Chances are, when you think about gasoline, it crosses your mind in an abstract way — as if where it comes from and how much of it exists is someone else’s problem. Thanks to “peak oil” expert Richard Heinberg [1], Americans’ naive attitude toward fossil fuels may be changing. Heinberg is the author of eight books; his most recent, hesitates to come on board itself [2]. What’s with the double-speak?
RH: People in the environmental and human rights community would say that China has every right to industrialize, and the U.S. should voluntarily reduce its fossil-fuel consumption so as not to create a climate catastrophe. Well, [that is a] perfectly sound [argument], but people in power don’t even begin to listen. Taking that kind of argument seriously would, in effect, be ceding the contest to the other side; it would be like unilateral disarmament.

SD: The title of your lecture, “Navigating Our Energy Future,” is ironic in Vermont, where the transportation sector accounts for about half of total carbon emissions.
RH: There needs to be an upsurge of public concern to support change at the policy level. Policymakers are unlikely to have the courage to do anything unless there is that kind of support, because they’re facing enormous pressure from the existing transport lobby.

Now, if you look at how much is being spent on roads, and compare that with what would be needed to begin putting in an electrified public-transport infrastructure, it’s really quite heartening. I mean, we could be doing a lot with that money.

SD: Obviously, there are naysayers. The Financial Times, for instance, says [3] that Russia’s “peak oil” woes stem from a lack of investment, not supply.
RH: The amount of investment that they’re talking about in order to meet demand over the next couple of decades is absolutely gargantuan — it’s in the range of 10 to 20 trillion dollars. The fossil-fuel industry is not prepared to do that. Of course, the assumption is that if you pump in money at one end, then oil flows out the other. And that’s true to up a certain point. But the world doesn’t always work the way economists expect it to.

SD: Policy aside, you suggest that local foods and “village life” actually make us happy.
RH: We’ve paid an enormous price — individually and as a society — for the benefits we’ve gotten from fossil fuels. We have a much faster-paced society now, but it’s also a much more individualistic society. We have less of a sense of community. The middle class has grown dramatically over the last 100 years, but many of us find ourselves doing things for money that are only marginally interesting. We no longer have the sense of using our hands to make things; we end up in front of computer screens pushing buttons all day. I certainly do that a lot.

SD: So what do you do when you’re not pushing buttons?
RH: [Laughs.] Well, I play the violin. I’m a pretty avid amateur classical violinist, and I try to play in local ensembles and orchestras. I spend a lot of time in the garden — it takes a lot of time to keep a decent garden.