Peak Everything: Waking Up to the Century of Declines

by Richard Heinberg

Book Overview

Transitioning gracefully from the Age of Excess to the Era of Modesty.

The 20th century saw unprecedented growth in population, energy consumption and food production. As the population shifted from rural to urban, human impacts on the environment increased dramatically.

The 21st century ushered in an era of declines, including:

Oil, natural gas and coal extraction Yearly grain harvests Climate stability Economic growth Fresh water Minerals and ores, such as copper and platinum

To adapt to this profoundly different world, we must begin now to make radical changes to our attitudes, behaviors and expectations.

Now in paperback and featuring a foreword by James Howard Kunstler, Peak Everything addresses many of the cultural, psychological and practical changes we will have to make as nature dictates our new limits. This landmark work from Richard Heinberg, author of three of the most important books on Peak Oil, touches on vital aspects of the human condition at this unique moment in time.

A combination of wry commentary and sober forecasting on subjects as diverse as farming and industrial design, this book describes how to make the transition from The Age of Excess to the Era of Modesty with grace and satisfaction, while preserving the best of our collective achievements. Peak Everything is a must-read for individuals, business leaders and policy makers serious about effecting real change.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0865716455
• ISBN13: 9780865716452
• Release Date: July 2010
• Publisher: New Society Publishers
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.9" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

Thinking Straight in a Media of Hearsay and Misinformation

Heinberg explains how fossil fuels, primarily oil, permeate every aspect of our modern culture - from agriculture to cities and a long-term perspective. In the age of almost 7 billion people demanding more and more of limited resources, the media, politicians and governments tend to only report short-term perspectives and ignore Heinberg's Five Axioms of Sustainability to the extent that these concepts are taboo to be spoken, discussed or thought: 1) Any society that continues to use critical resources unsustainably will collapse. 2) Population growth, and, or, growth in the rates of consumption of resources cannot be sustained. 3) To be sustainable, the use of renewable resources must proceed at a rate that is less than or equal to the rate of natural replenishment. 4) To be sustainable, the use of nonrenewable resources must proceed at a rate that is declining, and the rate of decline must be greater than or equal to the rate of depletion. 5) Sustainability requires substances introduced into the environment from human activities be minimized and tendered harmless to biosphere functions. The psychology of peak oil and climate change discussion is like Kubler-Ross' "On Death and Dying." This all lands on the shoulders of "boomers" or the "me" generation. How do you stay optimistic and move forward when most have been conditioned to expect continuous greater wealth and lower cost? Questions and anger are answered by a "A Letter From the Future" - a look back from 2107 CE. Many of us think, "If only I could be rational and think objectively in light of too much hyperbole and misinformation." I keep this book close at hand and constantly reread specific chapters. I need to keep my head on straight and provide others with constructive, objective, logical, forward thinking in light of the current shift to "peak everything" (oil, coal, water, food, transportation, housing, . . .) and not succumb to emotional, short-term, greed and power struggles. This is excellent.

Red-Blue Divide

I bought and read Heinberg's "The Party's Over" and "Powerdown" as soon as they were available, but I held off buying and reading "Peak Everything" on account of the lukewarm and critical reviews. I needn't have waited. I was expecting a catalogue of resource declines, but Peak Everything turned out to be more of a philosophical analysis of where we are and where we are headed, and I was not disappointed. The book is worth its price for the final chapter in which Heinberg discusses the connection between language and religion. That helped me to understand how people have gone so blindly into overshoot, and I needed to understand that. Reviews of the book are almost evenly divided, and in retrospect I think the division mirrors the political and cultural divide in the United States today. The Reds scoff at the book; the Blues applaud. In this case, I feel that the Blues are the ones who have their thinking caps on. I would recommend this book to anyone who really wants to know where we are, how we came to be here, and where we likely are going.

A Timely and Important Book

Peak Everything: Waking Up to the Century of Declines (New Society Publishers) As Peak Oil becomes painfully obvious, minerals, water, food, and all the other commodities we take for granted are also 'peaking'. Richard Heinberg explains why, the implications and some practical suggestions for surviving this century's challenges. Coming from one of the world's leading authorities on this subject, Peak Everything is authoritative and informative as a resource for those who already accept the 'peak' thesis, and clear and accessible to those who question its validity.

The best book yet on this century of decline

When I sat down to read this book I thought I knew quite a bit about "Peak Oil" and "Peak Energy" and about several other areas where we are now bumping up against the limits to growth. And since I had not only read The Party's Over and Powerdown but a number of Richard Heinberg's essays that I'd come across at the Energy Bulletin site, I thought I was pretty familiar with his insights regarding both the nature of the mess we now find ourselves in and the options available to us. So it was a pleasant surprise to find new and interesting insights in every chapter of this book. One of the strengths of the book in my view is that it comes at the subject from so many different angles. I was impressed again and again by the scope of Heinberg's knowledge and the way he put the pieces together to make sense of the great challenges that we are facing. As he himself says, "None of this is easy to contemplate. . . . [T]he suggestion that we are at or near the peak of population and consumption levels for the entirety of human history and that it's all downhill from here is not likely to win votes, lead to a better job, or even make for pleasant dinner banter." But the better you understand the true nature of a problem, the better able you are to deal with it, and this book is the best yet in my opinion to help one awaken to the full implications of this "century of decline".

If you are interested in reality, read this book....

There is no more critical issue to the human family that the nearly simultaneous peaking of the resources that are necessary to the functioning of modern society. The production of conventional petroleum--the stuff we get our gasoline from--is at or near its peak right now. Henceforth, prices will go up and availability will go down. At the same time we are getting repeated warnings that the atmosphere is `peaking' in the amount of greenhouse gases it can absorb without inducing climate change. The best information available indicates that other conventional sources of energy--natural gas, coal, and uranium--will all peak within the next 30 years. If this were a movie it would be real thriller; unfortunately we're talking about reality. Richard Heinberg, author of `Peak Everything,' is one of the world's leading thinkers and writers on this rather earth-shaking issue of the peaking of the resources critical to our society as it is current configured. Heinberg has two other recent books that go into detail on the probable timing of these peaks (see `The Party's Over: Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Society') and what our choices are in response to this emerging reality (see `Powerdown: Options and Actions for a Post-carbon World'). This book, `Peak Everything,' is a wide-ranging exploration of how we managed, physically and psychologically, to end up in this blind alley (the majority of the world's 6.5 billion people are now fed by our petroleum-based agricultural system), and what some of the most promising models are for viable human communities in the future. There is no more compelling subject than this and Heinberg offers some of the best thinking and best insights to be found in print.