Powerdown: Options and Actions for a Post-Carbon World | 
| Author: Richard Heinberg
Publisher: New Society Publishers
Category: Book
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Avg. Customer Rating:  45 reviews
Sales Rank: 14377
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 288
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 9 x 5.8 x 0.5
ISBN: 0865715106
Dewey Decimal Number: 333.7916
EAN: 9780865715103
ASIN: 0865715106
Publication Date: September 1, 2004
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Product Description
If the US continues with its current policies, the next decades will be marked by war, economic collapse, and environmental catastrophe. Resource depletion and population pressures are about to catch up with us, and no one is prepared. The political elites, especially in the US, are incapable of dealing with the situation and have in mind a punishing game of "Last One Standing." The alternative is "Powerdown," a strategy that will require tremendous effort and economic sacrifice in order to reduce per-capita resource usage in wealthy countries, develop alternative energy sources, distribute resources more equitably, and reduce the human population humanely but systematically over time. While civil society organizations push for a mild version of this, the vast majority of the world's people are in the dark, not understanding the challenges ahead, nor the options realistically available. Powerdown speaks frankly to these dilemmas. Avoiding cynicism and despair, it begins with an overview of the likely impacts of oil and natural gas depletion and then outlines four options for industrial societies during the next decades: Last One Standing: the path of competition for remaining resources;
Powerdown: the path of cooperation, conservation and sharing;
Waiting for a Magic Elixir: wishful thinking, false hopes, and denial;
Building Lifeboats: the path of community solidarity and preservation. Finally, the book explores how three important groups within global society-the power elites, the opposition to the elites (the antiwar and antiglobalization movements, et al: the "Other Superpower"), and ordinary people-are likely to respond to these four options. Timely, accessible and eloquent, Powerdown is crucial reading for our times. Richard Heinberg is an award-winning author of five previous books, including The Party's Over: Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies. A member of the Core Faculty of New College of California, he lives in Santa Rosa, California.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 40 more reviews...
Power down... July 17, 2008
This is another superb contribution on Peak Oil that I had the pleasure of reading by Richard Heinberg. By and large and once again, I would also classify this text as a classic. Other reviews do a wonderful job of summarizing the nuts and bolts of this book. I will not belabor such points.
Suffice it to say that this book is a well done addition to The Party's Over. It forces one to consider in even greater detail, the implications of the Peak Oil in the realm of economics, alternatives (and the latest developments), and some suggested courses of action to deal with the coming changes. Much like his previous books, it is indeed well written and oddly enjoyable (again, given the subject matter). I appreciate how he treats the entire political spectrum in the same manner, i.e. Democrats and Republicans alike, in how all have contributed and sustain the current course of events in one way or another. Heinberg shines in this effort.
[...]
 Wanna learn how civilization came all the way to where we are now? February 19, 2008
Power Down is a powerful analysis of human modern civilization. The key element that boosted technology, medical advancement, world population and globalization is oil. This cheap source of energy is as Richard Heinberg says a "free ride" that will soon come to an end.
Oil have defined the boundaries of modern civilization and its inevitable depletion is gonna change the course of it, and its gonna happen soon.
Power Down, is a scientific and insightful and analysis of energy, it traces the multiple consequences of oil depletion and the possible solutions to an energetic solution for humanity.
However most importantly, this book rather than describing in depth the critical situation we are facing, it raises awareness of the great value energy has and it makes us think more about saving, having a more moderate lifestyle, and living more in harmony with nature and its valuable resources.
Excellent overview... October 11, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
As with "The Long Emergency" I won't go into too much detail since there are already many excellent reviews of this book. However, I do feel it is important to add my voice since all the evidence points to the fact that what Heinberg and the other "peak oil" folks are saying is reality...
Heinberg has done a remarkable job of presenting the overall picture of the main issue: our reliance on cheap oil as the basis for civilization and how we are now at the time when cheap oil is about to disappear. He presents the facts in a very quick way since his other book, "The Party's Over" goes into much more detail on the subject.
He then presents the reader with four possible scenarios to deal with the problem. Unfortunately, the first one ("last man standing") is basically a great die-off due to resource wars and appears to be our present choice. The second one, "power down", involves massive global reductions in consumption. It makes the most sense but, of course, is beyond any political level to implement. The next one is some sort of new-age "technology will save us" way to sleepwalk into a die-off. And finally there is the individual and, potentially, community-level life-boat building solution.
To be honest, the prospects even for the last solution are daunting. However, I must say that Heinberg gives all possibilities equal presentation and stays remarkably calm and neutral as he develops all possibilities. The choice is up to the reader...
The writing style is engaging and his sidebar "stories" are excellent. This is a quick and interesting read.
This book is really just a simplistic view of "Limits to Growth" and Jantsch's seminal "The Self-Organizing Universe: Scientific and Human Implications of the Emerging Paradigm of Evolution" where these projections were made a long time ago. Too bad the baby-boomers didn't read and learn back then...
 Weak; Verbose on non-thesis topics; Disappointing July 15, 2007
7 out of 8 found this review helpful
The first 85 pages (of a 186 page book) are dedicated to verbosely enumerating the arguments from his previous book (without effectively arguing his reasoning). He also spends quite a bit of space to describing his opinions of the current U.S. administration. While I might agree with his political opinions, I believe that he undermines the thesis of this book in the minds of a lot more people. It is this reason why I would categorize this book is really nothing more than a "preaching to the choir" book.
The heart of the book is a 28 page chapter named "Powerdown" which provides some suggestions, but is mostly fluff. Probably the most important page in the chapter is the list of books that actually do discuss the powerdown scenario.
The third chapter is about how technology is unlikely to save us from dwindling energy.
The fourth chapter is about how people would react to the coming situation. He spends quite a while rehashing Gibbon's arguments on Rome and Diamond's arguments about ecological collapse. If you've read those two books you'll quickly notice that Heinberg and these two authors are on completely different planes of scholarship.
I was excited that he discussed, however briefly, how we might save information from the coming Dark Ages. Though, it was for only two pages.
Overall I thought that the author's arguments were weak and there really wasn't much that I got out of this book. I hope that other (and future) books in this genre will describe and defend the thesis better, and they should give more suggestions of what to do.
My eyes will never be the same. April 28, 2007
10 out of 10 found this review helpful
From the article titled "Document Says Oil Chiefs Met With Cheney Task Force", in the Washington Post, "The White House went to great lengths to keep these meetings secret, and now oil executives may be lying to Congress about their role in the Cheney task force," Lautenberg said.
You might find the answer for why we are in Iraq, if you were to read "Powerdown: Options and Actions for a Post-Carbon World". This book is not a fiction based peak oil theory written by some fanatic. If the CIA were to have read this book, I think their internal book review would be a shocking confirmation. With the connection in the recent news of Cheney's secret energy meeting with oil execs, the CIA to Cheney, Cheney to the oil industry, the unprecedented preemptive war in Iraq, the facts in this book about how horrible the prospect, limited the options are and awful I feel to contemplate it all, all point to the fact that we, the American people don't want to know the truth, but read it or not, we will know that truth soon as we are forced to deal with it. How bad is the situation? On a scale from 0 to 10, it is off the scale.
Nostalgia for the good ol' days will seem sad and silly, for these days are the last of the good ol' days. you will not have any problem believing it unless you do not finish it or choose to live in denial. All good things must end and concidering the way the world has squandered a non-renewable resource like oil, it is a soon to be obvious and logical eventuality.
How much can you afford to pay for a gallon of gas in today's economy? How much will gas cost in a collapsed economy where your money isn't worth 10 cents on a dollar?
Who could ever have imagined 9/11? Or even what possible reasons there could be for a 9/11 conspiracy? Or presidential election fraud 2 elections in a row? A democratic government that does not have to tell you anything except that, "that information is secret" or "that information would jeopardize the security of" what or who? I can't really say I want to know either.
What I see now when I go about my days are people of all ages enjoying a good life that they do not know is about to come to an end, objects I use like monofilament fishing line, my toothbrush, anything plastic or that comes in plastic or in part is plastic, clothes, shoes, carpet and more all made from oil. Things I do and once enjoyed without a thought, drive to the store, watch a movie, listen to music, to the radio, and the variety of food available to me, may all be unaffordable even if available in my lifetime, what is left of it anyway. Do I want to feel this way? No. Do I want you to? No.
In the sci-fi movie "They Live" an economic crisis brings unemployed Nada (Roddy Piper) to L.A. in search of work. What he finds instead is that the ruling elite of the world are aliens in disguise, their aim being to keep humans in a state of mindless consumerism. His discovery comes when he dons a pair of special sunglasses made by a resistance group and sees for the first time reality unadorned. Billboards, store signs, magazine covers--all bear subliminal messages to OBEY, to CONSUME, to have NO INDEPENDENT THOUGHT. Money itself says THIS IS YOUR GOD. But worst of all, with these glasses you see which of us are really hideous, bug-eyed aliens.
Reading "Powerdown" is like putting on a pair of special sunglasses but you can only wish you could take them off. My eyes will never be the same.
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