Ian McLean Spokesperson for the Green Party

Currently, the world economy is subsidized by a massive energy credit, laid down millions of years ago when the planet was a very different place.

That credit will eventually run out, and reconfiguring it into atmospheric carbon has consequences for planetary ecology.

A guru of the carbon economy, Richard Heinberg, is coming to town to speak on these issues. He has some simple messages.

First, driving economic growth using debt is unsustainable. Second, creating our food and other needs using a non-renewable resource must ultimately fail. Third, peak oil and climate change are current – they are not issues to be dealt with by future generations.

Heinberg offers a solution that requires a global consensus: shift the world to a steady-state economy. Most of our politicians think that is too hard. But our children need those hard decisions.

Hear Richard Heinberg at the Baycourt Exhibition Hall, 1 October, 7:15 pm.