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Recent Posts
- The staggering cost of Net Zero in Britain
- Why the R/P Reserves to Production ratio does not show when oil will run out
- Catton on Collapse “Bottleneck: Humanity’s Impending Impasse”
- Book Review of Grain Brain: Extraordinary claim not backed up by evidence
- Why did everyone stop talking about Population & Immigration?
- What would happen if trucks stopped running?
- How to survive a nuclear winter
- The insect apocalypse will kill billions more people than climate change
- The war on drugs. A book review of “Chasing the scream”
- Peak crude oil did not happen in 2018. But we are running out of time
- Sheriffs have too much power
- Book review “They poisoned the world: Life & death in the age of Forever Chemicals”
- John Howe on one child per woman: still too high to stay under limits to growth curves
- Ted Trainer: The radical implications of a zero growth economy
- Part 5 Raven Rock. Hidey holes for government and military officials to carry on democracy after nuclear war destroys the planet
Category Archives: Life Before Oil
Muscle Power
Preface. Below is a review of “Prime Mover: A Natural History of Muscle: from Natural History Magazine. Since both my books explain why we will be returning to biomass and muscle power, here’s yet another preparation opportunity: breed horses and … Continue reading
Posted in Agriculture, Energy Books, Life Before Oil, Muscle Power, What to do
Tagged muscle power, treadmill
3 Comments
Vaclav Smil. Making the modern world: materials and dematerialization
Preface. I can’t believe I read this book, it is just a long litany of the gigantic amounts of materials we exploit, with no analysis, implications, or the meaning of what impact this will have on the planet. I certainly … Continue reading
Posted in Infrastructure Books, Life Before Oil, Limits To Growth, Peak Resources, Vaclav Smil
Tagged materials, recycling, vaclav smil
9 Comments
Book: John Perlin’s “A Forest Journey: The Story of Wood and Civilization”
Preface. This contains excerpts from John Perlin’s “A Forest Journey: The Story of Wood and Civilization”. It’s one of my favorite books about natural resources, exploring the role wood has played in the rise and fall of civilizations since they … Continue reading
From wood to fossil fueled civilizations — the greatest tragedy mankind will ever know
Preface. These are my notes from this book about how we went from an organic sustainable economy to a temporary fossil-fueled one. It’s one of the few books I’ve found that explains what life was like before fossil fuels in … Continue reading
Posted in Agriculture, Life Before Oil, Supply Chains
Tagged agriculture, biomass, coal, food, industrial revolution, transition, wood
5 Comments