Afterburn: Society Beyond Fossil Fuels - Softcover

Heinberg, Richard

4.09

76 ratings by Goodreads

9780865717886: Afterburn: Society Beyond Fossil Fuels

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0865717885 ISBN 13: 9780865717886

Publisher: New Society Publishers, 2015

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Essential, visionary essays about our post-carbon future

Climate change, along with the depletion of oil, coal, and gas dictate that we will inevitably move away from our profound societal reliance on fossil fuels; but just how big a transformation will this be? While many policy-makers assume that renewable energy sources will provide an easy "plug-and-play" solution, author Richard Heinberg suggests instead that we are in for a wild ride; a "civilization reboot" on a scale similar to the agricultural and industrial revolutions.

Afterburn consists of 15 essays exploring various aspects of the 21st century migration away from fossil fuels including:

Short-term political and economic factors that impede broad-scale, organized efforts to adapt
The origin of longer-term trends (such as consumerism), that have created a way of life that seems "normal" to most Americans, but is actually unprecedented, highly fragile, and unsustainable
Potential opportunities and sources of conflict that are likely to emerge.

From the inevitability and desirability of more locally organized economies, to the urgent need to preserve our recent cultural achievements and the futility of pursuing economic growth above all, Afterburn offers cutting-edge perspectives and insights that challenge conventional thinking about our present, our future, and the choices in our hands.

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Book Description:

Essential, visionary essays about our post-carbon future

From the Back Cover:

ESSENTIAL, VISIONARY ESSAYS ABOUT OUR POST-CARBON FUTURE

"[Richard Heinberg] writes with incision, with passion, with rage, with compassion, and Afterburn captures in one single publication why he's such a shining light of insight in times of much darkness. The Party's Over changed my life. Perhaps Afterburn will change yours. "
ROB HOPKINS, founder, Transition Town movement and author, The Power of Just Doing Stuff
"This book will help fuel the future."
RANDY HAYES, founder, Rainforest Action Network and director, Foundation Earth

FROM CLIMATE CHANGE to resource wars to the collapse of consumerism, we're in for a wild ride. Afterburn features 15 essays exploring our 21st century migration away from fossil fuels including:

Short-term political and economic factors that impede broad-scale, organized efforts to adapt
Longer-term trends (such as consumerism), that have created a way of life that seems "normal" to most Americans, but is actually unprecedented, highly fragile and unsustainable
Potential opportunities and sources of conflict.

From the inevitability and desirability of more locally organized economies, to the urgent need to preserve our recent cultural achievements, and the futility of pursuing economic growth above all, Afterburn offers cutting-edge perspectives and insights that challenge conventional thinking about our present, our future, and the choices in our hands.

"Pick up this book. Read it. Discuss it. Let it sink into your bones, and then understand that this book is not asking you to abandon hope, it is inviting us all to greatness."
CHRIS MARTENSON, Co-founder, Peak Prosperity

RICHARD HEINBERG is a Senior Fellow of the Post Carbon Institute, and the author of eleven previous books including The Party's Over and The End of Growth . He is widely regarded as one of the world's most effective communicators of the urgent need to transition away from fossil fuels.

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