Onward to Iran in The Herald  

Richard Heinberg's "Onward to Iran" article has made an appearance in the Herald's Webdiary, sparking the usual debate (those that pass for right wingers these days in complete denial, everyone else agreeing with the analysis).

I've been meaning to write my own review of The Party's Over for a while, but hadn't quite managed to get there. It was the first book I read that focussed purely on Peak Oil and is probably the most influential in the peak oil "community" - it was even recommended to all members of the Queensland Parliament last week.

The book covers quite a lot of ground - starting with the fundamentals of how energy is stored and transformed, then moving on to a history of energy usage as human societies have advanced through to the present day (with quite a lot of focus on how the struggle to control oil reserves was a major thrust behind both world wars, along with all the troubles in the middle east ever since).

The book then addresses the theory of Hubbert's Peak, and examines all the possible alternative sources of energy in a oil depleted world. The conclusions it reaches are all particularly bleak - thre simply isn't enough cheap, available energy for modern industrialised societies to continue in their present form.

Heinberg believes collapse of industrial societies is inevitable after the peak is reached - and that the only way to adapt is to "powerdown" - to localise economies and alter the way we live.

FTD also has a link to another review of "The Party's Over" today, along with a biography of Richard Heinberg, written by my neighbourhood's other peak oil obsessive, Ian McPherson (who wrote quite a lot of the comments on the latest WebDiary piece).



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