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. Heinberg is author of nine books, including The Party’s Over, Peak Everything, and the newly released Blackout.

Many of our economic, social and environmental problems have solutions.  Some of these solutions are obvious.  But most of them are difficult, or we would have already employed them. What’s stopping us? Maybe it's as simple as this: Various economic, belief and affinity groups are able to wield veto power on progress.

Cultural change, like biological evolution, can be incremental.  But it can also be sudden and transformational.  It appears we’re in the middle of rapid environmental, political and cultural change. Change occurs when one paradigm loses power, and another replaces it.  But how does that happen?  And how do we participate in that process to bring about the future we want?

Past Illahee speakers have touched upon the subject of power and change in various ways.  We’ve invited some of them back, and have added some new faces, to focus on what appears to be a rapid social transformation – what it is, where we might be going, and what we can do - ten years into the 21st century.

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