Energy - No Place Sacred (Book Review)

[hatrack]

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. With that in mind, the 195 color, mostly full page — often double page — photographs in the Post Carbon Institute’s latest book, ENERGY: Overdevelopment and the Delusion of Endless Growth, speaks volumes beyond its gigantic sized pages about the energy and environmental predicament humanity is immersed in today.

But while the book is heavy on blunt and unforgiving photographs, it also boasts a series of probing essays from such peak oil luminaries as John Michael Greer and Richard Heinberg; commentary and analysis by eco philosophers-cum-farmer/cultivators Wes Jackson and Wendell Berry, and insight from America’s most famous global warming activist Bill McKibben. Twenty-five other writers, observers, and analysts also contributed to the project.



Every peak oil-aware person out there knows the difficulty of convincing the energy unaware of energy crisis using plain language, logical arguments, facts, metaphors, analogies, and any other explanatory or storytelling device that makes evident the peak-everything case. Same goes for chatting up global warming deniers, technotopians, and the just-go-green crowd. That’s where this book comes to the rescue.

First of all, like I said, it’s physically huge. No one’s going to miss it sitting there on your coffee table screaming out in boldly graphical type: ENERGY, above a photo of BP’s exploding and iconic Deepwater Horizon. Any visitor to your living room, office, or even dorm room will inevitably ask about the book and be drawn to flipping through it. That’s when those 195 pictures are worth 195,000 words! So give your visitor all the silence necessary to let the book’s many intense, arresting, and provocative images speak for themselves.

EDIT

http://www.energybulletin.net/stories/2012-12-14/no-place-sacred-energy-review

[northoftheborder]

1. Thanks for making me aware of this book.