Read this book and be afraid. For people already familiar with Peak Oil and its repercussions, it will not come as much of a shock to learn how intimately dependent modern industrial civilization is on oil and how its end will mean the necessary decline in the Earth's carrying capacity for human life. If I were entirely new to the topic however, this slim but succinct book would serve as an excellent introduction and concise summary.
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Straightforward and highly readable, the author describes how Read this book and be afraid. Straightforward and highly readable, the author describes how our industrial scale agriculture has decimated the planet's natural ecosystems and will soon come to a halt due to dwindling fossil fuels that power its impressive output. He then provides two historical case studies of the outcome when ready access to energy gets cut off: North Korea and Cuba. Both countries struggled painfully when the Soviet Union collapsed in the s, which resulted in sharply curtailed imports of fossil fuels and food.
While the DPRK never really recovered from the ensuing mass famine and impoverishment mainly due to their emphasis on industrial production and the military, Cuba managed to pull through better owing to the successful, albeit forced transition to rural based society practicing organic farming. The more conducive tropical climate didn't hurt either. The book focuses on practical advise and actions one can start taking to better prepare ourselves, with a long section at the end listing the many organizations dealing with permaculture and sustainable living for the reader to take things further.
While the tone is overall quite positive surprisingly, with the emphasis on remaining hopeful despite the gloomy prospect of the inevitable, some questions that I continue to have are: If this is still substantially less than the 9 billion projected population by mid 21st century we will still face the inevitable mass starvation and apocalyptic conditions during the 'transition'. While being knowledgeable about organic farming techniques and rural community living helps, not everyone will have a chance to see it in practice, only the lucky survivors.
Heading for the hills and bunker mentalities may not be so far fetched after all. Predicting how things will unravel is much harder than painting a possible future for the remaining population POST fossil fuels. Even the experts like Dennis Meadows shy away from this, citing too many variables in the model. I suppose then it is up to the imagination of writers and artists.
Jan 03, Jodi rated it it was ok Shelves: I do believe that the end of fossil fuels is nearer than currently conceived by many United States citizens. And yes, a lack thereof would render some modern agricultural practices useless i. However, as an agriculturalist trained in economics and agronomy, I find great fault in the claims made against the intent of the Green Revolution and the "failed" outcome of it. Throughout the book I longed for a r Fearmongering.
Throughout the book I longed for a rational conversation about the problems limited fossil fuels would have on agricultural production but was left with dated statistics and data that could be misinterpreted by the reader for example acreages left in hectares instead of the United States acre and poor comparisons between unrelated subjects, like comparing insect nervous system altering insecticides with the plant EPSP synthase inhibiting herbicide, glyphosate otherwise known as RoundUp, proved harmless to humans over and over and over again.
Now on this book's writing, I would have been more satisfied if it was increased in length; I longed for explanations of some acronyms, elaboration on examples and increased examples to prove points. Jan 17, Lucy rated it liked it Shelves: This was an intriguing book; undoubtedly dealing with a particularly political issue, I think the author was actually a Geologist. Consequently I didn't really find the political analysis very broad nor enlightening.
In some situations I think it was just inaccurate. However, that said the facts on the amount of oil we use in making our food were amazing. Really interesting and eye-opening stuff. I enjoyed his idea to use Cuba and North Korea as case studies of countries who have already suffered This was an intriguing book; undoubtedly dealing with a particularly political issue, I think the author was actually a Geologist.
I enjoyed his idea to use Cuba and North Korea as case studies of countries who have already suffered energy crises following the collapse of the Soviet Union and certainly some of the points he makes are valid in relation to how each country coped with the loss of their energy supply.
Eating Fossil Fuels
However, I couldn't help but think that both Cuba and North Korea not only lost their energy supply in the early '90s but also nearly all other diplomatic ties with the international community. Consequently they were not assisted in their agricultural plights as they might otherwise have been had their leaders been more accepted in the mainstream.
Nevertheless the book was easy and quick to read and gave a nice "boundary" analysis of the political and ecological consequences of peak oil. Mar 27, Colin Bruce Anthes rated it it was amazing. I was not fond of this book halfway through. Practically every line was a cited bit of information.
This made it very difficult to digest or compare the information, and the author did not seem to take any form of progress or potential into consideration. The second half of the book, however, focused on a few situations in greater depth.
Those situations dealt with issues that had massive effects on entire nations, and so they provide solid sample information for the rest of the yet-uneffected w I was not fond of this book halfway through. Those situations dealt with issues that had massive effects on entire nations, and so they provide solid sample information for the rest of the yet-uneffected world.
The author's own view starts to be revealed here, but remains foggy, or at least minor. All the same, this was a very useful book in adding to my own understanding of energy and agriculture, and the debate of those topics. Jul 10, Reza Putra rated it liked it. Awalnya, gue baca buku ini untuk memastikan hubungan antara populasi x dengan kelaparan y1 dan kerusakan lingkungan y2. Gua berprasangka bahwa fakta-fakta mengenai buruknya keadaan lingkungan saat ini dimanipulasi oleh politikus dengan menekan ilmuwan tertentu untuk kepentingan pribadi dan golongan—yang mana diakui pula oleh penulis bahwa hal tersebut mungkin saja terjadi p.
Depopulasi karena kekhawatiran akan adanya wabah kelaparan terdengar seperti mengamini motif Hitler ketika mem Awalnya, gue baca buku ini untuk memastikan hubungan antara populasi x dengan kelaparan y1 dan kerusakan lingkungan y2. Depopulasi karena kekhawatiran akan adanya wabah kelaparan terdengar seperti mengamini motif Hitler ketika memusnahkan warga Yahudi [ http: Apr 10, Jason rated it liked it Recommends it for: Greens, foodies, people who don't view starvation favorably. Concisely explains the Green Revolution and its coming crisis in the context of peaking exploitation of oil, natural gas, and fresh water.
Provides look at two modern societies, North Korea and Cuba, which have both experienced agricultural crises related to the unavailability of oil and other essential resources, and explores the radically different approaches these nations took to the crises. Briefly explores alternatives to the technology- and resource-intense Green Revolution and provides an Concisely explains the Green Revolution and its coming crisis in the context of peaking exploitation of oil, natural gas, and fresh water.
Briefly explores alternatives to the technology- and resource-intense Green Revolution and provides an excellent set of resources at the end for folks who want to do their part to prepare for the coming agricultural crisis. Oct 23, Emily rated it really liked it.
Well written overview of the worldwide agricultural situation as it relates to fossil fuels and the overuse and over dependence on these limited resources.
While Pfeiffer can come across as bleak and "doom n' gloom", he reminds the reader than when you give up and lose hope, you lose your chance to survive. That said, he offers several ideas for a move towards sustainable agriculture and living. A good read for anyone interested in making our world a more sustainable place to live, before it is Well written overview of the worldwide agricultural situation as it relates to fossil fuels and the overuse and over dependence on these limited resources.
A good read for anyone interested in making our world a more sustainable place to live, before it is too late. Jan 11, Yvonna rated it really liked it. A scary realization of what may happen to our world. The ending is somewhat uplifting! Solar energy is a renewable resource limited only by the inflow rate from the sun to the earth. Fossil fuels, on the other hand, are a stock-type resource that can be exploited at a nearly limitless rate.
However, on a human timescale, fossil fuels are nonrenewable. They represent a planetary energy deposit which we can draw from at any rate we wish, but which will eventually be exhausted without renewal. The Green Revolution tapped into this energy deposit and used it to increase agricultural production. Total fossil fuel use in the United States has increased fold in the last 4 decades.
In the US, we consume 20 to 30 times more fossil fuel energy per capita than people in developing nations. The input figure for this ratio was based on FAO Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN statistics, which consider only fertilizers without including fertilizer feedstock , irrigation, pesticides without including pesticide feedstock , and machinery and fuel for field operations.
Other agricultural energy inputs not considered were energy and machinery for drying crops, transportation for inputs and outputs to and from the farm, electricity, and construction and maintenance of farm buildings and infrastructures. In a subsequent study completed later that same year , Giampietro and Pimentel managed to derive a more accurate ratio of the net fossil fuel energy ratio of agriculture.
Endosomatic energy and Exosomatic energy. Endosomatic energy is generated through the metabolic transformation of food energy into muscle energy in the human body. Exosomatic energy is generated by transforming energy outside of the human body, such as burning gasoline in a tractor. This assessment allowed the authors to look at fossil fuel input alone and in ratio to other inputs.
The ratio has changed tenfold in developed countries, climbing to 40 to 1. And in the United States it is more than 90 to 1. The vast majority of endosomatic energy is no longer expended to deliver power for direct economic processes. Now the majority of endosomatic energy is utilized to generate the flow of information directing the flow of exosomatic energy driving machines.
As an example, a small gasoline engine can convert the 38, kcal in one gallon of gasoline into 8. In their refined study, Giampietro and Pimentel found that 10 kcal of exosomatic energy are required to produce 1 kcal of food delivered to the consumer in the U. This includes packaging and all delivery expenses, but excludes household cooking.
This disparity is made possible by nonrenewable fossil fuel stocks. However, considering that the average return on one hour of endosomatic labor in the U. Unfortunately, if you remove fossil fuels from the equation, the daily diet will require hours of endosomatic labor per capita; that is, the current U.
Quite plainly, as fossil fuel production begins to decline within the next decade, there will be less energy available for the production of food. Modern intensive agriculture is unsustainable. Technologically-enhanced agriculture has augmented soil erosion, polluted and overdrawn groundwater and surface water, and even largely due to increased pesticide use caused serious public health and environmental problems.
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Soil erosion, overtaxed cropland and water resource overdraft in turn lead to even greater use of fossil fuels and hydrocarbon products. More hydrocarbon-based fertilizers must be applied, along with more pesticides; irrigation water requires more energy to pump; and fossil fuels are used to process polluted water.
It takes years to replace 1 inch of topsoil. This soil is eroding 30 times faster than the natural formation rate. As a result, the remaining topsoil is increasingly depleted of nutrients. Every year in the U. On top of this, urbanization, road building, and industry claim another 1 million acres annually from farmland. Incidentally, only a small portion of U. The land area for harvesting biomass is likewise limited.
For this reason, the development of solar energy or biomass must be at the expense of agriculture. Modern agriculture also places a strain on our water resources. The typical example is the Colorado River, which is diverted to a trickle by the time it reaches the Pacific. The remainder, and in some places the majority of water for irrigation, comes from ground water aquifers. The Ogallala aquifer will become unproductive in a matter of decades.
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We can illustrate the demand that modern agriculture places on water resources by looking at a farmland producing corn. The production of 1 pound of maize requires 1, pounds or gallons of water. In the last two decades, the use of hydrocarbon-based pesticides in the U. Pesticide use on corn crops had increased 1,fold even before the introduction of genetically engineered, pesticide resistant corn. However, corn losses have still risen 4-fold. It is damaging the land, draining water supplies and polluting the environment. And all of this requires more and more fossil fuel input to pump irrigation water, to replace nutrients, to provide pest protection, to remediate the environment and simply to hold crop production at a constant.
Yet this necessary fossil fuel input is going to crash headlong into declining fossil fuel production. In the United States, each person consumes an average of 2, pounds of food per person per year. This provides the U. The world average is 2, Calories per day.
The average citizen dines out for one meal out of four. One third of the caloric intake of the average American comes from animal sources including dairy products , totaling pounds per person per year. This diet means that U. Americans are also grand consumers of water. To provide all of this food requires the application of 0. This is over one fifth of the total annual world pesticide use, estimated at 2. Likewise, water is pumped out of underground aquifers at a much higher rate than it is recharged. And stocks of important minerals, such as phosphorus and potassium, are quickly approaching exhaustion.
Per capita use of fossil energy in North America is five times the world average.
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Considering a growth rate of 1. As the population expands, an estimated one acre of land will be lost for every person added to the U. Currently, there are 1. By , this will decrease to 0. Presently, only two nations on the planet are major exporters of grain: The impact on the U. More importantly, millions of people around the world could starve to death without U. Too many of these people do not have a sufficient diet.
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As the situation worsens, this number will increase and the United States will witness growing numbers of starvation fatalities. There are some things that we can do to at least alleviate this tragedy. It is suggested that streamlining agriculture to get rid of losses, waste and mismanagement might cut the energy inputs for food production by up to one-half. It is estimated that livestock manures contain 5 times the amount of fertilizer currently used each year.
Mario Giampietro and David Pimentel postulate that a sustainable food system is possible only if four conditions are met:. Major increases in energy efficiency must reduce exosomatic energy consumption per capita. Population size and consumption must be compatible with maintaining the stability of environmental processes. Providing that the first three conditions are met, with a reduction to less than half of the exosomatic energy consumption per capita, the authors place the maximum population for a sustainable economy at million.
Given that the current U. To achieve a sustainable economy and avert disaster, the United States must reduce its population by at least one-third. The black plague during the 14 th Century claimed approximately one-third of the European population and more than half of the Asian and Indian populations , plunging the continent into a darkness from which it took them nearly two centuries to emerge.
None of this research considers the impact of declining fossil fuel production. The authors of all of these studies believe that the mentioned agricultural crisis will only begin to impact us after , and will not become critical until