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Saturday, November 26

Thomas H. Greco, Jr. "The End of Money"

by Post Carbon Man on Sat 26 Nov 2011 18:15 GMT

ISBN 978-086315-733-2. "The End of Money and the Future of Civilisation" by Thomas H. Greco, Jr was published by Floris Books in the UK in 2010 (originally Chelsea Green in in the USA in 2009). The paperback gives you 295 pages including twenty chapters, an Epilogue, Acknowledgements, two appendices, References, Notes and an Index. Those of you who have read a few monetary reform books may well know the score. If you liked Peter North's "Local Money", "The Web of Debt" by Ellen Hodgson Brown, "The Grip of Death" by Michael Rowbotham or David Boyle's "Money Matters" then you will like this. It is actually quite similar to the Peter North work as it travels the road of local currencies but not to the enthusiastic extent of the Transition movement. Rather Greco extols the virtue of local currencies as part of a new ecology of money that is focused upon local "credit clearing". As with other books of its ilk this is not always an easy read - especially for anyone who finds economics and banking difficult concepts. Let's face it, that is most of us. Which is the problem. Greco doesn't really overcome this problem for his reader but, on the up side, his description of the future evolution of money is a far more satisfying solution than simply local currencies. Unlike others who write in this field he doesn't peddle a simple statist solution. He prefers local money in a free market of currencies where the medium of exchange is entirely separate from money as a measure of value. Greco has no doubt about the scale of the problem and kicks off in the second chapter with the term "mega-crisis" and the question "can civilisation be saved?" Woah.

However he is no doomster as he quickly persuades the ... more »

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Friday, November 11

Mark Lynas "The God Species"

by Post Carbon Man on Fri 11 Nov 2011 08:50 GMT

ISBN 978-0-00-731342-6. "The Gods Species - How the Planet can survive the Age of Humans" was written by Mark Lynas and published by Fourth Estate in 2011. Lynas's "Six Degrees" remains one of the finest books on Climate Change that anyone should read. It is for good reason that it won the Royal Society Prize for Science Books and is one of Post-carbon Living's top rated books. So when Lynas turned against his old buddies in the green movement and called for the support of GM crops and Nuclear power he turned from being just an awesome author but also one with interesting views. Views we have a lot of sympathy for. Since our work has never stemmed from a set of green orthodoxies we certainly are also free to turn over the mish mash that is the cultural legacy of 40 years of environmentalism. Some of it is good, some bad and some darn-right ugly. We live in enlightened era of breakthrough environmentalism where the likes of Chris Goodall and George Monbiot feel comfortable expressing concerns over resource depletion alongside support for technologies such as nuclear. There was nothing new in what Lynas was attempting. What proved unfortunate was the style in which he has attempted this renaissance. He likes to bang his own drum.

We first noticed it when we started to follow Lynas's Tweets. It became quickly clear that Lynas had no great vision of using social media to explore new ideas. No. He used Twitter to promote the sale of his books. This in itself is not wrong (it is his only income next to a retainer paid by the government of the Maldives) but what left us feeling jaded was the abrasive manner of his self-promotion. His Tweets started to resemble those of Bjorn Lomborg. ... more »

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Wednesday, October 12

Richard Heinberg "Blackout"

by Post Carbon Man on Wed 12 Oct 2011 09:05 BST

ISBN 978 1 905570 20 1. "Blackout - Coal, Climate and the Last Energy Crisis" by Richard Heinberg was published by Clairview Books in 2009. For your money you get 200 page including Acknowledgements, Introduction, eight chapters, Notes, Bibliography and Index. What can we say about a book by Richard Heinberg? Next to Colin Campbell he practically founded and defined the modern concern about Peak Oil and how it will effect our civilisation. This is his fifth major book on the topic and (at the time of writing September 2011) he had already published his sixth "The End of Growth: Adapting to Our New Economic Reality". It seems hard to catch up. So, after four good books does the quality start to fail him? Well, sadly, yes. This is not necessarily a bad thing as this is a book he had to write. Whereas he had written continually about Peak Oil his critics would always level the criticism along the lines of "well, that's all right because we have 200 years of coal left". This is his response and it is well researched and workmanlike. However it is his least entertaining work and you have the feeling that it was a chore for him. Most of the book reviews numerous reports on the state of global coal supplies broken down country by country and region by region. His conclusion? Well, yes there is lots of coal left but the peak is still likely to come far sooner that the claim of "200 years supply" suggests. We are likely to see the peak of coal production somewhere between 2025 and 2075. So, by mid-century (within the lifetime of this reviewer) we will learn if we can expand our economies any further on the supply of cheap coal.

Putting the peak issue ... more »

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Robert L. Hirsch "The Impending World Energy Mess"

by Post Carbon Man on Wed 12 Oct 2011 09:03 BST

ISBN 978-1926837-11-6. "The Impending World Energy Mess - what it is and what it means to YOU!" written by Robert L Hirsch, Roger H Bezdek and Robert M Wendling and published by Apogee Prime in 2010. The review copy is a first edition but is a paperback with dustcover (unusual!). For your money you get 251 pages boasting Preface, Foreword by James Schlesinger, Introduction, eighteen chapters, Postscript, References and Index. Those of us who have been following the peak oil story for a few years (about seven years in the reviewer's case) will be familiar with the work of this writing team. They were responsible for a 2005 report for the US Department of Energy called "Peaking of World Oil Production: Impacts, Mitigation & Risk Management". In it the team developed scenarios for crash programs to mitigate the risks arising from peak oil. They famously concluded that it would take around 20 years to adjust to peak oil hence we had better start earlier rather than later. Of course nothing happened. The report was of little interest to the US DOE. They buried it and it took a subsequent Freedom on Information request for it to emerge in to the public domain. The report has become a legend in its own lunchtime - so much so that it has become one of the corner stones of peakist folklore. Between the work of Richard Heinberg and Colin Campbell we had all we needed to launch a million paranoia's. From it the entire Transition movement was born as well as Post-Carbon Living.

However, one has to wonder: just how many of us ever read this report or know much about these authors? Well, you can read the 2005 report here. As for the authors, they are all highly qualified and have ... more »

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