Richard Heinberg

This book raises many interesting/serious issues, and a few interesting ideas.

I think most people probably have some idea, perhaps only very generally, that e.g. oil is not in infinite supply; fewer people may have thought about other resources (water is something folks may have heard about.) Potash, rare earths, and some others come up if you read e.g. the Economist or some other similarly serious publications (I'm guessing probably not in USA Today...)

I think less often thought about is that these material resource issues all depend a great deal on energy supplies, and that energy supplies, in turn, rely on materials. Moving to renewables is not only difficult because of economic and technological/scientific issues, but because of material and energy issues; which in turn become economic and then technological/scientific issues.

The effect all that will have on the economy, again, might be thought about infrequently...

You get the idea, I think, of what the book discusses and how it argues. So why only three stars?

Despite what the book says addressing this very point, I don't see a neo-Malthusian crash coming; I do think credible, *major* economic reforms, and serious political changes, are needed re: energy generation and use, scientific and technological research and investment, environmental protections and harm mitigation. I think economics (both accounting and finance and "economics" as politics) needs to not only abandon the model of externalizing as many costs as possible, but adopt the model of internalizing as many costs as reasonable (obviously, at some point, you do have draw a circle around what you consider your model/system and, hence, what you are accounting for.) If we don't do those things... life will get very miserable for some people, even a lot of people, "progress" will likely grind to a halt for a while...

I guess, for better or for worse, the book did not convince me I need to live on a commune and learn to shoe a horse. Which is where the book veers off to in it's last chapter, amid some (very interesting) discussion about alternative currencies and alternative economies. I don't see a collapse of high-tech civilizations as credible future scenario. Again, I admit that things could get hairy... but I'm not investing in yurts just yet.… (más)

Some interesting (and some less than interesting) essays on the sociopolitical implications of peak oil and the sustainability of industrial civilization in general.

Not a general introduction to the concept of peak oil. Read Heinberg's excellent "Party's Over: Oil, War, and the Fate of Industrial Societies" for a more structured, accessible introduction to the topic if you're unfamiliar with the subject matter.

If you don't know much about peak oil, or if you lean right politically (given Heinberg's unmistakable left-liberal sensibility and politics), you should probably just skip this one.… (más)