Rain or Shine!
We are pleased to present speakers Richard Heinberg and Stephanie Mills (see below) for your enjoyment and education.
Location: Museum
- 2:00–3:00: Richard Heinberg's keynote speech, with Q&A
- 3:00–3:30: Stephanie Mills joins Heinberg for an informal discussion of transition issues and her new book.
Richard Heinberg
Author of nine books, including The Party's Over, Peak Everything, and the newly released Blackout, Richard Heinberg is widely regarded as one of the world's most effective communicators of the urgent need to transition away from fossil fuels. With a wry, unflinching approach based on facts and realism, Mr. Heinberg exposes the tenuousness of our current way of life and offers a vision for a truly sustainable future.
“All of the debts for society's century-long industrial fiesta are coming due at the same time. We have no choice but to transition to a world no longer dependent on fossil fuels, a world made up of communities and economies that function within ecological bounds. How we manage this transition is the most important question of our time.”
Senior Fellow-in-Residence at Post Carbon Institute, Mr. Heinberg is best known as a leading educator on Peak Oil — the point at which we reach maximum global oil production — and the resulting, devastating impact it will have on our economic, food, and transportation systems. But his expertise is far ranging, covering critical issues including the current economic crisis, food and agriculture, community resilience, and global climate change.
Mr. Heinberg's latest book, Blackout: Coal, Climate, and the Last Energy Crisis, brings critical information to the debate about coal's role as a continuing energy source in the face of climate change. Blackout sends a powerful message: With less than 20 years before US coal production peaks and no viable means to produce “clean coal,” the need to transition entirely to renewable energy is even more critical.
Mr. Heinberg is a much sought-after speaker and has presented in dozens of countries and across the United States. He's featured in many documentaries, including End of Suburbia and Leonardo DiCaprio's film 11th Hour. Mr. Heinberg has appeared on ABC's Good Morning America, Canadian Broadcasting Television, BBC, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, and Al Jazeera, as well as numerous radio programs (NPR) and print publications (Time magazine).
Books by Richard Heinberg
- Blackout: Coal, Climate and the Last Energy Crisis
- The Party's Over: Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies
- Peak Everything: Waking Up to the Century of Declines
- Powerdown: Options and Actions for a Post-Carbon World
- The Transition Handbook: From Oil Dependency to Local Resilience
Following his talk, Mr. Heinberg will be joined by Stephanie Mills for an informal chat and question-and-answer session.
Post Carbon Institute Fellow Stephanie Mills is a renowned author and lecturer on bioregionalism, ecological restoration, community economics, and voluntary simplicity. Her newest book, On Gandhi's Path, is about Robert Swann, father of the relocalization movement, and his work as a tireless champion of decentralism.
In her book, Epicurean Simplicity, Mills addresses the rewards and challenges of a simple life. Her other writings include: Whatever Happened to Ecology? and In Service of the Wild, a book about restoring and reinhabiting damaged land. Mills edited In Praise of Nature, a compilation of reviews of excerpts of/from major works on environmental literature.
Mills lives in northern Michigan, where she works as a freelance author and lecturer who focuses on improving individual and community quality of life through reducing unnecessary complexities.
Stephanie Mills
"What is perhaps most impressive about Stephanie Mills is the insistence with which she keeps pointing out the relationship between our individual choices and the fate of our species and others with which we share this earth." —Lorraine Anderson