Beach Reading? Part 2

Right now where I live it is 102 degrees, and with the heat index it's 118. Even so, it's not as bad as it's been in the past few days when the humidity was even higher. I think of it as my own personal free sauna. It's great, I can eat all the ice cream I want and just sweat it away.

So, given all that, it seems like a good time to pass along a couple more books on my Fun with Global Warming list. If you can take the beach on a day like this, broiling sun and stinging black flies, then you may be just the person to really get into Richard Heinberg. Note his four possible options for our future - right now I'd say we're going with "Waiting for a Magic Elixir." At least Those At the Top seem to be happy with that one. Mayors and city governments all across the country are, however, sitting up, taking notice, and making plans for "Powering Down," even "Building Lifeboats."

Again, all the books I'm listing are available through Powell's City of Books

The Party's Over: Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies, by Richard Heinberg

The world is about to run out of cheap oil and change dramatically. Within the next few years, global production will peak. Thereafter, even if industrial societies begin to switch to alternative energy sources, they will have less net energy each year to do all the work essential to the survival of complex societies. We are entering a new era, as different from the industrial era as the latter was from medieval times. In The Party's Over, Richard Heinberg places this momentous transition in historical context, showing how industrialism arose from the harnessing of fossil fuels, how competition to control access to oil shaped the geopolitics of the 20th century, and how contention for dwindling energy resources in the 21st century will lead to resource wars in the Middle East, Central Asia, and South America.

Powerdown : Options and Actions for a Post-Carbon World, by Richard Heinberg

If the US continues with its current policies, the next decade will be marked by war, economic collapse, and environmental catastrophe. Resource depletion and population pressures are about to catch up with us, and no one is prepared. Avoiding cynicism and despair, it begins with an overview of the likely impacts of oil and natural gas depletion and then outlines four options for industrial societies during the next decades:

• Last One Standing: the path of competition for remaining resources
• Powerdown: the path of cooperation, conservation and sharing
• Waiting for a Magic Elixir: wishful thinking, false hopes, and denial
• Building Lifeboats: the path of community solidarity and preservation

posted at 3:33:00 PM by marigolds2

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