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From the Library Shelf:








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Books - Authors A through D
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In this section you
will find our Book Reviews of the work of Authors A through D.
The topics we cover are across the spectrum of topics including
Global Warming, Peak Oil, Oil Security, Politics, Environmental
issues, etc. The views expressed here are purely those of the
reviewer's. These reviews are not prompted by copies direct from
the Publisher.
It is our policy to
be fair about each book and to point out good and bad in each
review. In our opinion we believe that the informed Post-Carbon
person should make a reasonable effort to read a selection of
these books based upon our recommendations. Knowledge is power. |
David Archer "The Long Thaw"
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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.

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Lester R. Brown "Plan B 3.0"
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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.

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Shaun Chamberlin "The Transition
Timeline"
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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.

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David Boyle & Andrew Simms "The New
Economics - A Bigger Picture"
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 Review
coming soon.

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Kingsley Dennis and John Urry "After the
Car"
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 Review
coming soon.

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Brower "Consumer's Guide"
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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....

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James Bruges "Big Earth Book"
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 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!

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Stephen Bushway "The New Woodburner's
Handbook"
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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!

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Julian Darley "High Noon"
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 ISBN 1-931498-53-9. Published by Chelsea Green in 2004. Much of
the written work currently on Oil depletion does not cover
Natural Gas depletion in great detail. This book does. Unusually
it is not the normal parochial 'US-only point-of-view' because
Darley is actually a British environmental researcher (although
he now lives in Canada). Hence the work is more balanced and
global in nature. The foreword is by Richard Heinberg and the mutual appreciation is obvious as they quote each
other freely. Darley's work does contain some technical data -
graphs and maps, but don't let this put you off. It is a relatively
easy read. The books warns of an impending over-reliance upon Gas as
a substitute for Oil when Gas, itself, is on the brink of running
out. He examines how this depletion is already effecting domestic
and foreign policy across the industrialised world. The future is
bleak and definitely not 'gas-shaped'. Recommended.

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Dowding "Organic Gardening"
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ISBN 978 1 90303998 91 5. "Organic Gardening - The Natural No
Dig Way" by Charles Dowding was published in 2007 by Green Books
Ltd. The book is 223 pages long including foreword by Patrick
Holden, postscript, resources section, bibliography and indexes.
There are a number of glorious colour photos, grouped together
in four sections of the book, plus assorted recipes scattered
through the book to give you ideas as to how to cook all this
wonderful produce. The problem with this book? Well it is just
another gardening book. And we all know how boring they are. I
am sure many of us have shelves groaning under the weight of
gardening books given as gifts by well-meaning relatives and
gardening enthusiasts. We always promise ourselves we will read
them but somehow, upon turning the first page, our brain
switches off. Gardening will never be glamorous. The topic is as
dull as ditch-water. Anyone who write endlessly about voyaging
out the vegetable patch, in the middle of the night, to pick off
slugs by torchlight gets a frosty reception in my book. Dowding
does get off to a good start as his introductory sections (pages
8 thru 45) go down very well as the author introduces his "no
dig" philosophy.
However the shine quickly goes off when he
reveals that instead of digging his garden he effectively just
imports lots of soil somebody (or something) else has dug and
then dumps it on top each season. I am surprised he doesn't need
a ladder to reach the vegetable patch after so many years of
that! So it seems there is no trick to "no dig". You don't need
to loosen the soil as the worms will do that. Just keep adding
compost and manure and you'll be fine. Sounds expensive for the
average towny. It gets worse when he lets loose with his moon
theories in section 8 of the book. He recommends trying to
garden by the phases of the moon. I am sure many of us would
have quietly put the book back on the shelf, at that point,
convinced the author was a gooseberry short of a full crumble.
From that low point the book manages to bump along the bottom of
tedium as Dowding launches (or maybe lunches) with enthusiasm
into the excessively dull topic of salad growing. Yawn. You have
to wade through gardening's more boring vegetables before page
149 when we start on something a bit more interesting - the
growing of tomatoes. It climaxes right towards the end as he
covers the topic we all want to know for our forest garden -
fruit growing.
This book is a text book. I doubt if everyone
will grow absolutely everything the author recommends. However
his recommendations are borne of long experience. He knows what
will grow in an organic garden based upon which has the best
disease resistance to grow free of pesticides. He knows when it
is best to sow and how far apart to plant. He knows what to
plant in what sequence and how to deal with pests. This book is
invaluable but trying to take it all in in one go is intolerable
for the average human being. However the advice is priceless.
At this point I must say something about this
book that made me chuckle: the recipes. It reminded me of the
book I recently reviewed on hedgerow food. Whilst the author
enthused about all these wonderful rich new flavours you will
experience, he then offers recipes that mostly involve cooking
everything with lots of bacon and cheese. I too would eat
anything if you cover it in fried bacon! (All this and he never
tells you how to rear chickens, pigs or even make cheese. In
fact the author makes only one oblique mention to permaculture.
He is dismissive of inter-cropping as he suggests it
doesn't work well for him. Not an enthusiast it seems!)
If you want people to eat more of their own
home-grown veggies then you will have to make it tasty. For a
generation growing up on fast-food laced with sugar, fat & salt,
it will take more than food-snobbery to persuade them to eat
their greens. I couldn't help but think about how much more
tasty herbs and spices we will need. However, according to this
author you will need less flavourings because home-grown greens
are sooooo very tasty! I don't believe it, but I guess it does
depend upon your skills in the kitchen as much the garden. So
let's all learn to cook and start reading those recipe books!
This book also (like many of its ilk) lacks diagrams and
instructional drawings. The few colour photo's are unconnected
from the text so prove to be of little help. This book could do
with profuse illustrations and pictures and then being
republished with the same text in large cover version. It is
nice to have this on your book shelf to look for the occasional
useful piece of advice. However the plot is a little dull.

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Deffeyes "Hubbert's Peak"
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ISBN 0 691 09086 6. "Hubbert's Peak - The Impending World
Oil Shortage" by Kenneth S. Deffeyes. Published by Princeton
University Press in 2003. This is the sixth reprint, the
first in paperback and it describes itself as "revised and
updated" although this means a new preface by the author.
The new preface shares with us the slightly scary fact that
evidence suggests that Peak Oil came and went in the year
2000. This is based upon actual numbers. Deffeyes is a child
of the Oil Industry and born to a family literally up to
their armpits in Oil. Texas Oil. Of course the historical
perspective supplied is largely North American and it is
written for a US audience. The author is an Oil Geologist
with a not totally dissimilar background to Hubbert himself.
Indeed they new each other for many years before M King
Hubbert's death in 1989. In this book we get an Oil industry
insider's view of the Hubbert Peak phenomena. We learn many
interesting nuances to the simplistic tale of the Oil
Scientist
who-predicts-the-end-of-oil-and-no-one-believes-him. It is
now such a well known story it is hardly worth repeating.
Within the
Oil Industry itself Hubbert is almost better
known for his theories about how water lubricates tectonic
plates. When
you think about it all Hubbert did was stand up and tell us
the emperor had no clothes. Before him everyone pretended
that Oil would last forever. Of course Oil is finite and, in
the end, it must run out. What Hubbert did was put a date on
this. The science is almost child's play in its simplicity.
It is easy to understand the basic concept. You discover Oil
in one year and then its production peaks about 10 to 20
years later. Hence if you know when all the Oil was
discovered then you can predict when it will run out.
Hubbert used historical precedent in the US Oil Fields and
guessed correctly when their production would peak.
Interestingly we discover that this was partly guesswork.
The disappointing aspect of this work is that a full
two-thirds of this book is practically a geology textbook
for beginners. It is as dull as ditch-water. If you want to
read one book about Peak Oil don't read this. Choose one of
Heinberg's books, ie, "The Party's Over".

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Douthwaite "The Growth Illusion"
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ISBN 1 870098 76 5. Published by Green Books in 1999 (a
revised edition from a work originally published in 1992).
Written by Richard Douthwaite, the full title reads "The
Growth Illusion - How Economic Growth has Enriched the Few,
Impoverished the Many and Endangered the Planet". It is hard
to believe that any such writer, journalist, speaker and
'professional Economist' could make such a bad job of
writing about something we all know to be true. There should
be hundreds of books like this but sadly there are too few.
Which makes it all the bigger shame that this is not a
better book. I fear most readers will not get past chapter
one. The problem? Well, when Richard is talking economics
his use of Statistics is quite bewildering. He reminds me of
some very bad lecturers at University who knew their topic
inside out but just couldn't communicate it to students.
Note that Richard does not claim to be a teacher. This book
could easily have been half the size. It is too long and
large sections confuse the reader with their questionable
relevance. What a topic like this needs is lots of killer
facts that are easy for the audience to assimilate. So for
the first nine chapters (153 pages out of 346) Richard leads
us through a long historical study to show why Capitalism
needs growth and what that meant for Empire, the Industrial
Revolution and, more recently, Margaret Thatcher. The author
throws in every possible fact and figure to the ends that
they seem to contradict, not only each other but, the point
he is trying to make. He therefore concludes growth is a
very bad thing - heh presto! His readership is way, way
behind. So unconvincing is his argument that growth is bad
that we have to wait for him to lurch onto a more stable
platform - that of the growth and sustainability before he
starts to make any sense. And even then he is repeating a
familiar litany that we have read in a dozen other books.
Despite the stink he creates, with the first half of the
book, he manages to rescue his work towards the end with his
last two chapters. This is where he delivers an original and
comprehendible assessment of where we are and where we have
to get to. Can his book be recommended? As there is not a
lot of choice out there then we would have to say read it if
you can stay awake through an economics text book. Otherwise
focus your efforts on more accessible work such as Bruges
"Big Earth Book" which manages to deliver most of the same
information. Douthwaite is dogmatic in his beliefs. It oozes
through his work. He has made his mind up and will twist
every fact and figure to demonstrates what he believes. Yes,
we know economic growth is unsustainable but the many of the
negative points he digs up are just swings versus many
roundabouts. It is clearly population growth and use of oil
that has fuelled growth. He DOES make this point but only at
the end of the book. The trick is to deliver the benefits of
growth in a way
that truly benefits mankind without really growing or using
anything up. Growth itself is a neutral factor. The relative
misery of humankind is largely a permanent state of this
planet's sentient creature - a fixture of life that cannot
be mended. The rough that makes us understand the smooth.
Clearly nothing will make us more unhappy that being out of
work, cold and starving. The system is configured to
guarantee such a disastrous result if we stop growing.
Therein lies the challenge in transition. How to avoid this
crash?

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Ellen Hodgson Brown "Web of Debt"
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ISBN
978-0-9795608-0-4. "The Web of Debt" subtitled "The Shocking
Truth About Our Money System - The Sleight of Hand That Has
Trapped Us in Debt And How We Can Break Free". Written by
Ellen Hodgson Brown, J.D and published by Third Millennium
Press in 2007. This is a delightful book. If you had only
ever read the impenetrable thoughts of Michael Rowbotham or
found James Robertson & John M Bunzl's "Making It
Happen!" stunningly naive then this is the book for you. If
you want our money system dissected and laid out straight
for your examination, this deserves a place on your book
shelf. Ellen is a financial genius - she understand almost
every aspect of the system and has amazing breadth of
knowledge of the entire sad history of banking. Almost the
only drawback is the fact that this is a book about the
American Money system written for Americans. Of course that
is not quite how Ellen explains it. She believes the system
they have exported to the globe for over a hundred years is
actually the British system imposed upon them my European
Bankers. Of well. I doesn't matter quite who you blame...
The truth is that it does indeed originate so long ago that
it is of European origin - well before America was
discovered. Pretty much since the Christians figured out
that they could get someone else to do the dirty job of
applying usury to their money supply the banking system has
never looked back. Ellen explains the problem perfectly well
through the concept of the "impossible contract" - take two
men on a desert island - one of them has £10 but the other
has nothing. The one with the money lends it to the other
but asks for £11 back. Where does the extra £1 come from? It
is impossible isn't it? For this reason we have to lend the
interest into existence which means someone else has to
borrow money. And so the debt spiral goes around and around
and debt bubble gets bigger and bigger. Ellen paints this
picture through the words of "The Wizard of Oz" by veteran
monetary reformer Frank L Baum. The tale is rich in allegory
and Ellen guides us through it with appealing insight. What
worries me about monetary reform is that if money could be
made infinite then we will only consume our finite resources
more quickly. The reformers see things differently. They say
(as Ellen does) that if we could rid ourselves of debt then
the money could be used for constructing wind farms. This
seems naive. Although the government already creates
debt-based money it just wastes it on the military
industrial complex. It will take more than just debt-free
money to build a utopia. It will take leadership with vision
- free of corruption. Ellen sees all of history as a secret
hidden path into debt slavery. She points to all the hidden
signs of a tiny group of people in a banking elite who have
pulled the strings of society for too long. Some of the
evidence is compelling. It would seems as if Income Tax is a
device to pay Government Interest Payments straight into the
pockets of Bankers who never had the money in the first
place. Ellen also guides us through the world of Finance in
general and shows us how Hedge Funds and a plethora of
"financial instruments" are used to prop up the bankrupt
banks and fix the markets for political purposes. This book
is very up-to-date sounding. It fills in the gaps left by
Richard Duncan's disappointing "The Dollar Crisis". "The Web
of Debt" takes us through many different solutions to the Debt
Crisis and is frank about the scale of the problem. The
author is also brutally honest in saying that monetary
reform is inevitable. It is only a question of when and only
a question of how far we are willing to bend over backwards
to accommodate the banking cartel before someone cries "The
Emperor had no clothes on!" He has been naked for hundreds
of years but it seems we need a hundred good books like this
on the curriculum of every school in the world before the
next generation grow up understanding their role in bringing
the beast down. Recommended.

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