Notes from Heinberg's Afterburn, Ch. 4, 5 & 6

1. Energy is the single biggest issue we are facing as a species 
(the close connection between economy and energy usage)

2. One way or another we are moving towards a renewable energy system. (Remember: the difference between 'gross energy' and 'net energy')

3. Declining EROEI on energy resources means the END OF GROWTH. (The end of a growth economy means the end of consumerism, end of credit, end of expansionism)

4. Politicians will only respond when it's too late to do something meaningful. "What is needed is an attractive new paradigm that might lead us to proactively reduce our energy consumption." 

Eg. Voluntary Simplicity, The Transition Town Movement, Permaculture

5. Preparing for Resilience vs Sustainability

6. The Beginning and End of Consumerism
From overproduction to the new ethic of consumerism.

"Our enormously productive economy demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfaction and our ego satisfaction in consumption. We need things consumed, burned up, worn out, replaced and discarded at an every-increasing rate."
                                        Economist Victor Lebow (1955)