About this title: Imagine a world in which the price of oil continues to go up, and up, and up. Think about the immediate impact that would have on our lives. The price of petrol has already impacted our choice of cars but there are more, not-so-obvious changes on the horizon that Chris Steiner tracks brilliantly in this provocative work. Consider the following: ...
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Description: Very good. Box is slightly smooshed, otherwise A Brand New Copy. Never Opened. Still Factory Sealed in the Publisher's Original Shrinkwrap. Book-on-CD. read more
Edition: First edition.
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing, New York
Date Published: 2009
ISBN-13:9780446549547ISBN:0446549541
Description: New in new dust jacket. (6-09) 1st edition Hardback Book is brand new in Near Mint cond, with dj in Near Mint cond. Glued binding. Paper over boards. With dust jacket. 275 p. Audience: General/trade. read more
Binding: Audio CD
Publisher: Hachette Audio
Date Published: 2009
ISBN-13:9781600246920ISBN:1600246923
Description: New. Items ship once payments have cleared. Media mail 5-8 days Priority 2-3 days and international orders may be subject to customs clearance procedures which can cause delays. Seasonal delays can occur in postal system. All items ship within 24 hours of receiving payment. read more
Description: New. A Brand New Copy. Never Read. Buy with confidence from an Independent Bookstore where the owners, a husband and wife team, have over 30 years of combined bookselling experience. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Date Published: 2009
ISBN-13:9780446549547ISBN:0446549541
Description: New. Brand New! Buy with confidence-your satisfaction is guaranteed at B-Logistics! Due to the large scale of our operation, we do not have access to the specific contents/condition of our items. Please note that Expedited shipping is not available at this time. read more
Binding: Audio CD
Publisher: Hachette Audio
Date Published: 2009
ISBN-13:9781600246920ISBN:1600246923
Description: New. Brand New! Buy with confidence-your satisfaction is guaranteed at B-Logistics! Due to the large scale of our operation, we do not have access to the specific contents/condition of our items. Please note that Expedited shipping is not available at this time. read more
Binding: Hardback
Publisher: LITTLE, BROWN BOOK GROUP Country = UNITED KINGDOM
Date Published: 2009
ISBN-13:9780446549547ISBN:0446549541
Description: BRAND NEW HARDBACK. 288 pages. An extraordinarily insightful and thought-provoking look at how our society and culture are going to change, and change rapidly, as the pr1ce of gasoline, heating oil, and all other everyday consumer products that are derived from oil continue to escalate (Hardback) read more
Edition: 1st edition
Binding: Hardback
Publisher: Grand Central Pub
Date Published: 2009
ISBN-13:9780446549547ISBN:0446549541
Description: In this timely expose, "Forbes" writer Steiner examines how the rising cost of gasoline is already changing our social and cultural existence, and that we may be on the brink of a new, exciting, and exhilarating new era. read more
Description: Good. 1600246923 Good condition. May have some markings & or shelfwear. All pages intact. Used items may not include extras such as infotrac, CD or other web access codes. read more
Description: New. 1600246923 Absolutely Brand New. No marks and in pristine condition. Used items may not include extras such as infotrac, CD or other web access codes. read more
"A book of one view of our future. It is both depressing and hopeful with stories of the incredible inovations ocurring around us. Our lives will change. Creative and interesting."
"Essentially an extended long-form article, and a little uniformly optimistic in its outlook, but hey it was a library ebook; that's pretty low-petroleum."
I was disappointed in this book. I expected so much more from it. I had a lot of questions crop up in the beginning, but as I went on a lot of them were answered, so that was good. However I think the structure of the book really caused it problems instead of being helpful. Chapters are grouped by gas price ($4 gas, $6 gas, etc.) and at the beginning this makes sense, but the last chapter have specific topics (Food, Trains, Energy), which lend themselves less to this kind of grouping.
I felt like some of his remarks were too flippant. At $6 he thinks that school buses will stop running, but he comments that kids can just walk. He uses Southern California as an example saying that now kids can enjoy the sunlight and fresh air. That may work there, but in colder areas a 4 mile walk to high school would be much less acceptable. At $10 he says that moving cross-country will be too expensive so people will probably just sell their stuff and buy new wherever they relocate. He chides us for attaching sentimental feelings to our things. Some stuff is irreplaceable like photographs or family heirlooms.
In addition, some of his comments just seemed too Pollyannaish. For example, at $8 air travel will become too expensive for average people so they will no longer be able to fly around visiting relatives. The author proposes that this will cause families to stay together. The theory is if you can't come back to visit, you won't move away. Except that some people have already moved and can't move back, and some will still have to move, which will break up families.
I know the book was explaining how our lives would change for the better, but sometimes negative consequences were completely ignored or glossed over. Your small town isn't located in a convenient area? Oh well, it will become extinct and you can move to a nice, dense city! People will lose their home, their business, their whole livelihood in a situation like this. How are they going to move when all their equity is in their house/business/car and it's too expensive to take any of their stuff with them? Also, apparently small town will be full of people who want to live there so small town crime will diminish. We will save thousands of lives annually by taking SUVs an vehicles off the road. Yes automobile crashes will diminish, but public transport will be used more, so there will most likely be more of those accidents. Two cars colliding might kill a few people at a time, but two buses or trains would cause many more casualties. It would still be a net gain in terms of lives saved but to not mention public transport deaths seems misleading.
Finally, some parts seem unbelievable. I would think we would be able to innovate and create new technology before the death of all big box stores. He mention electric vehicles being the future but insists we will all happily give up our cars. UPS will use electric trucks to sustain their business model, but we won't have electric garbage trucks or school buses? I don't understand how we will make everything locally, especially growing our own food. A rooftop garden won't feed all its occupants, and you would need many greenhouses to feed super-dense NYC in the winter.
Recommended for those who are interested in green technology. Some stuff may be a repeat (I already knew a lot of the info about electric cars), but enough topics are covered to give you some new information. Nothing is covered extensively, but it will give you some things to do further research on if you are interested.
Summary below:
I definitely think that we will be facing an energy crisis and am very much concerned about the environment. Thus, I really didn't need the first chapter ($4) that explains that gas prices will DEFINITELY be increasing. There was some research, but I don't know if it was enough to change the doubters' minds (but will they even pick up this book?). As I said, I'm already convinced, so on to $6 gas.
At $6 we'll change our transportation: no SUVs, more walking, more public transport. Funding of roads will need to change (what we build roads with is made from oil, also higher gas prices=less gas purchased, which means less revenue from gas tax) and toll roads will become much more common.
At $8 air travel forever changes because air travel will become too expensive for most and nearly all of the major US airline will go bankrupt. Tourism massively declines, closing Disney World and half of Vegas. Overseas travel is only for the rich, like it used to be.
At $10 car technology will start developing more rapidly. Hybrids will make way for completely electric cars. Also air cars might be put to use and we will develop other kinds of fuel. Hydrogen cars will never happen. Also, biodegradable plastics will be invested in more fully. Oil makes plastic, so we will need other processes for making plastic.
At $12 cities will experience a revival. Outer suburbs and exurbs will die. Public transport will have to expand because of increases in cities' densities. Subways are the best way to go, though light rail and buses will also help. Small, local stores will also be resurrected.
At $14 Wal Mart and its big box ilk will die. Their business model will no longer be sustainable. Local goods will rule. Small towns will die out because it will be too hard to ship in everything they need. Those towns along railways and waterways will remain and flourish. They can get good from trains and barges, which are much cheaper to run than semis. Main streets will be the centers of small towns. Globalization will reverse because it will no longer be cheaper to use cheap labor abroad then ship things here. We will make less garbage because it will be too expensive to make wasteful packaging for products. Also, garbage trucks waste lots of gas. Aluminum roofing, wood flooring, and stone will be used in homes. Regional materials will be super important.
At $16 our food production will drastically change. We will eat locally grown foods. "Volume loses out to vicinity". We will used greenhouses to grow food in cold areas during the winter. Farmshares will increase. We will start investing in ammonia and wind power.
At $18 we will have a resurgance in using rails to transport people. Other countries have the technology and we could too, but automobiles have made us look at things improperly. Also, our military will need to innovate because we use way to much fuel. We ill hopefully use synthetic fuels and figure out ways to consume less in the airforce. We can have our navy convert ship to nuclear power. The army can use solar power to generate energy.
At $20 we will look differently at how we are using energy. Our power plants are operating at 33% efficiency. If we can use the same energy to make heat and power, we'll be twice as efficient (some companies are already "recapturing" energy used in heating to power their operations). The author thinks: We will stop using coal. Hydroelectric will remain but not increase. Solar will be expanded but there's no sun at night, so it will never be a 100% solution. Wind power will increase steadily because it's so cheap. Geothermal will be used where naturally occurring. Natural gas will be used because it's cheap, but CO2 problems will eventually decrease its use. Nuclear should be used much more because we haven't had any problems yet and we can store all the waste in Yucca Mountain."
"This was not the usual sort of read for me. I was drawn to it by the title. The book was slower reading for me than my romance novels, but I kept with it and finished reading it. I think this book was well thought out, well written and was wrapped up well with the epilogue at the end. The studies being done in the United States, and other Countries are studies I was not aware of, so I learned a lot. The author put a lot of work into this piece, and it became very apparant that our United States has a lot of changes to be made in the future or we are going to be in a mess. If you are interested in the studies being done for alternate fuel methods here in the United States this is the book for you to read. I think everyone should be more aware of the direction our world is going in and the solutions we ourselves can put in place to help make a change for the future that matters! The only reason I did not give the book five stars, is due to author using some words that were beyond the scope of my vocabulary. My husband said, when I asked him what a few of these words meant, that the author probably looked up some words to work in here and there to make the piece sound as if it were written at a higher level. He told me that most authors will write at a level which would be easily read by most who have any kind education in their back ground. I have an associates, I could pronounce the words but had no clue. I would read the sentence and Tom would tell me what the word meant by the way it was used, which I should have been able to do, I suppose, it just didn't need to be done. The author could have gotten his points across without the fancy language here and there, just as easily by using words everyone would understand. The book really is a must read for those interested in our economy, and our environment. Steiner does show that the rise in prices, when hey happen, will finally drive us to do things to make our lives and the environment much better. This is a very provocative look at what our future holds -- a future that is coming sooner than we think!"
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