cause serious harm to the biosphere? And with all the abilities and technologies we've accrued, why do we so often oppress instead of ...
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1:58