In this interview Heinberg also talks about the need to make renewable energy infrastructure self-hosting, to borrow a geek phrase. In other words, we need to be using energy that's renewable to make PV panels and wind turbines and so on. Imagine if all the renewables powering hyperscale datacentres, so corporations can spy on us and manipulate us with generative models, was being used to manufacture sustainable tech.
"Mostly, people in government, and people in say, the banking sector and in the financial industries, are completely clouded in their view by the apparent necessity of maintaining economic growth. They simply cannot imagine a future in which economic growth does not continue, and I think that really is an extraordinary hindrance to their being able to really engage honestly with these kinds of issues."
#RichardHeinberg, 2017