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 »
