Book Description
The world is about to run out of cheap oil and change dramatically. Within the next few years, global production will peak. Thereafter, even if industrial societies begin to switch to alternative energy sources, they will have less net energy each year to do all the work essential to the survival of complex societies. We are entering a new era, as different from the industrial era as the latter was from medieval times.
In The Party's Over, Richard Heinberg places this momentous transition in historical context, showing how industrialism arose from the harnessing of fossil fuels, how competition to control access to oil shaped the geopolitics of the twentieth century and how contention for dwindling energy resources in the twenty-first century will lead to resource wars in the Middle East, Central Asia and South America. He describes the likely impacts of oil depletion and all of the energy alternatives. Predicting chaos unless the United States-the world's foremost oil consumer-is willing to join with other countries to implement a global program of resource conservation and sharing, he also recommends a "managed collapse" that might make way for a slower-paced, low-energy, sustainable society in the future.
More readable than other accounts of this issue, with fuller discussion of the context, social implications and recommendations for personal, community, national and global action, Heinberg's updated book is a riveting wake-up call for human-kind as the oil era winds down, and a critical tool for understanding and influencing current US foreign policy.
Richard Heinberg, from Santa Rosa, California, has been writing about energy resources issues and the dynamics of cultural change for many years. A member of the core faculty at New College of California, he is an award-winning author of three previous books. His Museletter was nominated for the Best Alternative Newsletter award by Utne in 1993.
Customer Reviews:
A Thoughtful and Balanced Overview of Peak Oil.......2007-09-03
I discovered Peak Oil in August 2006 through James Kunstler's 'The Long Emergency,' and since then I have read almost every book available on this subject, including all of Heinberg's books. I have even written my own essay for friends and family - which can be downloaded from my website at http://www.dougcraftfineart.com. This book is a great overview of the Peak Oil and energy depletion crisis facing us, and I recommend it for anyone looking for a comprehensive and thoughtful overview of this difficult subject.
I have found all of Heinberg's books to be thoroughly researched, and well written, and he does offer positive suggestions for dealing with Peak Oil in this book. Other reviewers who complain of doom and gloom with Heinberg, have clearly not read some of what many other authors in this field have to offer.
Whether you are a pessimist or optimist, the facts surrounding this issue and the nature of resource depletion are simply unassailable from an honest scientific evaluation. Peak Oil and energy depletion - coupled with climate change and exponentially growing population - are deadly serious issues representing the most calamitous crisis we humans have ever faced. Ever. The problem simply cannot be sugar coated.
Nonetheless, I found 'The Party's Over' to offer a positive vision of our future where human communities have the opportunity to rediscover the traditional benefits of local economic interdependence and a much more sane pace of life. Until I had read Heinberg, I was truly in despair over our future. Now, I understand that we are adaptable and creative beyond what we think, we will survive, and we will all have the opportunity to help make positive contributions if we so choose.
Sometimes hard to find the good parts among the diatribes.......2007-07-24
This work truly does have good material in it to stretch the mind on an important topic. The problems happen when the author strays from science into politics, sociology, history, and especially economics. Even some of his technology - engineering stuff - can be unreliable. But when he's good, he's quite good.
The mind-stretch parts are particularly good in chapter 4 and some of chapter 3, where Mr. Heinberg discusses various energy technology technologies, and the concept of a "peak oil date," respectively. Simply laying out the range of energy uses, abuses, and possibilities is a quick and excellent way to make the reader aware of the state of the planet. Since the major theme of the book, after all, is what to do when the oil supplies dry up, his sober and stark assessment is to the point. Kudos for his wish to end subsidies for oil companies, but catcalls for his equal wish to subsidize other unknown technology (p165). How about no subsidy for anybody? "Corporate welfare" hasn't done much for the regular person anyway.
The major weakness in this book is one that unfortunately afflicts many on the Left. That is, comparing the theory of a system they like, with the worst actual results of the competing system they don't like. A good example on the smaller scale is Heinberg's glowing certainty about EXPECTED energy production from solar panels and windmills, vs. the listing of worst possible results and costs seen from nuclear energy reactors. On the larger scale, his clear preference for central government rule over free market forces is unsupported and irritating. The notable exception is his choice to discount our US Geological Survey findings on oil reserves, in favor of his (half dozen) gloomy retired oilmen's assessments. Things go smoother when one picks sources that agree with one's line of argument!
Nevertheless, there are enough good parts in this book to make it worth reading. Unless the reader wishes to use chapters 3 and 4 for reference, maybe it would be better to just check "The Party's Over" out from the library.
Wake-up Call.......2007-05-13
This book was very informational and I especially enjoyed the initial chapters that offered an historical build up to our current crisis. From that point on, however, the author inspired a sense of hopelessness rather than motivating activism.
How Marx should have critiqued capitilism.......2007-04-08
The Party's Over lays it right out there for us - we are beginning the process of running out of oil. Doubters like to say "That can't be true, because the all mighty market hasn't yet started creating the viable alternatives" (in anything like replacement level quantities). Why then, I ask, is our foreign and military policy all about putting as much of a lock down as possible, on known supplies (see e.g. Blood and Oil by Michael T. Klare)? As Heinberg well notes, the politics of democratic capitalism depend on ongoing economic growth - which is why, from the point of view of George Bush and Dick Cheney, it seems reasonable to keep our army engaged in the middle of the Iraqi Civil War, even with little hope of short term victory. Its the oil, stupid (with a bit of desperate ego mixed in). And why there is as yet no serious politics of conservation alive and well in this country.
Heinberg mightily strengthens his case by framing the story of oil within the context of ecological science and industrial history. Industrial capitalist culture is behaving in a predictable way. We have had a fabulously productive oil party. As a player in this eco-system we have been on a roll. Such rolls tend not to want to be slowed by the soft voices of alarm pointing out that the highway ends at the edge of the cliff up there not so far ahead. The literal fuel to power our engines will likely run out sooner than the ideological fuel that powers our belief in this way of doing business. You hear the "new age" argument that its not the oil supply that should be our concern - that its the infinite supply of human ingenuity that's critical. What's scary to me is how this market sucks up so much of that ingenuity for enterprises like convincing us we need more of this, that and the other; like creating, using and selling ever more sophisticated weaponry around the globe; like sustaining our belief in the magic nature of capitalist markets.
Heinberg mentions in his afterword to the revised edition that many readers have reported finding the book depressing. Small wonder. I was depressed at times as I read it too. But I also felt something bracing about it. If you're like me, standing on the "liberal - progressive" side of the political spectrum, but feeling that there's a missing center to our politics, I recommend you read this. There is a new politics that needs to be invented, and quickly. Ever since Stalin, et. al. gave communism a bad name, and the right wing in America made liberalism tantamount to communism, progressives have been floundering. We're trying to find a way to say that we really need to wake up, learn to take care of each other and the earth, get real about the climate and the oil -- all without saying that all this will involve serious sacrifice and some serious form of the unmentionable S word (socialism). The more information like that found in The Party's Over and other like works gets into the main stream, the more likely it is that all that human ingenuity will start driving invention in the social and political realm, where we need it every bit as much as we do in the technical.
Heinberg is a definitely a Cassandra, but remember what happened to those who ignored her.......2007-02-11
Richard Heinberg set out to answer the questions, "How much petroleum is left? How much coal, natural gas, and uranium? Will we ever run out? When? What will happen when we do? How can we best prepare? Will renewable substitutes--such as wind and solar power--enable industrialism to continue in a recognizable form indefinitely?" (p. 3) He sorted the various responses to these questions into four broad voices--those of free-market economists, environmental activists, petroleum geologists, and politicians--and of these four, he found the third, the petroleum geologists, to be the most useful, if only because "theirs is a long-range view based on physical reality" (p.5). (Throughout the book, Heinberg notes that the free-market economists are almost constitutionally opposed to talk of Peak Oil, because, as economist Robert Solow said, "the world can, in effect, get along without natural resources." Resources, in other words, are merely commodities created by the market to satisfy demands, and when the demand arises, the market will find a supply. Needless to say, Heinberg finds this laissez faire approach to Peak Oil--"perilous optimism"--quite dangerous because it ignores hard ecological realities.)
"The message here is that we are about to enter a new era in which each year, less net energy will be available to humankind, regardless of our efforts or choices. The only significant choice we will have will be how to adjust to this new regime" (p.5). In short, an ecological perspective on humanity's consumption of petroleum and other nonrenewable resources reveals that the astronomical population growth and economic expansion of the last century are the biological bloom and population overshoot enabled by an energy subsidy from cheap, abundant oil, coal, and natural gas. As with other population overshoots in human (and evolutionary) history, the end probably won't be pretty, with massive die-offs and "structural readjustments" (to use free-market lingo) bringing the human population back into line with the Earth's carrying capacity. Heinberg's book challenges us to face this coming change NOW and to do what we can to mitigate against its worst effects through exploring and developing economical and social alternatives to the status quo.
The discovery of new oil resources peaked several decades ago, according to the majority of petroleum geologists, and as it seems that discovery and production follow similar curves, it will be but a matter of years until the production of oil peaks. (For the record, this doesn't mean that we will literally run out of oil, but only that it will seem like we've run out, because it will cost more--financially and energetically--to extract and refine the oil than it is worth.) The peak in oil production won't merely have a direct impact on the automobile industry, but will also undermine the production of plastics and pharmaceuticals, of which oil is the feed stock, and will yank the rug out from under petro-intensive, corporate, "Green Revolution" agriculture. Combine these consequences with growing population and energy consumption of developing nations like China and India, and you have a recipe for seriously ugly changes. Like James Howard Kunstler in The Long Emergency, Heinberg examines various other energy sources and technologies, from natural gas to zero-point energy, and finds them all wanting in one way or another. (Unlike Kunstler, Heinberg maintains a solid faith in our flexibility as a species and in our ability to adapt.) According to this perspective, oil (and other nonrenewables) were a one-time windfall in ecological terms, and once we've passed the peak in extracting them, we will have to recognize our ecological limitations as one species amongst many struggling for limited resources.
I recently read PowerDown, the follow-up to this book, and found it an excellently written, powerful and thought-provoking read. Perhaps it's because I read The Party's Over in conjunction with the contrarian book The Bottomless Well (Huber and Mills) or perhaps it's because I'm a bit burned out reading books on Peak Oil, but whatever the reason I did not find this book as compelling as its sequel. That said, it is still a better introduction to the subject of Peak Oil and to its ecological basis and implications than most others I have yet read.
Book Description
"...a book as rich in detail as it is devastating in its argument." -SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN
"Water Follies deserves a place alongside the late Marc Reisner's classic Cadillac Desert." -ENVIRONMENT
"a lively account of hydrology" -NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS
"if you want to scare yourself silly, read Water Follies, by Robert Jerome Glennon. In it you'll learn how America is irrigating itself to death-just like the Sumerians-while sucking its groundwater aquifers dry."-TORONTO GLOBE & MAIL
Customer Reviews:
Water Follies - a must read for water concerns.......2007-06-08
I gave this book to a friend who just completed an environmental science degree. She said she thought it should be required reading. She learned about some major water concerns in this book that she wasn't taught in classes she took on this same subject. If you are at all concerned about the future of our water supply, you must read this book. While most of us cannot fight the big battles that this issue requires, we can stop buying McDonald's french fries, farm-raised salmon, farm-raised blueberries, etc. Even if you aren't majoring in environmental sciences, read this book. It is an eye opener. We are all going to be affected by a water shortage in the near future. We need to be educated about this very severe problem. Those who control the water will control the world.
Pumping too Much.......2006-08-24
Glennon writes in plain English to warn Americans of the growing danger under our feet. We are pumping groundwater, the gift of fresh and wholesome well water, at an unsustainable rate across the country. Glennon ties groundwater to surface water and illustrates in terms that are as accessible as they are urgent that the United States is headed for a crisis of our own making.
Using a number of case studies, Glennon gives us a glimpse of the American approach to ground water. Throughout much of the US, ground water is considered legally separate from surface water. Within this legal framework, there are few restrictions placed on the use (and abuse) of a critical resource that respects neither property lines nor political boundaries. Indeed, the law encourages abuse with a use-it-or-lose it philosophy to ownership of ground water. Whoever pumps the most wins. Unfortunately, we are pumping so much ground water that rivers, lakes, and ponds across the nation are running dry--ruining many local ecosystems in the process and setting ourselves up for major economic ramifications. With the studies Glennon has chosen, he shows us the consequences of unrestricted ground water pumping for lawns, for agricultural uses, and in support of mining. In every case, Glennon demonstrates that we are doing grave damage to ourselves with our profligate pumping.
This book belongs on the reading list of all high school and college students, regardless of major or course of study.
The biggest pump wins!.......2005-08-28
If we say "Glennon covers all the ground" in a book about water, will the reader be confused? Let's take the risk, since that is precisely what the author does in this excellent study. From the ways in which water collects or flows on the land's surface to the movement of water deep in the earth, Glennon carefully explains how water accumulates. He describes farm, mining and even water for scenic tourist views.Water consumption has been an economic, social and legal issue since the colonies were founded almost four centuries ago.
The legacy of those early efforts to distribute water to thirsty farms and communities is a central theme of this book. As settlement moved westward, readily available water waned. Contention arose between early settlers and those arriving later. Farm use of water was challenged by mining and industry as communities grew. In the West, as available surface water was used or claimed, fresh sources were sought. These proved to be buried deep beneath the surface - "ground water". Ground water was a mysterious resource to many - it still is, according to Glennon. Although it's known that, like streams, ground water reserves must be "recharged", only a little is understood about the rate of inflow or, too often, the source of refreshment. In a nation that consumes over 5000 litres per person per day, the availability of fresh water is a major consideration.
Glennon presents a string of vignettes of water issues in the USA. The selection process allows him to present a spectrum of issues surrounding water availability and use. Although naturally focussing his study in the West where availability and variations in types of demand complicate an already complex area. The stops include San Antonio, a minor river in California, mining in Arizona and Nevada. The East isn't ignored - rivers in Massachusetts and Florida are impacted by groundwater pumping. A Florida case is most enlightening. Groundwater pumping drained moist soils, putting houses at risk and drying lakes. The lake problem was addressed by re-filling the lakes - with more groundwater!
Nearly every case demonstrates the level of ignorance surrounding how water moves and impacts its environment. The legal issues Glennon discusses air this problem admirably. The law considerations range from "the commons" [where all have access] to those who settle first gaining full rights which followers must adapt to or contest. Western court archives are stuffed with litigation records over access. In too many cases, decisions have rested on who needs the most water - the biggest pump often wins. Glennon explains how the science of hydrography and legal decisions over water are often at best disparate. In other cases the two disciplines are sharply at odds. His conclusion suggests these divergencies can be overcome. A number of compromises will have to be reached. The biggest problem, however, is establishing realistic priorities regarding consumption. The biggest problem is data. Collecting it while water is being consumed at astronomical rates won't be a simple task. The water is running out faster than reserves can be measured. When the USA runs out of water, they will seek it elsewhere - a fact all Canadians are well aware of. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]
A book any hydrology student should read.......2003-07-25
I read this book during a summer program dealing with freshwater resources throughout the world. It not only helped my progression through the course, but also gave me a new perspective on water as a resource. In the US most of us do not give a second thought to the water we use in our everyday lives. Even in regions plagued by drought modern technology adds to the illusion that water is everywhere and limitless. However, any reader of this book will tell you differently. It takes you through different case studies through out the country where water use has had dramatic influence on the environment we live in. It explains not just the science of the situation but also the politics often behind the scenes as well. I would highly recommend this book to any student, professor, or hobbyist with an interest in hydrology.
The same motives as Scheherazade.......2003-01-19
Most recent controversy over the use and conservation of America's fresh water has concerned the water visible on the surface - river and lakes. With that as an implicit focus, we frequently argue over where dams ought to be built, what fields ought to be irrigated and at whose cost, whether homes in flood plains ought to be insured at public expense, and so forth.
Robert Glennon, a professor of law at the University of Arizona, James E. Rogers College of Law, wants to draw our attention to invisible water, and to the question how we might best avoid either polluting or running out of it.
Early on, he tells the story of Ubar, a city of ancient Arabia, an oasis for the camel caravans of its time, and a place of fabulous wealth. Scheherazade spoke of Ubar in one of her thousand-and-one tales, as did countless bedouins around countless campfires. It became an Arabian Sodom, reputedly destroyed at the peak of its splendor by an angry God. What Glennon adds is that Ubar (in what we now call Oman) was a very real place.
In the 1980s, an amateur archeologist, Nicholas Clapp, led an expedition that successfully located and unearthed the fortress that had once guarded the precious spring-fed well that had made the city a port of call for those desert-crossing voyagers. It now appears that sometime between 300 and 500 AD, Ubar simply fell. It collapsed of its own weight, into a huge underground limestone cavern - the cavern that its wells had progressively emptied of water. The groundwater had held the city up, physically as well as fiscally. So Ubar, having exended its capital, sank out of sight, and entered legend as the "Atlantis of the desert" (T.E. Lawrence's phrase.)
Glennon tells this story for the same three reasons that Scheherazade did: to charm, to instruct, to survive.
Customer Reviews:
It damns the dam with precise and powerful arguments........1999-08-29
This is a collection of essays which document the many reasons the Three Gorges Dam should not be built, the lose of arable land, the dislocation of millions of people, the loss of 5,000 years of art and architecture, etc. Author Dai Qing, an outspoken opponent of the dam since the beginning, is to be highy commended for speaking out while others cower in silence. To put it in Western terms, it is David taking on Goliath, times 10.
There are a lot of detailed figures and facts in some of the essays. They're easily skimmed. But read this book if the subject matters to you and particularly if you're planning to take a cruise through the Three Gorges or have already taken it. While on the cruise, one is told only of the glory and power of the dam, which is to say, given the party line, but one should know the lie behind the line and the potential tragedy that awaits, the tragedy of the River Dragon coming again.
Book Description
The Pocket Library of Spiritual Wisdom is an exciting new book series of original contributions by Rudolf Steiner to human knowledge from metaphysical dimensions of reality normally hidden from everyday consciousness. With his philosophical and scientific training, Steiner brought a new systematic discipline to the field of spiritual research, as well as fully conscious methods and comprehensive results. These books highlight samples of his work with excerpts from his many talks and writings on some of the most fascinating themes in contemporary spiritual research. They are easy-to-read, accessible texts with helpful introductions, commentary, and notes.
Topics in this volume include:
The Continent of Atlantis
The Moving Continents
The History of Atlantis
The Earliest Civilizations
The Beginnings of Thought
Etheric Technology - Atlantean Magical Powers
Twilight of the Magicians
The Divine Messengers
Atlantean Secret Knowledge - its Betrayal and Subsequent Fate
The Origins of the Mysteries
Atlantis and Spiritual Evolution
Customer Reviews:
Totally Illuminating!.......2006-02-23
This is by far the best and most complete source on Atlantis in print. Steiner explains all, down to the obscurist details.
If anyone is interested in the mystery of Atlantis, Steiner is the best person to go to. It's like you're already there when reading!
I would forget about all the hokey, new age spiritualistic books out there on Atlantis and go straight to the man from headquarters!
Book Description
Farming and the Fate of Wild Nature addresses an urgent and complex issue facing communities and cultures throughout the world: the need for heightened land stewardship and conservation in an era of diminishing natural resources. Agricultural lands in rural areas are being purchased for development. Water scarcities are pitting urban and development expansion against agriculture and conservation needs. The farming population is ageing and retiring, while those who remain struggle against low commodity prices, international competition, rising production costs, and the threat of disappearing subsidies. We are living amidst a major extinction crisis--much of it driven by agriculture--as well as an increasing shift toward a global urban populace. The modern diet, driven by a grain-fed livestock industry, is no longer connected with the ecosystems that support it. In international circles, experts are arguing that further intensification of agriculture (through industrialization and genetic modification) will be necessary to both feed an exploding human population and to save what is left of wild biodiversity.
This book takes up where its predecessor, the award-winning Farming with the Wild, left off. Featuring a wide range of in-depth essays, articles, and other materials by such authors as Aldo Leopold, Wendell Berry, Michael Pollan, Fred Kirschenmann, and Daniel Imhoff, this book persuasively demonstrates that farm and ranch operations which coexist with wild nature are necessary to sustain biodiversity and beauty on the landscape. In fact, as this invaluable educational resource demonstrates, they are essential in the challenge of building sane, healthy, and hopeful human societies.
Customer Reviews:
Dana Jackson's review as it appeared in the Winter 2007 Land Stewardship Letter.......2007-05-08
Many sustainable agriculture activists have long been concerned about the fate of family farming. Not as many, however, have been concerned about the fate of wild nature at the hands of farming. Furthermore, those who are passionate about protecting wild nature have often been at odds with farmers passionate about protecting their crops and livestock from the impositions of wild nature.
Wendell Berry, the patron saint of family farming, has been impatient with wild lands advocates, seeing them as lacking respect for people who earn their living from the land. Dave Foreman and Reed Noss, forceful defenders of large carnivores and habitat protection, have offended family farmers and ranchers with what seems like blanket condemnation of their practices, particularly cattle grazing.
Yet, both sides know that farming and wildness must co-exist, however hard that is, and try to meet in a middle area called resource conservation.
It is appropriate that the first reading in Farming and the Fate of Wild Nature is a piece by Berry. He challenges both sides to work together against a common enemy: corporate totalitarianism. As Berry writes:
I am a conservationist and a farmer, a wilderness advocate and an agrarian. I am in favor of the world's wildness, not only because I like it, but also because I think it is necessary to the world's life and to our own. For the same reason, I want to preserve the natural health and integrity of the world's economic landscapes, which is to say that I want the world's farmers, ranchers and foresters to live in stable, locally adapted, resource-preserving communities, and I want them to thrive.
Laura Jackson's essay "The Farmer as Conservationist?" questions the ability of farmers to make decisions that result in resource conservation. As a biology teacher residing in the American Corn Belt, the "vast ecological wasteland of northern Iowa," Jackson knows that neither farmer nor conservation biologist has any say in the design of the agricultural system and its impact on the landscape. The industrial system, she writes, "perpetuates the nostalgic myth of farmer heroism and responsibility for the land," but agribusiness corporations and their government lackeys are the managers, and it is they who must take responsibility for the fate of farming and wild nature.
The editors of this book of essays are Dan Imhoff and Jo Ann Baumgartner, the president and executive director, respectively, of the Wild Farm Alliance, an organization founded in 2000 to "promote a healthy, viable agriculture that protects and restores wild nature." They selected the pieces in this book to inspire advocates of both sustainable agriculture and wildness. Readers will recognize several acclaimed writers in the table of contents--Barbara Kingsolver, Rick Bass, Richard Manning, Michael Pollan and Gary Nabhan for example--who have permitted the reprinting of essays published in other places, which is a laudable kind of resource conservation in itself.
Only one-third of the essays are newly published in this book; three are written by members of the Wild Farm Alliance Board of Directors: Becky Weed, Dan Kent, and John Davis, as well as one by the executive director, Jo Ann Baumgartner.
In "Grassland Manifesto," Montana sheep rancher Becky Weed declares, "It's all about grass." But the "art of grass farming and the wisdom of wild grasslands" that she sees as key to the fate of both farming and wild nature are being lost. Set against a background of the Bridger Mountains, which provide habitat linkages for wolverines and other threatened species between the Rocky Mountains to the south and the Canadian Rockies to the north, Becky's ranch is "predator friendly." The wolves, bears, and coyotes that call this area of Montana home are not killed on her organically certified Thirteen Mile Lamb and Wool Company. In other writings, Weed has described techniques for co-existing with predators, but in this piece she describes a more serious threat to western ranching: the corn-bean-feedlot machine of the Midwest. Becky explores how a vision of grassland restoration could shut down the machine, but notes that corn ethanol could re-ignite it.
In "Evolution of an Ecolabel," Dan Kent, executive director of Salmon Safe, tells how his organization tied together good farming and wildlife protection in the Pacific Northwest. To earn the Salmon Safe certification, growers have restored streamside native vegetation, managed irrigation more efficiently and employed other erosion control measures that made farms more productive while protecting wild salmon habitat. Most Salmon Safe certified land is in vineyards, and this label identifying wine producers as local land stewards boosts sales for vintners.
Jo Ann Baumgartner describes the "wilder farm consciousness" that is emerging among organic certifiers in her essay, "Making Organic Wild." Even though the Organic Food Production Act enacted in 2002 stated that producers must initiate practices to support biodiversity, inspectors have largely ignored this mandate. Under Baumgartner's leadership, the Wild Farm Alliance worked with the Independent Organic Inspector's Association and later the National Organic Standards Board to develop a set of questions relating to biodiversity conservation for inspectors, and some certification agencies are beginning to use them. This essay provides examples of wilder organic farms and describes basic steps in planning for biodiversity conservation on an organic farm.
In "Rebuilding after Collapse," John Davis bluntly states the thesis of his essay: "I believe forces largely beyond our control will continue wrecking the natural world, despite our defensive efforts, until the industrial economy collapses. We need to extend our efforts, to expand and durably protect natural areas and other parts of a whole Earth through cataclysms and beyond." Though a familiar voice in the movement to preserve wild lands for biodiversity conservation, John is unfamiliar in the sustainable agriculture world. I would like to make this chapter an assigned reading to my colleagues, to shock us into serious discussion about farming and the fate of wild nature.
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- Corporations and corrupt government degrade Federal Lands
- Intriguing insights to our governmental operations
- Plundered Promise: A 21st Century Forest Policy Primer
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Plundered Promise: Capitalism, Politics, and the Fate of the Federal Lands
Richard Behan
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Crossing the Next Meridian: Land, Water, and the Future of the West
ASIN: 1559638486 |
Amazon.com
Federally owned lands, which make up about one-third of the land area of the United States, are in constant danger of being plundered, thanks to governmental corruption and predatory economics--forces that endanger not only the public domain, but also society at large.
"That is not a modest set of complaints," writes Richard Behan, whose book traces the start-and-stop development of federal land ownership and management over the last two centuries. That system, he writes, borrows from the European tradition of "crown lands," created by fiat to reserve areas from general use; benefiting more than a handful of nobles, the system also incorporates elements of Native American beliefs about the common ownership and stewardship of land. This development of a common estate, Behan argues, was not articulated to protect lands from a resource-hungry, uncontrolled economy that turns public services into private goods, which is their condition today. The resultant degradation of public lands, he continues, points to the need for new methods and models of management that emphasize conservation and preservation, not resource use.
Behan's wide-ranging, sometimes even scattershot book is provocative, and it is likely to excite discussion among those on all sides of public-lands controversies. Given current efforts to develop resources on federal reserves, it is also timely, and of much interest to environmental activists and students of resource policy alike. --Gregory McNamee
Book Description
What has been done to our public lands? Irreplaceable forests harvested for lumber. Vast expanses of rangeland leased at rates far below market value. Mineral resources extracted with little or no royalties paid. These and other actions have brought unparalleled benefit to private interests-and massive costs to society at large. They are but the most visible signs of the fundamental flaws in the current system of federal lands management. In Plundered Promise, leading resource management scholar Richard W. Behan presents an engrossing history and analysis of public lands management in the United States, as he describes how we arrived at the current situation and examines what we can do to rectify it.
Behan begins by outlining his provocative thesis that American political and economic institutions have overshot their historic roles, and, rather than responding to public needs, have drawn society into their service. He then offers a detailed analysis of the development of the federal resource management agencies from the nation's founding through successive legislative eras, highlighting the human actors responsible for their growth and change, and showing their relationship to the evolving institutions of American politics and capitalism.
The author's analysis ultimately focuses on the power of federal "iron triangles," and in particular the influence of the one nonpublic institution-"the unfettered and immortal institution of the American corporation"-that he holds responsible for the ongoing devastation of the public lands. Behan stresses the urgent need for reform and presents a radical proposal for getting there: The devolution of authority over public lands to "localized constituencies," and the reining in of corporations.
Behan's unique combination of social criticism, institutional analysis, history, and political science is guided by a strong moral compass, with a palpable sense of outrage bolstered by rigorous scholarship. The book is must reading for anyone interested in the past or future of our public lands, or in the influence of contemporary politics and capitalism.
Customer Reviews:
Corporations and corrupt government degrade Federal Lands.......2002-05-20
Mr. Behan's main theme in PLUNDERED PROMISE is how political and economic overshoot has led to the increasing plunder of public lands for private profit. His deeper look at how the growth of corporations, hyperconsumerism, and centralized oligarchical government has led to the plundering and degradation of US Federal lands frames our present Bush administration problems and he directs the reader to authors such as Cobb-Daly, Kemmis, Prugh, Yaffee, etc. for workable, practical solutions.
After a synoptic opening chapter, there are chapters on the first century of public land management, the rise of corporate capitalism at the start of the 20th century, the rise of professional management and 'sustained yield' at mid-century and finally, "The Economics and Politics of License: Corruption and Predatation, 1976 to the Present.
Behan's development of the concept of economic and political overshoot and how it effected public lands is of key importance to environmentalists. The history of the development of governmental subsidization of private use of public lands and the momentum of the growth economy in degrading forests, overgrazing grasslands, overfishing the commons, etc. is crucial. Revoking corporate charters and devolving government out of Washington to local 'neighbourhoods' are revolutionary tactics advocated to get the philistines out of the temple.
Good as Korten, Greider and Klein. Well worth your while.
Intriguing insights to our governmental operations.......2002-05-07
Behan explains in fascinating detail many of the quirks -- mostly intentional -- that make our government behave today the way it does. The convoluted process that got George Bush elected is only a glimpse of the deep issues. He explains how it is virtually impossible, and has been since our foundation, to say we have rule by majority in our government. This is all explored from a foundation of federal land policy, but applies equally to the rest of our governmental operations. It was eye opening, and angering, to learn how we got where we are.
Plundered Promise: A 21st Century Forest Policy Primer.......2002-01-11
This book is worthwhile reading for anyone who proclaims a political opinion, or perhaps simply draws a breath. It is not an unbiased book, and you are unlikely to agree with every argument. I don't, but, after teaching forest policy and economics to university students for 25 years, I regret not having had the advantage of this book as a text. It would ideally complement a standard text in an undergraduate policy course, and it would serve well as core reading in a graduate seminar, supplemented by books on related topics. Several good choices, in fact, are cited in "Plundered Promise."
Behan is an engaging, provocative writer so his description of the evolution of land use policy in the United States is entertaining as well as instructive. He makes clear the process by which we have moved from the capitalistic ideal of individual private property ownership of all lands to one of reserving some lands to be held in common, and provides a logical defense for why we did it. The rationale, he notes, for maintaining such a "public good" has grown stronger with time. These public lands are a collective national treasure like no other in the world.
Behan then makes the case that we are hell-bent to squander this "promise" of the book's title. The great evil in this story is our unwitting, and presumably unwilling collaboration with modern (huge) corporations in a senseless, wasteful social party of conspicuous consumption. Modern corporations, many with global reach and stunning political and financial command, attempt to create demand for their massive and efficient production by devising market strategies to convince us to over consume; to acquire material goods as a measure of our social success and prosperity. The below-cost, ready access these giants have to our public lands treasure in order to supply their raw material needs, and for air, land and water sinks, requires consumers (all of us) to bear costs disproportionate to gains from such enterprise.
How have we been duped into this distorted market? Behan provides a fascinating and fresh perspective on the way America's founders contrived a unique constitional government that precludes majoritarian democracy. Political, legal and economic power has been concentrated among elites in Washington, D.C. Along the way, he notes, corporations were legally granted unique constitutional privileges. This argument deserves careful consideration. It is not the stuff of high school civics courses, or an uncritical recitation of the wisdom of free enterprise. It ties together the facts and the thesis of the book, and because it challenges the standard assumptions most Americans hold about their individual rights, prerogatives and powers, this argument alone makes the book required reading.
The way out of the jam, according to Behan, is for citizens to moderate their consumptive behavior, to resist the importuning of corporate advertisers, to pursue legal redress of corporate license, and to seize control of the political process at the local level. He offers specific examples of local or community level politics in practice, with attendant successes in resolving land use issues while protecting public land values. This resolution, while appropriate for many issues, and promising as an idealistic framework, seems less reassuring when one considers the complexities of international politics and global environmental issues. What can we do for a national energy policy, for example, wherein the real costs of our consumptive behavior, at whatever level, must be assessed globally and then allocated equitably among all of us? What can we do locally about issues that transcend national boundaries?
One optimistic notion that Behan suggests as a partial solution seems practical, and likely to work, and that is the power of Internet communication. This could facilitate the formation of "communities of interest" to address problems in ways that transcend normal geographical limits. Much needs to be done, and too much has been done badly, but the necessary dialogue has begun. Richard Behan's book, "Plundered Promise," is an essential component of that dialogue.
A book for many.......2001-10-31
A lot of people might find Behan's book illuminating. Among them: anyone whose job moved overseas to a cheaper labor force; anyone who has looked from the window of a commercial airplane flying from Seattle to Los Angeles and marveled at the size of clearcuts on public forestland. Anyone who has wondered why the treasury doesn't receive fair value for the minerals extracted from publicly owned land, for the grazing rights, for the timber and for the water resource. Beyond the public land issues Behan addresses, the book is is an informative read for anyone who has wondered why there is no public agenda in the United States -- and, instead, a plethora of interest groups and PACs that shape the direction of legislation. As an aside, the book is a civics lesson for all of us who wonder why we find ourselves voting against the least-unappealing candidate in a two-way race instead of choosing enthusiastically from among outstanding candidates. Forestry professionals should read it in hopes of renewing the passion, optimism and zeal with which they began their careers. Behan is a scholar, and the work is carefully written and the cases he makes are well-documented. Yet there's sparkle in the prose. Even so the book isn't an easy read. The facts he presents are depressing, and the hopeful recommendations Behan makes at the end seem ever so far from being adopted. Or even considered in my lifetime.
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Petroleum Contaminated Soils, Volume I: Remediation Techniques, Environmental Fate, and Risk Assessment
Paul T. Kostecki
Manufacturer: CRC
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Petroleum Contaminated Soils, Volume II: Remediation Techniques, Environmental Fate, and Risk Assessment (Petroleum Contaminated Soils)
ASIN: 0873711351 |
Book Description
These three volumes provide valuable information to help bring rational and scientifically feasible solutions to petroleum contaminated soils. State-of-the-art information on both technical and regulatory issues is covered, including environmental fate, health effects, risk assessment and remedial alternatives. They show why petroleum contaminated soils are a problem - and propose solutions for that problem. These books are an excellent reference for regulatory personnel and environmental consultants at all levels.
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Fate of Pesticides and Chemicals in the Environment (Environmental Science and Technology: A Wiley-Interscience Series of Texts and Monographs)
Manufacturer: Wiley-Interscience
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ASIN: 0471502324 |
Book Description
A result of important bilateral scientific agreements between the U.S. and the Soviet Union on the fate of chemicals and pesticides in the environment. Written by experts in both countries, it familiarizes the reader with recent state-of-the-art research being conducted in the areas of agricultural management and water pollution control. A number of models are provided to give the reader a concise grasp of exposure and ecological risk assessments involving these pollutants. Focuses on the necessity to improve our deteriorating standards of public health, environmental science and technology with a total systems approach through the pooled talents of scientists and engineers.
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The Fate of Felicity Fark in the Land of the Media
Clive James
Manufacturer: Jonathan Cape
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ASIN: 0224011855 |
Customer Reviews:
Arabian Adventures/Al-Quadum by Jeff Grubb.......2002-07-07
I need the Arabian Adventures/Al-Quadum/by Jeff Grubb.
I have not gotten it yet and am still waiting for it.
I want to get it for my son.I got the other book for him and he really likes it.5 Stars for that one also.
yours truly Sharon Cox.
Books:
- The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here For? (Purpose Driven Life)
- The Red Dragon Cast Down: A Redemptive Approach to the Occult and Satanism
- The Sociopath Next Door
- The Three Battlegrounds: An In-Depth View of the Three Arenas of Spiritual Warfare: The Mind, the Church and the Heavenly Places
- The Woman and The Raven
- The Zion Covenant: Vienna Prelude/Prague Counterpoint/Munich Signature/Jerusalem Interlude/Danzig Passage/Warsaw Requiem (Zion Chronicles)
- Tom Brown's Field Guide to Wilderness Survival (Survival School Handbooks / Tom Brown, Jr)
- Tomb Raider: Legend: The Complete Official Guide
- Typography 27 (Typography)
- Understanding Terrorism: Challenges, Perspectives, and Issues
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