If you search on prepping you’ll get 262 million results. That isn’t my focus, there are plenty of groups and websites devoted to that.  Where best to be is important but hard to decide since initially cities might be best as they have the wealth and power to buy food and other goods. But when trucks stop running then you will wish you were out in the country. Especially when tractors and harvesters can’t get diesel fuel.  Anyhow, I’d advise moving somewhere still under carrying capacity with plentiful water, rainfall, and class 1 soils — but you can figure this out best by reading Day & Hall’s book below, plus learn a lot about ecology while you’re at it. Hall also wrote a book (Charles Hall. Energy & the Wealth of Nations: Understanding the Biophysical economy) that should be the economics textbook 101 at all universities about the role energy plays in the economy and how crazy today’s economists are to focus only on money and deny limits to growth and the role energy plays in our civilization.  And it is really good to help you understand the predicament we are in.

I’d think carefully about your career — will it be of use and in demand once energy descent crashes the global economy?  Hard times are coming sooner than you think: Peak Oil is Officially Here! World oil production peaked November of 2018

But how bad it will get, and how soon is too complicated for anyone to predict. Too many factors, look at the categories I have here. Some nations or regions will fare better than others.  A fraction of the poorest 2 billion people living off the land and not at all dependent on fossil fuels will be less affected. Regions under carrying capacity. The Amish in Patagonia.  We are going to all be forced to consume less in the future, best to start learning to live more simply right now.

More booklists

Alice Friedemann  www.energyskeptic.com  Author of Life After Fossil Fuels: A Reality Check on Alternative Energy; When Trucks Stop Running: Energy and the Future of Transportation”, Barriers to Making Algal Biofuels, & “Crunch! Whole Grain Artisan Chips and Crackers”.  Women in ecology  Podcasts: WGBH, Financial Sense, Jore, Planet: Critical, Crazy Town, Collapse Chronicles, Derrick Jensen, Practical Prepping, Kunstler 253 &278, Peak Prosperity,  Index of best energyskeptic posts

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Rationing

• Stan Cox.  Any way you slice it. The past, present, and future of rationing
• USDOE. June 1980. Standby Gasoline Rationing Plan. U.S. Department of Energy Economic Regulatory Administration, Office of Regulations and Emergency Planning. (search energyskeptic for my review of it).

Where to Live

• John W. Day and Charles Hall. 2016. America’s Most Sustainable Cities and Regions: Surviving the 21st Century Megatrend. Springer (and my review of the article on which this book is based here).
• James H  Kunstler.  2005. The Long Emergency: Surviving the Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century.
• Gene Gerue.  1999. How to find your ideal country home. A comprehensive guide.

Energy Descent & Peak Oil Plans

• Alexander S. 2020. The simpler way: collected writings of Ted Trainer. Simplicity Institute.  Many free books: http://simplicityinstitute.org/ted-trainer
• BTC. November 2010. (German) Armed Forces, capabilities and technologies in the 21st century environmental dimensions of security. Sub-study 1. Peak oil security policy implications of scarce resources. Bundeswehr Transformation Centre, Future Analysis Branch
• De Decker, Kris. 2007-present. The Low Tech Magazine website has hundreds of useful articles about how to prepare for the future, energy, and related  topics. https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/
• Heinberg R et al (2006) The Oil Depletion Protocol. A plan to avert oil wars, terrorism & economic collapse. New Society Publishers.
• Heinberg R (2011) The end of growth: Adapting to our new economic reality. New Society Publishers.
• Hirsch RL et al (2005) Peaking of World Oil Production: impacts, mitigation, & risk management. U.S. Department of Energy.
• Hopkins R (2008) The transition handbook: from oil dependency to local resilience. UIT  Cambridge Ltd.
• Hopkins R (2016) Transition companion: Making your community more resilient in uncertain times. Green books.
• Kunstler JH (2007) The Long Emergency: Surviving the end of oil, climate change, and other converging catastrophes of the 21^st century. Grove Press.
• (2011) Solutions to peak oil vulnerabilities: a response plan. Lawrence Kansas Mayor’s peak oil task force.
• Lerch D (2007) Post carbon cities: planning for energy and climate uncertainty. Post carbon institute.
• Odum HT et al (2008) A prosperous way down. University Press of Colorado.
• Ted Trainer. A list of his books is here

Why there are no plans

• Why do leaders & the public deny peak oil & limits to growth?
• Book review of Lights Out by Ted Koppel. A Cyberattack. A Nation Unprepared. Surviving the Aftermath
• GAO. 2007. Uncertainty about future oil supply makes it important to develop a strategy for a Peak and decline in oil production. U.S. Government Accountability Office.

Richard Heinberg has written several books worth reading:

1. The Oil Depletion Protocol. 2006. A Plan to Avert Oil Wars, Terrorism And Economic Collapse
2. Powerdown. 2004. Options and Actions for a Post-Carbon World
3. The Party’s Over. 2003. Oil, war, and the Fate of Industrial Societies

Agriculture

I think we’re heading back eventually to 90% farmers as it was before fossil fuels. Given that most of the land in the U.S. is owned by wealthy individuals, corporations, and the government (see Fellmeth 1973 Politics of Land), this probably means the future will be one of brutal feudalism.

And if you do go back to the land, you should understand why this movement failed the last time in my book review of Agnew’s Back from the Land: How Young Americans Went to Nature in the 1970s, and Why They Came Back.

• Jeavons J. 2002. How to grow more vegetables..on less land than you can imagine
• Bender J. 1994. Future Harvest: Pesticide-Free Farming
• Bane P, et al. 2012. The permaculture handbook: garden farming for town and country
• Smil V. 2004. Enriching the Earth: Fritz Haber, Carl Bosch, and the Transformation of World Food Production. MIT Press.
• Skills: See the posts here.

Health

Lifespans doubled because of public health measures taken to treat water and sewage as explained in Laurie Garrett’s Betrayal of Trust: The Collapse of Global Public Health.

One of the best books I’ve ever read for many reasons  is John Barry’s The Great Influenza. The epic story of the deadliest plague in History. The lesson to be learned is that people with poor / malnutrition were the most vulnerable to flu to dying.  Only two percent of America’s population died because the population was well-fed, but some countries may have lost up to half their population.

Best overview books on energy and the rise and fall of civilizations

I find it comforting to know that the rise and fall of civilizations has happened before many times. It makes me feel better to know that, and if you are trying to figure out where to move to, these may help. Plus they’re fascinating in their own right.

• Ahmed N. 2016. Failing states, collapsing system, biophysical triggers of political violence. Springer.
• Catton W. 1982. Overshoot: the ecological basis of revolutionary change. University of Illinois Press.
• Cline EH. 2014. 1177 B.C. The year civilization collapsed.
• Diamond, J. 2004. Collapse: how societies choose to fail or succeed.
• Hall CAS, et al. 2012. Energy & the Wealth of Nations: Understanding the Biophysical economy. Springer.
• Harper K. The fate of Rome. Climate, disease, and the end of an empire.
• Hardin G. 1995. Living Within Limits: Ecology, Economics, and Population Taboos. Oxford University Press.
• Heather P. 2009. Empires and Barbarians: The Fall of Rome and the Birth of Europe. Oxford University Press.
• Meadows D. 2004. The Limits to Growth: The 30-year update. Chelsea Green Publishing.
• Opuls W. Immoderate greatness: why civilizations fail.
• Ponting CA. 2007. New green history of the world: The environment & the collapse of great civilizations. Penguin books.
• Perlin J. 2005, A Forest Journey: The Role of Wood in the Development of Civilization. Countryman Press
• Turchin P. “Secular cycles” and “War and Peace and War”
• Vogel S. 2002. Prime Mover: A Natural History of Muscle. W W Norton & Co Inc.
• Youngquist W. 1997. Geodestinies: The Inevitable Control of Earth Resources over Nations & Individuals

Mineral Resources

• Bardi U, et al. 2014. Extracted: How the Quest for Mineral Wealth Is Plundering the Planet.  Chelsea Green Publishing.
• Beiser V. 2018. The world in a grain: the story of sand and how it transformed civilization.
• Courland R. 2011. Concrete Planet.
• Klare M. 2012. The Race for What’s Left: The Global scramble for the world’s last resources. Picador.
• Mann CC. 2012, 1493: Uncovering the new world Columbus created. Vintage.

Best big picture books on other topics

• Bryson B. 2003. A short history of nearly everything. Broadway books.
• Ward PD. 2003. Rare Earth: Why Complex Life Is Uncommon in the Universe. Copernicus.
• Weart SR. 2004. The Discovery of Global Warming
• Wilson EO. 2012. The Social Conquest of Earth. Liveright.
• Wrangham R. 2010. Catching Fire: How cooking made us human. Basic Books.

To preserve knowledge, have something to do when the grid goes down, and find hundreds of other books worth reading, check out my other book lists at:  https://energyskeptic.com/category/books/book-list/

Good luck everyone!