I bought and read Heinberg's "The Party's Over" and "Powerdown" as soon as they were available, but I held off buying and reading "Peak Everything" on account of the lukewarm and critical reviews. I needn't have waited.
I was expecting a catalogue of resource declines, but Peak Everything turned out to be more of a philosophical analysis of where we are and where we are headed, and I was not disappointed.
The book is worth its price for the final chapter in which Heinberg discusses the connection between language and religion. That helped me to understand how people have gone so blindly into overshoot, and I needed to understand that.
Reviews of the book are almost evenly divided, and in retrospect I think the division mirrors the political and cultural divide in the United States today. The Reds scoff at the book; the Blues applaud. In this case, I feel that the Blues are the ones who have their thinking caps on.
I would recommend this book to anyone who really wants to know where we are, how we came to be here, and where we likely are going. |
| I think Mr. Heinberg threw together anything he's written lately to create a hodgepodge of a book. I liked that film also, but what do the parrots of Telegraph Hill have to do with peak everything? His aesthetic judgments are dubious. I love "Arts and Crafts" style objects also, but there is no reason to think that the products of a return to handcrafts would resemble them. They were the products of an elite late 19th, early 20th Century culture. The first creations of a return to handcrafts would likely be strictly utilitarian. As people develop more skill and have more leisure, their creations are as likely to be colorful and ornate as spare and elegant. Think Guatemalan busses, think New York City graffiti, we're talking popular art here. The results will quite likely not be to Mr. Heinberg's refined taste. I do not share his professed disdain for the products of modern industrial design and I enjoy indigenous and "outsider Art" as well. I think the whole discussion is irrelevant to "peak everything", and it inspires little confidence in any of the rest of his theories. |
The twentieth century saw unprecedented growth in population, energy consumption, and food production. As the population shifted from rural to urban, the impact of humans on the environment increased dramatically. The twenty-first century ushered in an era of declines, in a number of crucial parameters: - Global oil, natural gas, and coal extraction
- Yearly grain harvests
- Climate stability
- Population
- Economic growth
- Fresh water
- Minerals and ores, such as copper and platinum
To adapt to this profoundly different world, we must begin now to make radical changes to our attitudes, behaviors, and expectations. Peak Everything addresses many of the cultural, psychological, and practical changes we will have to make as nature rapidly dictates our new limits. This latest book from Richard Heinberg, author of three of the most important books on Peak Oil, touches on the most important aspects of the human condition at this unique moment in time. A combination of wry commentary and sober forecasting on subjects as diverse as farming and industrial design, this book tells how we might make the transition from the Age of Excess to the Era of Modesty with grace and satisfaction, while preserving the best of our collective achievements. A must-read for individuals, business leaders, and policymakers who are serious about effecting real change. Richard Heinberg is a journalist, lecturer, and the author of seven books, including The Party's Over, Powerdown, and The Oil Depletion Protocol. He is one of the world's foremost Peak Oil educators. |
