Lecturas para una civilización más allá del Peak Oil
Web: http://peakchoice.org/.
Actualización de Permatopia, un web anterior.
Este libro tiene como origen el curso que, con el mismo título, se celebró en la Fundación César Manrique entre el 17 y el 19 de octubre de 2007, y que fue dirigido por los editores, Federico Aguilera y José Manuel Naredo.
La publicación incluye textos de Óscar Carpintero, Albert Recio, Manuel Delgado, Félix Arias y Marcos Roitman, además de los propios editores.
Tras los cánticos al libre mercado y al crecimiento de la producción, las operaciones de mera adquisición de riqueza están cada vez más al orden del día. Este libro da cuenta de ello a través de análisis generales y aplicados. Los primeros precisan el contexto sociopolítico en el que toma cuerpo la refundación oligárquica del poder en las actuales democracias, así como la cobertura ideológica que la hace pasar desapercibida. Los análisis aplicados se ilustran con casos en los que determinados personajes y grupos empresariales obtienen el lucro fácil e inmediato mediante «operaciones» inmobiliarias o financieras amparadas por el poder, utilizando como pretexto determinados megaproyectos de gran impacto territorial.
The Earth’s mineral riches are distributed unevenly over the globe, and this has tremendous effects on the human condition. Different regions have achieved great power and affluence with the development of resources, from water and fertile soil to oil and high-tech metals. What will happen to these economies as the resources are depleted?
This unique volume presents and analyzes essential data on energy and mineral resources and population issues of concern to sociologists, geologists, ecologists, economists, policymakers, futurists, and political scientists.
Spring, 47-55.
Science tells us that an oil crisis is inevitable. Why and when? And what will our future look like without our favorite fuel?
Our rate of oil discovery has reached its peak and will never be exceeded; rather, it is certain to decline―perhaps rapidly―forever forward. Meanwhile, over the past century, we have developed lifestyles firmly rooted in the promise of an endless, cheap supply. In this book, David Goodstein, professor of physics at Caltech, explains the underlying scientific principles of the inevitable fossil fuel shortage we face. He outlines the drastic effects a fossil fuel shortage will bring down on us. And he shows that there is an important silver lining to the need to switch to other sources of energy, for when we have burned up all the available oil, the earth’s climate will have moved toward a truly life-threatening state. With its easy-to-grasp explanations of the science behind every aspect of our most urgent environmental policy decisions, Out of Gas is a handbook for the future of civilization.
Existe versión en castellano (El fin del petróleo), publicada en colección de bolsillo por Público en 2010.
Índice la edición española:
En camino a ninguna parte:
Hacia el cielo:
Petroleum is now so deeply entrenched in our economy, our politics, and our personal expectations that even modest efforts to phase it out are fought tooth and nail by the most powerful forces in the world: companies and governments that depend on oil revenues; the developing nations that see oil as the only means to industrial success; and a Western middle class that refuses to modify its energy-dependent lifestyle. But within thirty years, by even conservative estimates, we will have burned our way through most of the oil that is easily accessible. And well before then, the side effects of an oil-based society — economic volatility, geopolitical conflict, and the climate-changing impact of hydrocarbon pollution — will render fossil fuels an all but unacceptable solution. How will we break our addiction to oil? And what will we use in its place to maintain a global economy and political system that are entirely reliant on cheap, readily available energy?
Brilliantly reported from around the globe, The End of Oil brings the world situation into fresh and dramatic focus for business and general readers alike. Roberts talks to both oil optimists and oil pessimists, delves deep into the economics and politics of oil, considers the promises and pitfalls of alternatives, and shows that, although the world energy system has begun its epoch-defining transition, disruption and violent dislocation are almost assured if we do not take a more proactive stance. With the topicality and readability of Fast Food Nation and the scope and trenchant analysis of Guns, Germs, and Steel, this is a vitally important book for the new century.
In his pathbreaking Resource Wars, world security expert Michael Klare alerted us to the role of resources in conflicts in the post-cold-war world. Now, in Blood and Oil, he concentrates on a single precious commodity, petroleum, while issuing a warning to the United States—its most powerful, and most dependent, global consumer.
Since September 11 and the commencement of the «war on terror,» the world’s attention has been focused on the relationship between U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East and the oceans of crude oil that lie beneath the region’s soil. Klare traces oil’s impact on international affairs since World War II, revealing its influence on the Truman, Eisenhower, Nixon, and Carter doctrines. He shows how America’s own wells are drying up as our demand increases; by 2010 the United States will need to import 60 percent of its oil. And since most of this supply will have to come from chronically unstable, often violently anti-American zones—the Persian Gulf, the Caspian Sea, Latin America, and Africa—our dependency is bound to lead to recurrent military involvement.
Internal Combustion is the compelling tale of corruption and manipulation that subjected the United States and the world to an oil addiction that could have been avoided, that was never necessary, and that could be ended not in ten years, not in five years, but today.
Erin Neal has been living a secluded life in the Arizona desert since the death of his girlfriend and he isn’t happy when an oil company executive comes calling. A number of important Saudi wells have stopped producing and Erin is the world’s foremost expert in resolving just these kinds of complications. As far as he’s concerned, though, he’s left that world behind. Not his problem. Homeland Security sees things differently. Erin quickly finds himself stuck in the Saudi desert, studying a new bacteria with a voracious appetite for oil and an uncanny talent for destroying drilling equipment. But worst of all is its ability to spread. It soon becomes clear that if this contagion isn’t stopped, it will infiltrate the world’s petroleum reserves, cutting the industrial world off from the energy that provides the heat, food, and transportation necessary for survival. Erin realizes that there’s something eerily familiar about this bacteria. And that it couldn’t possibly have evolved on its own.
In this romantic thriller Cassie Young is a rising star at a prestigious energy consulting firm when she discovers secret files that reveal the truth about the world’s oil supplies; and, it’s not good news. Soon, she finds herself locked in a game of cat and mouse that places her career and ultimately her life on the line. After reading her story, you’ll never think quite the same way about filling your gas tank.
Cassie’s transformation from one of the firm’s true believers into a worried skeptic begins when she meets Victor Chernov, a former oil trader. Contrary to the public pronouncements of her firm and many official agencies, Victor says the world may start running dangerously short of oil–the lifeblood of modern society–within only a few years. In her search for the truth, Cassie uncovers evidence that convinces her Victor is right. But that evidence now makes her a target for those who desperately want to keep an unknowing world in the dark.
A startling reinterpretation of contemporary events, Prelude follows Cassie to the Canadian tar sands; to the heart of Houston, the energy city; to an offshore drilling platform; and to the streets and suites of Washington, D.C. in a journey that unlocks the mysteries of a substance that the world cannot do without.