Jared Diamond "Collapse"

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David Archer "The Long Thaw"

ISBN 978-0-691-13654-7. "The Long Thaw - How Humans are changing the Next 100,000 Years of Earth's Climate" by David Archer was published by Princeton University Press in 2009. Although billed as a short book Archer's "Long Thaw" is a longish 180 pages including a further reading list and index. Unlike other books on the topic this is not about Man-Made Climate Change within a human-timescale. Archer takes us into the universe of Man-Made Climate Change from the Earth's point of view, ie, into geological time spans. Hence he puts our narrow focus of the next 100 years into the context of the last few million years and the next 100,000 years which - as the subtitle suggests - is how long it will take for the planet to recover fully from the damage that we are doing. What the author does is quite interesting in fact. He is not much of an alarmist but he knows how to answer the sceptics' doubts. He does spend much of the time dealing with some denial arguments and does not completely dismiss them. He does recognise them and agrees that there is much we don't know, whilst (at the same time) showing these counter-arguments do nothing to undermine the overwhelming evidence for mankind's fingerprint on the climate.

This is the subtle point that Archer makes - quibbling over the temperature record in 1998 seems slightly dumb when we can see that mankind's burning of fossil fuels will leave a lasting impression upon this planet's climate. A hundred-thousand years is a very long time. He makes this deduction by examining the earth-chemistry of the Carbon-Cycle and how it can be uncovered in the fossil record. Being an oceanographer Archer goes into great depths (pun not intended) on the topic of how oceans absorb carbon. He shows how the oceans would happily absorb most of our excess emissions and the resulting acidity would finally settle out into the sediments. However it does this in a geological timescale - never fast enough to deal with our carbon spike. We'll have to wait. We get to see how the cycles of our orbits around the sun, and the activity of the sun itself, pushes us into and out of Glacial periods. We learn that we are in an inter-glacial period of a major ice-age, ie, a long ice-age period punctuated with warm spells with less ice - which is where we are now. If you go back millions of years we come out of the ice age and into a period when there were lush hot jungles at the poles - this time period is just too far back for us to learn too much about our current condition. The last 650,000 years of history is more than enough to tell us what will happen in the next 100,000 years. The author goes on to look at feedback mechanisms and is quite conservative in his assessment showing that, in his area of expertise, he see no reason to be too alarmist about deep-sea methane as, even in the period of history that most resembles today, there is no evidence of any sudden releases leading to an accelerated runaway climate change. There is no scare stories or climate change porn here. It is all very unemotional. Archer chooses to make sea level rise his poster child for the victims of Climate Change. No polar bears drowning in his book. Since sea level rises lag temperature by hundreds if not thousands of years we are unlikely to see anything dramatic in this century. The 50 meters or more will happen - in geologic time. There are many unknowns in the dynamics of glacier and ice-sheet melt so we may see some more ice-melt than the IPCC suggest.

In his Epilogue Archer does throw in the question of ethics. He generally agrees with the mainstream in saying that we need to decarbonise our economies as early as possible as it is simply a good investment. The earlier we do it the cheaper it is. He briefly goes through economic discounting to show how modern economics is in danger of doing nothing as it has no long term nor moral aspect. The author (rightly) does not deem it fair to leave the clean-up bill to our great-great-grandchildren hence we must internalise the real cost of carbon into the price of fossil fuels. One interesting point he makes is that if we just stopped burning coal this would go a long way to tackling the problem. Since we have vast quantities of coal, whilst Gas and Oil are half-gone, then we should let peak oil & gas tackle the problem through market dynamics. Of course we would have all agree to leave the coal in the ground and that won't happen quickly - but it is a useful reminder that the days of cheap oil and gas are over. There is so much that can be done at only a few percentage points of GDP so why do we wait? Well, because everyone has to do it together so that we do not repeat the tragedy of the commons. Archer leaves us with this final thought (I paraphrase): If we add up all the energy trapped by the CO2 from a gallon of petrol over its atmospheric lifetime we find that our gallon will trap one hundred billion kilocalories (100,000,000,000) of useless unwanted green-house heat. This is 40 million times more energy that we got out of driving in our cars with that gallon of petrol.

Archer finds similar quirky statistics and scatters them through the book so it is worth paying attention if you wish for something to add to your party anecdotes. For example the basic physics of the greenhouse effect were figured out by Jean Baptiste Joseph Fourier in 1827. In 1869 Svante Arrhenius spent two years working out the planetary temperature gain if atmospheric CO2 level were to double. He reckoned 4 to 6 degrees Celsius. After 130 years of climate science (now driven by computers) we have worked out that this is closer to 2.5 to 4 degrees Celsius. Not much has really changed in that 130 years. Globally about 2 billion dollars per year are being spent on climate change research. That is just 5% of the profits of the Exxon Mobil oil company. Much of the author's chemistry and in-depth science will blind most people. This is not popular science. It is hard science and sometimes comes across as a text book of Climate Change Chemistry for dummies. Not that interesting but of use for the hardcore student in such matters. This often isn't easy reading but it does exactly what it says on the cover. A novel view of the problem.

A bit of a text book making for a dull read in places.
A very conservative assessment of where we are free from emotion, scare stories or climate porn.

Lester R. Brown "Plan B 3.0"

ISBN 978 0 393 330878 8. "Plan B 3.0 - Mobilizing to Save Civilization" by Lester R Brown. Lester is the president of the Earth Policy Institute and, if memory serves correctly, was often quoted in Lomborg's "Skeptical Environmentalist" book as the source of statistical half-truths about the state of the Environment. Hence we approached this book with some caution even if Lomborg's position on Peak Oil and Climate Change is indefensible. However, the reader has no need to worry as this book is spot-on. Ten out of ten. Perfect. Well, nearly. The only criticism is Lester's drive to solve nearly all of the World's problems. Hence he does devote enormous amount of space to solving poverty without always making a good link between human poverty and ecological decay. Of course the link is there but the problems of resource depletion and climate change are ones of industrialisation and affluence. The point of poverty is that it is linked with excessive population growth which puts pressure on natural resources. Tackling population and its root causes - often poor education and civil strife, will eventually help tackle other global issues that are more pressing. Tackling poverty can never be a primary objective. Neither can the matter of what Lester calls "failed states" which he returns to again and again. He sees the concept of the failed state as something cause by a decaying environment. Others may see things differently. States may collapse if they are undermined by the foreign policies of super-powers or by the policies of the World Trade Organisation, IMF and World Bank. None of these issues are addressed by Lester who sticks firmly to the Washington consensus on these matters - ie, it is somebody else's fault and that lots of charity will help. Not all would agree. These faults to one side you do get a very upbeat view of our abilities to tackle climate change and peak oil through a wide range of measure from redesigning our cities through to building far more wind farms. Lester is well know for his drive to get the world planting to trees and this is to his credit. He has a clear vision of what the problems are and his plan is a good one - well researched and reasonable. He has many supporters - us included. When it comes to matters of energy and transport his advice is sound. Plant trees, build countless wind-turbine farms, get people out of their cars, raise energy efficiency. Some of this work is a little like the Rocky Mountain Institute studies but Lester's work is far more International in nature and far less dependent on the techno-fix. He links Climate Change to food production directly which is a refreshing change as most writers waffle on about rising sea levels - as if that ever killed anyone. He also writes at length about the problems we are facing with water supplies. Water really shouldn't be a problem but according to Lester we are pumping the wells dry as fast as the oil wells. Who would have thought? He makes no mention of the hydrogen economy and laughs off Nuclear as a non-starter. This is also very refreshing. His point is the same as ours - we don't need a techno-fix - we have all the technology we need. The problem is deforestation and too many people. He compares the way we balance the books to the way Enron balanced theirs - ie, buy leaving the liabilities off the books. Essentially we are bankrupt. Plan B is a rescue plan. He makes no bones about it - we need a wartime mobilisation. He is right. Take this as a blue-print, but mostly for national action. It is less of a guide for individuals or communities but this is not a fault. There are other good books for that kind of work. Brilliant. Recommended. Buy copies for everyone you know and anyone with influence.

I just wish there was the political gotcha to make it happen.
Five thumbs-up as this is a great book. Recommended.

Shaun Chamberlin "The Transition Timeline"

ISBN 978-1-900322-56-0. "The Transition Timeline for a local, resilient future" was published by Green Books in 2009. Shaun Chamberlin's opus weighs in at 190 pages of the same layout and format as Rob Hopkins' "Transition Handbook" (who also supplies the foreword to this work). This work was originally aimed at those who were working on their Community's Energy Descent Action Plan. We loved the cover artwork - as memorable and iconic as that drawn for Rob's original handbook. We get five book sections: "Cultural stories and Visions of the Future", "A Deeper Look at the Transition Vision", "Making Best use of this Timeline", "Global Context - Climate Change/Fuel Depletion" and "UK Context". Shaun's work is as next to perfect as you could wish to get at this stage. Seeing as this is only the second "Transition" book published to date (these words written in September 2009 in the brink of the "Local Food" book launch). This goes beyond Rob Hopkins original work which leant heavily on theory and bizarre management games. In fact it manages to be far superior because the Transition narrative only gets better as theory turns into practice. By now we are starting to see how the pioneering Transition Visions are starting to flesh out. We get a good clear guide as to how it is our very culture that has to change.

You can argue that the term "cultural stories" is largely meaningless to the layman and smacks of a work of fiction - but the contents of the visions certainly withstand scrutiny - even if is tempting to see it all as wishful thinking. We know that these changes in our thinking have to happen. However in the acid-test of the real-world we don't see it happening beyond that minority of cultural-creatives inside the Transition Movement.

It remains unclear as to how we enthuse an apathetic community to get out of bed and start to work on the EDAP. How do we reach out? That book has not yet been written. Instead we do get something quite surprising in Shaun's work. Half-way through the book he runs out of "vision" material and starts musing on the combined effects of Climate Change and Peak oil. This is like a whole new book by itself and is probably the quite convincing and cohesive study of how the two forces inter-twine. Oil will certainly run out in time to terminate some of the very worse-case-scenarios modelled by the IPCC but there is still enough carbon left in the ground to push us through the tipping points that could trigger unstoppable climate change. Indeed, we have done so much damage already, with the first half of our fossil fuels, that a minimum of 2 degreesC rise this century is guaranteed. We'll be lucky to escape by the skin of our teeth. Shaun argues that drastic changes are now required to shut off the carbon pipeline. Transition is the only answer. There is no technology yet that can save us. We have to change. What a vision. Thoroughly recommended. Grim with a glimmer of hope.

A minor inclusion of daft play-acting games spoils the show..
Damn near perfect. Read it now.

David Boyle & Andrew Simms "The New Economics - A Bigger Picture"

ISBN 978-1-84407-675-8. "The New Economics - A Bigger Picture" was written by David Boyle and Andrew Simms and published by Earthscan in 2009. (You get 192 pages including acknowledgments, eleven chapters, appendices and index.) The "New Economics" describes itself as being about "changing the rules by which economics works [...] about making things happen locally...". It all sounds reasonable until the authors too easily shift into describing it vaguely as something to do with "people and planet". We have become so used to the near-scientific certitudes of conventional economics that when somebody takes such nebulous concepts as 'ethics' and 'ecology' and describe them in economic terms it all sounds... Well, woolly. The new economics has found mainstream success. For example the European Union has a task force looking at redefining GDP whilst the growth of the Transition Towns movement is testimony to how everyone from politicians to ordinary people can embrace these exciting new concepts. Oddly enough neither example appears anywhere in this book.

Written as it was during the crash of 2008 it has an air of "I told you so" even if there is no triumph in any of this. Indeed, the more you read the more you understand that tackling Climate Change, monetary reform and Peak Oil conventionally all seems easier than trying to implement the theories of the new economics. It all seems like so much hardwork. And complicated to-boot. There are no certainties, only new theories. Those of us who lived happily through the new certainties of the neo-liberal economics of the Thatcher years will know how easy it is to get caught up in new economic panaceas only to see them crumble to dust in our hands. Why should the theories of the nef be any different? Of course there is a difference. Thatcherism was possible to implement because it was in people's selfish self-interest to make it happen. That juggernaut has been rolling for years under the careful guidance of Reagan, Bush and Blair one wonders if it can ever be turned around. Afterall it has been 6000 years in the making according to this book.

One of our favourite stats from this book (pages 39 & 40) concerns the demonstrable ineffectiveness of trickle down theory. "The trouble is that economic growth is an extremely inefficient way of achieving poverty reduction, and is becoming even less effective. Between 1990 and 2001, for every $100 worth of growth in the world's income per person, just 60 cents found its target and contributed to reducing poverty below the $1-a-day line.... Using this model [...] getting everyone in the world onto a modest income of $3 per day would require the natural resources of around 15 planets like Earth." That is certainly one in the eye for the likes of Lomborg and Stern. Vandana Shiva would no doubt agree. Here we have solid evidence (albeit referring to a paper also co-written by Andrew Simms in 2006) that shatters the paradigm that has been held sacred in every discussion about Climate Change and conventional economics. Economic growth cannot be sustained and the kind we have is a machine that makes poverty. It can't solve Climate Change. It sucks money from the poor into the hands of the rich and impoverishes the planet. What is more, due to the faulty way we measure wealth, it looks like we are richer whilst we are less and less happy. If this book was chock full of such paradigm-busting killer facts then this work would be a monstrous broadside through the armoured hull that is conventional economics. However, it is only a highlight. It is more or less downhill from there-on in. The rest of the book is what the old Bush Jnr Presidency might describe as a "wish list to Santa" or what Bjorn "skeptical environmentalist" Lomborg might call "the litany". It lists every worry in the world and pretends it can solve them. However, they cannot solve greed.

Reading it you tend to get bedazzled that all of life's problems are caused by conventional economics and that the New Economics can ride to the rescue. It isn't always overly-convincing. It is almost as if the authors themselves seem nervous about discussing this in public. This may be a criticism of the style of writing. Contrast it to Michael Rowbotham's "The Grip of Death" (ISBN 978 1 897766 40 8 Jon Carpenter Publishing 1998) where the author's utter enthusiasm for his concept (that the money system creates ALL of life's ills) sweeps the reader of his/her feet in its breathlessness. The problem maybe the fact that two author's worked on this and it appears to go around in dizzying circles. The amusing chapter headings appear to give the impression that it has been nicely segregated up into neat areas. However each tends to return to the same view of the problem with the same ideas being repeated over and over again until the reader gets a touch of deja vu. That probably is the extent of the criticism of this book - its ideas are extremely broad and it is difficult to pick out a clear framework nor even a roadmap to the future. It is lots of ideas thrown at the page. The new economics is a work-in-progress waiting in the wings. It needs a political party to invest it into policy. When written large into our communities we may well know if any of this theory works.

Sure there are plenty of good examples of it working. However, recall again the point I made earlier about the early euphoric years of Thatcherism and the neo-liberal economics that had its examples of its voodoo apparently working. Everything works somewhere and sometime. But, beyond the cherry-picking... Can we write this across the face of civilisation and make it stick? Beyond this lack of 'concreteness' there is nothing wrong with this book. You find yourself turning page after page and agreeing with everything these authors have written. Of course it will appeal to those people who work on Transition Town projects. Towards the rear of the book the authors turn to the new localism to explain why some towns are killed by Walmart whilst others thrive with numerous locally-owned shops. But how do you get from Walmart-hell to local-retail-paradise? What is the roadmap? Is there any place that has been turned around? Where are the turn-key policies that politicians crave? The New Economics Foundation needs to take on the Chicago School of Economics at their own game. They need some metrics for such ideas as "moral coherence", "human contact", "authenticity" and "spirituality". However they spurn traditional monetary measures and this is their weakness. The authors make numerous lists of their central tenets but these often get watered down into unrealistic wish lists. Take page 46 for example where they talk about "Create a holistic educational system that promotes creativity" and "Discourage materialism and clamp down on damaging advertising". Lovely, if cringe worthy. (If you want more of this wishy-washy tosh just see pages 74 and 75.) OK, OK - I agree that the authors are right but this kind of talk is going to consign the new economics to oblivion. You wish they would get real.

However, if you can manage not to get too distracted by the woolly-thinking then there is a great book here screaming to be let loose. The discussion about multiple concurrent currencies is powerful. It is interesting to note here that they do not strongly advocate local currency. This Transition Town paradigm is twisting what Boyle and Simms are really saying. They are all for local currencies but it doesn't mean that each town should have one. The purpose of such a currency is to boost the multiplier effect inside a community. A local currency is a simplistic implementation of a solution. There are other ways of creating money that sticks. It is conceivable that we could develop "community money" that is the same across the UK but can only be spent, like vouchers, only in local shops. As long as there is reciprocity this will work the same way. Likewise there is nothing wrong with a "single currency" for international trade. Each currency should have its purpose. There is also much talk about the debt money system although the concept of monetary reform is soft-peddled by the authors. Rather than advocating a widescale change to debt-free money via a citizen's income they only suggest that the government creates money for specific capital projects.

Monetary reform should be at the heart of any 'new economics' alongside the reprioritising of human happiness into the centre of wealth measurement. The latter the authors cover very well with their Happy Planet Index (a case of nef genius at work). If you can measure it then it matters. There is so much to this book - so many great ideas - that this review can barely scratch the surface. You need to read it to understand exactly how we ended up in the mess we are in. The mess is a natural outcome of a flawed economic paradigm and it can be reversed IF people understand the problem and are given options. For example, the pursuit of pure monetary efficiency often achieves the opposite of what was intended. Just look at that shiny new Walmart that is undermining local social capital. The intention was to bring local jobs and prosperity. Instead they brought social decay. It didn't work. The policy makers just can't see the dots between the two. This book should be compulsory reading for every undergrad economist, every politician, every civil servant, every banker, everyone. We have to join the dots. This book joins those dots. So should we.

Seems a little shy and buries its genius in aimless wish-lists as if the New Economics was built by a committee of Guardian readers.
If you dig hard enough this book is genius. It's all there - the reasons why our economics fails and how we can turn our local economies around. A must read.

Kingsley Dennis and John Urry "After the Car"

ISBN-13 978-0-7456-4422-6. "After the Car" written by Kingsley Dennis and John Urry was published by Polity Press in 2009. The paperback has 212 pages including preface, notes, index and 7 chapters. The authors are social scientists from Lancaster University rather than technologists. This could be a really good thing or a really bad thing. It would be good if it gave us a fresh perspective on the future of personal transport - in this they are reasonably successful. It would be bad if they were to underestimate the difficulties of developing hi-tech solutions in a low-energy world. This they also do. However it would probably be a mistake to think of this book being just about cars. Taken in its totality this book is far better than the failings within its individual components. Never before has the consequences of Peak Oil and Climate Change been applied and analysed for just one technology. The car would be an obvious starting point, we guess, but only as a by-word for almost all the technology that we take for granted in wealthy, industrialised, over-fed, northern/western countries. This book largely comes into its own when it isn't talking about cars. When it considers the wider aspects of technology in general and their inter-relationships with society, this book is on solid ground. However the authors' failure to understand the profound problems of a post-oil world is their greatest failing.

The authors accept the traditional orthodoxy of man-made climate change without question - but, heah, they are social scientists not climatologists. Their approach is less about understanding risk and more about examining systems. They describe climate change as the result of "enormously powerful systems" accelerating towards a precipice. It needs an equally powerful system to avert the abyss. What is needed "after the car" is a system that can provide the flexibility, comfort and secure personal mobility of a car, yet is entrenched in a low-energy, low-carbon world. In simple terms, it has to be sustainable - although these are our words not theirs. The authors do not underestimate the scale of what they are suggesting. On page 59 they write "Unlike the bus or train system, the car system is a way of life, an entire culture." They go on to point out how it has changed the "landscape for all other mobility systems that have to find their place within the landscape predominantly sculpted by the car system." Putting it simply; we live in an autotopia. We made the world in the image of the car. As the system is entrenched then it will take an unpredictable change (a "chaos point") to sweep it away. They also point out how dated the technology now is: "Well over a century old, and increasingly archaic because of its dependence on oil-based combustion, the car system is able to 'drive' out competitors... many homes in the rich north filled with the latest electrical and digital gadgets, and yet they sat alongside the oddly outdated petroleum-powered car." You could think of the car as an appropriate metaphor for our culture's entire addiction to fossil fuels. We should have moved on years ago if we hadn't moulded our society around an artificially created system of dependency. It isn't the car that needs to change - it is our relationship to it.

The chapter on "Technologies" covers just 30 pages. Of this space most of the technology is considered for its social impact. For example the geopolitical whelm is often invoked when describing the limitations of biofuels. There is not much in this section that most readers will not be already familiar with. It is all here from plug-in hybrids to hydrogen. What is also here is the "systems thinking" of the authors. Whereas we think of the car's technology being the nuts and bolts of the vehicle, these authors take a more holistic approach and consider the way cars relate to other cars within the road system. Future cars will know where they are and will know where all the other cars are around them. Hence a suitably intelligent car will know how to get you from A to B and may well know your priority in the pecking-order of the roads. If you can pay more you might get there a bit quicker - but only at the expense of other, poorer, road users. It is of concern to the authors that such systems might not come about because of the ethical dilemma of people sharing their private information in public spaces. On the face of it such a "social" consideration is the least of a future car-using society's problems. The car-system cannot become more complicated in a low-energy world. This is working against the rules of thermodynamics. Cultures that tend to increasing complexity in order to address resource constraints also tend towards instability and eventual collapse. This we know from the work of Jared Diamond. The authors of "After the Car" pay lip service to peak-oil only to act as if the problem is one of CCTV coverage. Where you are in the pecking order seems irrelevant if no one is on the roads because no one can afford to drive. The "systems thinking" here need to concern the transition to a world with a lot fewer cars. Indeed the authors don't actually explain how a digitised smart car system would solve any resource depletion issue. How does it save energy? Such systems are designed to shoe-horn MORE cars on the road and enhance safety. They are perfect for a packed planet with loads of energy. Only one of these two facets will remain true.

Thankfully, by the next chapter on "Organisations" the authors land on their feet and normality is restored. Here they actually consider our urban and country landscapes. We won't need cars if you can walk and cycle to work and the shops. Why go THERE when THERE can be HERE through the redesign of our cities? On page 102 we learn about the Stockholm Environment Institute Report that recommends "urbanscapes that encourage closer proximity between places of home, work, shops and leisure activities. This would reduce car dependence while strengthening community." The authors note a page later that "the EasyJet generation in the rich north of the world is not easily going to accept the notion that friends should be chosen from among those near at hand". Therein lies the difficulty for the Transition Towns movement. To move forward we need to take note of the 2007 report "The Disrupters. Lesson for Low-carbon Innovation from the New Wave of Environmental Pioneers" (London: Nesta. Authors: R. Willis, M. Webb & J. Wilsdon): "In short we need disruptive forms of innovation - cheaper, easier-to-use alternatives to existing products and services often produced by non-traditional players..." This is a question of "wider forms of innovation, such as innovation in organisational forms and business models". Thus we need a movement towards the "new urbanism" or "transit-orientated development" (TOD); "The TOD movement promotes itself as a 'major solution to the serious and growing problems of peak oil and global warming by creating dense, walkable communities connected to a train line that greatly reduce the need for driving and the burning of fossil fuels'."

The Transition Movement itself gets a slot on pages 121 through 123 although the authors are largely dismissive: "this innovative movement is largely restricted to smaller towns, where civic engagement and localised sustainable practices from the ground up have some chance of success." There is a lot of merit in this sort of conclusion and the authors return to this critique later in the book. By Chapter 7 the authors move on to "Scenarios" where they describe the global issues that face humanity. This really is the "Oil Wars" section of the book where Urry & Dennis cannot contain their dislike for the neo-liberal foreign policies of the recent US administration. For the authors the war on Global Warming replaces the War on Terror and the USA is lagging behind the rest of the world in trying to fight the latter rather than the former. If anything, US attempts to keep their SUV's running on foreign Oil is increasing their insecurity, not enhancing it. This hubris must end. The War on Terror is, as the authors conclude, "outdated". On page 132 this "such high carbon forms of life cannot continue; there will be an ending to the carbon hubris that has been the overwhelming legacy of the last century." By page 149 they have returned to their critique of "Local Sustainability" which they conclude is "possible and not probable" simply because it requires "huge reversals of almost all the systems of the twentieth century". Of course it hasn't occurred to the authors that this transition is far easier in a low-energy world than attempting to create the more complicated high-energy system that they suggest in their "more probable" hi-tech scenario. The next scenario they consider is "regional warlordism" which is the "Mad Max" scenario by anyone else's language. It leaves little to the imagination. Then there is their favoured hi-tech "digital networks of control" that fails to convince the reader of how it solves any problem and how it can be implemented. In fact the three scenarios are not mutually exclusive. In the real world they will be laid over top of each other.

The inevitable destination on our journey will be a low-energy world sustained by a renewed localism. Sadly the political system may resort to the warlordism model whilst a few lucky places might attempt the hi-tech model only for it to not sustain and collapse. Does the work of these two social scientists boil down to Heinberg's "waiting for the elixir"? Their assumptions about what is 'probable' and 'possible' seems to be reduce to what people will accept as requiring this least amount of change or personal discomfort. This confuses what is nice to have and what is essential. The future of the car cannot be business-as-usual. This book gets so much of the analysis correct but then seems to reach the wrong conclusion. It is sublime of them to state that (on page 162) "the global war on terror may be 'won', but only by losing the war on climate change." There may also be a fundamental truth behind their assumption that the hi-tech solution is the least likely to lead to the Mad Max scenario. The post-oil localism is compatible with warlordism and this is the inconvenient truth of the Realpolitik. The car system needs taming through multiple measures such as personal carbon allowances. Their final analysis is spot on "if climate change became a matter of democratic politics and not just the opportunity for new corporate investment, then it is possible to avoid both regional warlordism and digital networks." It is up to us.

Unfortunate preference for the hi-tech solution versus the simple low-energy option.
Very definitive analysis of where we stand as a high energy society in transition to a low energy, post-oil, future.

Brower "Consumer's Guide"

ISBN 0 609 80281 X. Full Title "The Consumer's Guide to Effective Environmental Choices - Practical Advice from the Union of Concerned Scientists". Written by Michael Brower and Warren Leon (both PhD). Published by Random House in 1999. Well, if you, like us, had never heard of the 'Union of Concerned Scientists' then there is a little section at the back to explain - an independent NGO the UCS (in the U.S.) conducts studies and public education in order to influence government policy for a 'healthier environment'. Whatever that is. The book kicks off with an amazingly dumb anecdote about how a group of keen recyclers drove a car stuffed with newspapers all over someplace in hicksville USA looking for a recycling center. The anecdote has no point to make about wasting finite fossil fuels or your carbon footprint - no. The book is so steeped in North American mega-consumption culture that this simple matter never arose. Much to our astonishment. The book continues in a similar fashion even if the intro was a lamentable low point that they do (thankfully) recover from. For readers in Central Asia, the far East, Asia-Pacific, Europe, Africa, well... Anywhere outside the USA, this book is mostly irrelevant. Its research (for what it is) is scientific but parochial. America is an exception to the rule. American's consume in a fashion that leave the average European as bewildered as European habits would bewilder a Sub-Saharan African. Hence many of the basic rules we learn as European low-carbon lifestyle devotees simply don't seem to apply to Americans. Some advice seems completely irrelevant and some is just plain wrong. At a time when tanker loads of precious Fossil Fuels can be saved by using bio-mass energy to heat our homes one of the primary recommendations of this report is that Americans must stop burning wood! Simple wood-burning stoves exist in Europe that meet strict no-smoke regulations. Apparently no such thing exists over the pond. On the other hand some of the reasoning is applicable. They correctly identify the American love of the automobile as a primary cause of Global Warming but seldom talk of cars. Americans now drive things called "light trucks". They have so far to go. In Europe our fridges have a low carbon footprint but in the USA they seem to guzzle energy like crazy for some reason. Likewise American spending patterns include categories for "firearms" and "swimming pool heaters". The book is out of date, lightweight on matters of resource depletion, and based on a couple of questionable studies. It is a vaguely useful read and the topic deserves far more research. It needs something like this for all major regions of the world. So, if you believe (as we do) that pollution and biodiversity threats are almost irrelevant in the face of Climate Change and Peak Oil then you will find this book next to useless. It does show how far America has to go to come even close to catching up with the rest of the Planet....

Heavily parochial to North America. Has a big wood-burning blindspot.
Actually gives you a useful overview and a good sense of scale on problems.

James Bruges "Big Earth Book"

ISBN 13 978 1 901970 87 6. Published by Alastair Sawday Publishing in 2007 with sponsorship from Yeo Valley Organic. When they say "BIG" they mean BIG. This is a coffee table heavyweight measuring 27cm x 20cm x 2.5cm (hardback) with 288 thick pages. The book is lavishly illustrated with large full-colour pictures and it looks like it is aimed at children ages 8 to 16 although I am sure adults will get a kick out of this. Despite the child-friendly layout the topic and language of the book is a far cry from the play ground. I was at first astonished then delighted as James explores the Economic fragility of this Globalised world. Indeed, the middle word of the title is misleading. This has nothing to do with the "Earth" in the typical 'ecology' sense. We all know that this planet will continue to circle the Sun for a good few billion years. Any loss of biodiversity today will finally be made up for my nature within a few million years. The only thing fragile about this "Earth" is the life of mankind. From the point of view of the Earth the existence of humans is a brief aberration in the scheme of things. Come and gone in the blinking of the geological eye. We are as Mayflies. No more. Why do we identify US as the "Earth"? We are not. The author states clearly he wishes to provoke the readership. If you give this to your kids thinking it will be about volunteering to save a few fluffy Panda's then you are in for a shock. Environmental destruction and loss of biodiversity - the typical litany of the Eco-type, is only a minor sub-topic. James is clearly well read on what damage mankind is doing to itself. You need only read the References section at the rear to know where he is coming from. He has used "The Economist", "New Scientist", Mark Lynas, Mayer Hillman, Aubrey Meyer, George Monbiot, Julian Darley, ASPO, Kenneth Deffeyes, Richard Heinberg, Roy Arundhati, George Soros, Donella Meadows, Dennis Meadows, Jorgen Randers, Joseph Stiglitz, John Gray, James Lovelock, Gore Vidal, Greg Palast, Noam Chomsky, John Pilger and Michael T Klare to name but a few. James splits the book into four sections: "The Elements", "Money", "Power" and "Life". Ironically the last section is the weakest. The opening section details the well known litany of Climate Change & Ozone Depletion, but moves rapidly on to Peak Oil. Then, in "Money" he moves onto detail the problems of our Economies. He lists many alternative ideas for how a modern economic system could, and should, work. In "Power" he is largely writing on the Global Economy again but studies Third World Debt and the spread of American Hegemony. The "Life" section does not reach the heights of the middle two. It only raises the relevant point of Food Security. Here he struggles with his other chosen topics to illustrate the point he is making. The books just tales off into navel gazing. Maybe the Publishing house wanted the book a bit bigger so the author had to throw a few loose ideas into the back as padding? Apart from this minor criticism, this book does well to bang the drum about Money and Power and how it is destroying all of our collective futures. The author goes beyond books that say they offer solutions. James really does deliver. His pages sparkle with numerous bright ideas for alternative forms of human existence. Stunning. Buy this book now and scare your children into action. Don't be surprised if they don't rush out and save a hedgehog though... They are more likely to throw Molotov Cocktails at a G8 Summit after reading this!

The last section on "Life" is dispensable.
Fantastic quasi-political book in a format the kids and adults will love. Gives the whole picture. Brilliant.

Stephen Bushway "The New Woodburner's Handbook"

ISBN 978-0-88266-788-1. Stephen Bushway's "The New Woodburner's Handbook - A Guide to Safe, Healthy & Efficient Woodburning" was published by Storey Publishing in 1992. This book is eye-opening for all the wrong reasons. Firstly it is so very dated in being 17 years old and, secondly, it is a world removed because it covers the US market. All measurements are in Imperial and quantities of wood is discussed in "cords". As such it is a little like reading a Victorian Handbook on how to use a washboard. It has some quaint charm and is occasionally relevant. The early section (and several times through the book) reminds us how the modern wood-burning era in the U.S. began - the 1973 Oil Embargo. This seems appropriate but this is the only mention of Oil economics in the books as it doesn't look as if Peak Oil was on his mind when Bushway wrote this. The Author includes a section on U.S. Energy Policy in the early 1990's and this is quite illuminating as it paints a picture of an aspiration for a green energy revolution that does not seem to have happened. Talk about a wasted generation. Eight years of Clinton, eight years of Bush and it seems as if nothing happened in North America - still the same dreams, the same aspirations. American dreams unrealised. What is interesting for 1992 is just how much Global Warming features in the author's arguments for Wood Burning. It is almost as if time has stood still and we fell asleep in 1992 only to wake up in 2008 into a world where nothing had changed. It gives you a little hope that some Americans did "get it" back in the 1990's but it will leave you in despair that, despite those who "got it" it made no difference whatsoever. The economics of burning wood in the U.S. in the 1990's seemed very favourable with the author showing how much cheaper it was than Oil - hence its rising popularity among householders in North America. So much about this book stands out as seeming a little odd to the Northern European. There is a lengthy section of fire-safety that you would not get in similar books this side of the Atlantic. The reason is simple. Americans build their homes of wood so they need to be on the guard against the fire getting confused between fuel and walls. Stephen is a Chimney Sweep so you may well tire of the endless coverage of flue design and creosote prevention. This is one man's battle against chimney fires which, if you believed this, are so rife as to be on the brink of swallowing all our homes at any minute. You just don't get this sort of emphasis in the UK. All books on this topic published in recent times will focus on the modern clean-burn stoves that are required by the Clean Air Act. In 1992 the US EPA was only just introducing their own clean burn regulations for clean air in North America so we see a slice of time in which the old fashioned stoves were becoming obseleted. At this point our local books would finish but in North America Stephen spends a lot of the book discussing masonry stoves that are built into the fabric of the house. The author makes the burn cycles sound so complicated it would really put of many people considering getting a modern wood burning stove. Not for the beginner as this is misleading. Leave it off your Amazon Wish List. One for the curious only.... And those who wish to be a chimney sweep in the U.S. of A!

Three thumbs-down for being outdated and irrelevant
One thumbs-up for the unusual insight.