With oil reaching $100 a barrel in January 2008 and the US facing challenges to dollar hegemony, few people would now deny that there is an energy crisis and that it is linked to economic uncertainty. However, the mainstream lacks a theory to explain this apparently sudden challenge to optimistic expectations of long-term economic growth and an end to world poverty. The Final Energy Crisis provides political explanations to fill that gap.
The authors engage with depletion trends in oil, gas, coal, uranium, soil and biodiversity. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, they study energy trends, prospects, assets and liabilities in different political systems and regions, including the US, Venezuela, China, Africa, the ex-Soviet Union, North Korea, Japan, France and Australia. Far from being a doom-laden work on peak oil, this book offers practical suggestions for readers keen to be part of the solution to resource depletion.
This comprehensively updated edition includes 13 new chapters and thorough revisions of existing material.
Sheila Newman is an environmental sociologist and editor of articles on energy, population, land-use planning and resources. She co-edited the first edition of The Final Energy Crisis (Pluto Press, 2005). Her blog is at http://candobetter.org/sheila. She is also an environmental film-maker.
