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Recent Posts
- ‘The oil we eat’. Following the food chain back to iraq
- Vanishing open spaces: population growth and sprawl in America
- Admiral Rickover 1957: Energy Resources & Our Future
- The Green New Deal is not a solution for the real problem: Overshoot
- A transition from fossil fuels to renewables could take a century – if it ever happens
- Electrifying freight trains in the U.S. is a bad idea
- Why Nuclear Power can’t replace fossil fuels
- Energy, Water, & Climate Change are interdependent
- Why fusion power is Forever Away
- Climate Change dominates news coverage at expense of other existential planetary boundaries
- Excerpt from “The Geopolitics of Resource Wars”
- Homes & Buildings
- Book Review “The Outlawed Ocean” by Ian Urbina
- Underestimating the Challenges of Avoiding a Ghastly Future
- Motherboards: too complicated to make after oil
Category Archives: Books
New York Times review of “Countdown” by Alan Weisman
A book review by Nathaniel Rich, October 11, 2013, New York Times of: COUNTDOWN. Our Last, Best Hope for a Future on Earth? By Alan Weisman If we wanted to bring about the extinction of the human race as quickly … Continue reading
Posted in Extinction Books, Overpopulation
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Book Review of Visit Sunny Chernobyl
Alice Friedemann’s book review of Andrew Blackwell’s 2012 “Visit Sunny Chernobyl and other adventures in the world’s most polluted places” If you want to see photos from Blackwell’s travels, go to his website “Visit Sunny Chernobyl” Blackwell is the ideal … Continue reading
Book Reviews: Why I Write Them, How I Find Them
I’ve read thousands of mainly non-fiction books over the past 40 years. Why I write Book Reviews I write book reviews for a number of reasons — to give my brain a “workout”, as a source of information for my … Continue reading
Posted in Books
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Willpower: How to get it and lead a more joyful life
A book review by Alice Friedemann of “Willpower. Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength, by Roy Baumeister & John Tierney, 2011. Self-control is ultimately about enjoying your time on earth and sharing joy with those you love. Warning Signs Your Willpower … Continue reading
Posted in Health
Tagged diet, self-control, set goals, to do list, willpower
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Book Review of Englund’s “The Beauty and the Sorrow”
Confusion, chaos, rumor, fear, hope, terror, perhaps that’s exactly what you’d expect of war, but far more real when you’re reading ordinary people’s diaries, not accounts of generals or dry facts of history. Even though I’m old enough not to … Continue reading
Posted in War Books
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Book Review of Paleofantasy: What Evolution really tells us about sex, diet, and how we live
Alice Friedemann’s review of: Marlene Zuk. 2013. Paleofantasy: What Evolution really tells us about sex, diet, and how we live. My first introduction to Evolutionary Psychology was “The Adapted Mind” which posited we’re unhappy because of the tremendous difference between … Continue reading
Posted in Agriculture, Evolution, Health
Tagged agriculture, diet, evolution, grain, nutrition, paleofantasy
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Northern California marijuana harms ecosystem, has huge carbon footprint. Legalize ASAP!
A book review by Alice Friedemann of Emily Brady’s 2013 book: “Humboldt. Life on America’s marijuana frontier.” The tales I hear from my friends in Mendocino and Humboldt counties fascinate me. There are stories of mayors and sheriffs on opposite … Continue reading
Posted in Agriculture
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Science book review of Vaclav Smil’s “Approaching the Limits”
Steven W. Running Science 15 March 2013: Vol. 339 no. 6125 pp. 1276-1277 DOI: 10.1126/science.1235886 Approaching the Limits Harvesting the Biosphere What We Have Taken from Nature by Vaclav Smil MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2012. 315 pp. $29, £19.95. ISBN … Continue reading
Posted in Agriculture, Books
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The Big 5 Personality Traits – psychobabble or science?
Alice Friedemann’s review of : Daniel Nettle. 2008. “Personality, What makes you the way you are”. Oxford University Press. Scientists have considered psychology to be a very soft science at best and quackery or psychobabble at worst. But psychology is … Continue reading
Posted in Evolution
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Hirsch predicts Oil Shocks by 2017, panic, and stock market crash
I believe oil shocks could lead to a FAST CRASH Robert L. Hirsch was the author of the first US government report on peak oil in 2005, which recommended taking action to mitigate Peak Oil at least 20 years before … Continue reading
Posted in By People, Energy Books, Oil Shocks, Peak Resources, Robert Hirsch
Tagged hirsch, liquid fuel crisis, transportation
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