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

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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 333.7916
EAN: 9780865715103
ISBN: 0865715106
Label: New Society Publishers
Manufacturer: New Society Publishers
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 288
Publication Date: September 01, 2004
Publisher: New Society Publishers
Sales Rank: 92653
Studio: New Society Publishers

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Product Description:

If the US continues with its current policies, the next decades 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. The political elites, especially in the US, are incapable of dealing with the situation and have in mind a punishing game of 'Last One Standing.'

The alternative is 'Powerdown,' a strategy that will require tremendous effort and economic sacrifice in order to reduce per-capita resource usage in wealthy countries, develop alternative energy sources, distribute resources more equitably, and reduce the human population humanely but systematically over time. While civil society organizations push for a mild version of this, the vast majority of the world's people are in the dark, not understanding the challenges ahead, nor the options realistically available.

Powerdown speaks frankly to these dilemmas. 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.

Finally, the book explores how three important groups within global society-the power elites, the opposition to the elites (the antiwar and antiglobalization movements, et al: the 'Other Superpower'), and ordinary people-are likely to respond to these four options. Timely, accessible and eloquent, Powerdown is crucial reading for our times.

Richard Heinberg is an award-winning author of five previous books, including The Party's Over: Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies. A member of the Core Faculty of New College of California, he lives in Santa Rosa, California.

Customer Reviews

Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating:

- Very Good Book
This is a very well written and informative book. It does a good job informing the reader on our current state in our "Carbon World" and gives good and well researched alternatives on how to help our world ween off of its oil addiction, and how to cope with what will happen after the oil is gone. I definitely recommend this book to anyone interested in the subject of "Oil Peak".

Rating:

- The Low-Energy Future
Richard Heinberg really shows his ability to speak to a wide audience range. No only does he write to those needed greatly detailed evidence for his conclusions as he does in the companion book to this "The Party's Over" (a very good read, especially if you want to dig in much deeper than he does here in "Powerdown"), but he can communicate effectively the serious perils of our current global economic systems and energy use to the lay person as well without sugar coating his main points. He demonstrates a broad depth of understanding in many fields, including economics, energy use and generation, climate change, biology, ecology, politics, among others. Keep an eye out for Richard Heinberg as he provides clear, level-headed reasoning for some of the major crisis that we face today.

Rating:

- good
good book, quick read. explains the problems of peak oil and the implications it has for the future of the energy industry.

Rating:

- Power down...
This is another superb contribution on Peak Oil that I had the pleasure of reading by Richard Heinberg. By and large and once again, I would also classify this text as a classic. Other reviews do a wonderful job of summarizing the nuts and bolts of this book. I will not belabor such points.

Suffice it to say that this book is a well done addition to The Party's Over. It forces one to consider in even greater detail, the implications of the Peak Oil in the realm of economics, alternatives (and the latest developments), and some suggested courses of action to deal with the coming changes. Much like his previous books, it is indeed well written and oddly enjoyable (again, given the subject matter). I appreciate how he treats the entire political spectrum in the same manner, i.e. Democrats and Republicans alike, in how all have contributed and sustain the current course of events in one way or another. ... Read More

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