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THE FINAL ENERGY CRISIS

Edited by Andrew McKillop & Sheila Newman

A collection of analysis, predictions and histories of the juice that makes the system go, namely oil and the politics of oil. Various contributors chart the symbiotic nature of "cheap" energy  and population growth , the impact the rise in the Chinese and Indian neoliberal markets will have on everyone (and everything), and a particularly spot-on take of the doomed Kyoto Agreement.

What McKillop refers to as "Climatic Revisionism" , the host of essays and "research" that denies climate change is even taking place, or that it's industrialisation's fault, is given a good airing also. The book's end considers the alternatives, in terms of energy and overall social aspirations, to the current terminally ill ones. This is a keenly argued research-based book, and though it gets a bit complicated in parts, it is essentially readable and a sobering warning for the future. Recession here we come.

Frog Warming (don't try this at home)

"...the trick is to put the frogs live into lukewarm water, then gradually heat it. At any point the frog could, if sufficiently alarmed, hop out of the pot and escape. But they don't, because they don't notice the water slowly getting hotter. Thank goodness we clever humans, on this gradually warming planet of ours, aren't stupid like those frogs! Well, as a matter of fact, we have noticed it - some of us, at least. We even have the data projecting the continuing rise of oceans swamping most of our major cities, and the pending disruption and collapse of our agricultural systems.

Far more is going on than would alert a frog - even a very stupid frog. What's worse, at any point we could fairly stabilise and even reverse the trend, by any of a great number of means, but chances are that we won't, so settled are we within the walls of our stew pan" 

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