Books about Depletion from Amazon.com

Why are so few peak oil authors women? There's been much debate about this, and no one has yet arrived at a definitive answer. But whatever the reason, Sharon Astyk has established herself as a true rarity within the peak oil community by virtue of being a woman who has chosen to write about peak oil. The perspective she offers is thus both uncommon and vital.
In Depletion and Abundance, she shows how rewarding life on her New Home Front could be, immeasureably improving our health, nutrition, sense of community and overall well-being. Chief among its benefits would be all the extra time that we'd have. She points out that people in medieval times worked far fewer hours than Americans do today, and that most people in modern-day peasant societies also work less hard than we do.
This, along with Astyk's unique perspective as a woman, a mother and a peak oil activist, makes Depleiton and Abundance well worth a read. The ring of authenticity to her writing will hook you - while its relaxed style, ineffable humor, personal anecdotes and comforting touch will soothe your melancholy peaknik soul like a warm hand on the shoulder.
Reviewed by Frank Kaminski, Energy Bulletin

Sharon's introduction is pricelss in its succinct, dead-on analysis of collapse, and is reason enough to buy and send this book to everyone you know who is partially or completely clueless about where we're headed. "When I realized that everything was going to change, I was at first afraid. Because I thought, if my government or public policy or other choices weren't going to fix everything, what could I possibly do? What hope was there, if I had to take care of myself, if my community had to take care of itself?
But when I began looking for solutions that could be applied on the level of ordinary human lives, that involved changes in perspectives and pulling together, the reclamation of abandoned ideas and the restoration of strong communitites, I began to feel hopeful, even excited. Because I realized that when large institutions cease to be powerful, sometimes that means that people start being powerful again."
Depletion and Abundance is not a feel-good book, but it is intensely human, compassionate, supportive, pracitcal, alarming, enlivening, and astonishingly accurate.
Reviewed by Carolyn Baker, Carolynbaker.net

OK, quick check: everyone who is concerned about the economic crisis turning into a depression and causing food and fuel prices to rise and pockets to empty - whether for yourself, your parents, your children, your neighbors, your friends, or anyone - raise your hand. That covers just about everyone, doesn't it? Almost every conversation I've had recently with different people lately has touched on the economy and people's fears about what this situation means. Astyk knows she's covering a lot of territory to bring many people up to speed on the various causes behind our current crisis. Her research and thoughtful insight in discussing peak oil, climate change, and the economy are on target too.We may be headed into difficult times - and heaven knows, if you read only Astyk's first chapter, you might find yourself too depressed to go on --but ultimately we still retain the ability to choose a certain aount of independence. We can invest our time and our work in the sustenance of our selves, our families, and our communities, and we can begin to build a more sustainable economy. Sharon Astyk's book gives us the hope and the inspiration needed to take that step.Reviewed by Jennifer M, The Ethicurean

Climate change, peak oil, and economic instability aren’t just future social problems—they jeopardize our homes and families right now. Our once-abundant food supply is being threatened by toxic chemical agriculture, rising food prices, and crop shortages brought on by climate change. Funding for education and health care is strained to the limit, and safe and affordable housing is disappearing.

Depletion and Abundance explains how we are living beyond our means with or without a peak oil/climate change crisis, and that, either way, we must learn to place our families and local communities at the center of our thinking once again. The author presents strategies to create stronger homes, better health, and a richer family life and to:

• live comfortably with an uncertain energy supply
• prepare children for a hotter, lower energy, less secure world
• survive and thrive in an economy in crisis
• maintain a kitchen garden to supply basic food needs

Most importantly, readers will discover that depletion can lead to abundance, and the anxiety of these uncertain times can be turned into a gift of hope and action.

An unusual family perspective on the topic, this book will appeal to all those interested in securing a future for their children and grandchildren.

Sharon Astyk is a former academic who farms in upstate New York with her husband and four children. She also raises livestock, grows vegetables, and writes about food and peak oil. (Check out her blog—www.sharonastyk.com.)

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Price: $10.80 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Winifred Weathervane is responsible for cooking up the world's weather When she goes on vacation, she leaves the stove on, and it blows a hole in the ozone layer, changing the world's weather patterns. Fortunately, she's able to plug the hole with her umbrella, restoring the weather that the world's plants, animals -- and people -- are used to..
Price: $2.22 [Notify me when price goes down.]

With oil around $100 a barrel, drivers wince whenever they pull into the gas station and businesses watch their bottom lines shrink. "Watch out," say doomsayers, "it will only get worse as oil dries up." It's a plausible argument, especially considering the rate at which countries like China and India are now sucking up oil. Even more troubling, the world's largest oil fields sit in geopolitical hotspots like Iran and Iraq. Some believe their nations need to secure remaining supplies using military force, while others consider dwindling supplies a blessing that will help solve the problem of global warming. But wait--is it really the "end of oil"? Absolutely not, says geologist, economist, and industry-insider Robin Mills. According to Mills, many ideas about petroleum depletion and its consequences are not just grossly overstated but plain wrong. Calmly and persuasively, he argues:

-The supply of oil and gas is much larger than imagined by the pessimists. -Seeking political, military, or commercial control of oil supplies is unnecessary, self-defeating, and exorbitantly expensive. -Oil is merely one convenient source of energy. Opportunities exist to decrease the global consumption of oil radically while maintaining a healthy economy. -The environmental impact of fossil fuels is the most serious problem the world faces today. But a portfolio of solutions can solve it. There is no other book by an industry insider that effectively counters the "peak oil" theory by showing where and how oil will be found in the future. There also is no other book by an insider that lays out an environmentally and geopolitically responsible path for the petroleum industry and its customers. The Myth of the Oil Crisis, written in a lively style but with scientific rigor, is thus a uniquely useful resource for business leaders, policymakers, petroleum industry professionals, environmentalists, and anyone else who consumes oil. Best of all, it offers an abundance of one commodity now in short supply: hope for the future..
Price: $35.95 [Notify me when price goes down.]

This book is organized around the three parts of the biosphere: land, water, and air. Each section contains descriptions of the environmental problems associated with that part of the biosphere In the section on the atmosphere, for instance, such problems as acid rain and the greenhouse effect are discussed. Immediately following each problem or "challenge" are suggested ways that individuals can help solve or alleviate them. This book has been written to provide the reader with some easy and practical ways to protect the Earth and to help understand why the task is so important..
Price: $8.98 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Since oil is the primary fuel of global industrial civilization, its imminent depletion is a problem that will have a profound impact on every aspect of modern life. With-out international agreement on how to manage the decline of this vital resource, the world faces unprecedented risk of conflict and collapse.

The Oil Depletion Protocol describes a unique accord whereby nations would voluntarily reduce their oil production and oil imports according to a consistent, sen-sible formula. This would enable energy transition to be planned and supported over the long term, providing a context of stable energy prices and peaceful cooperation. The protocol will be presented at international gatherings, initiating the process of country-by-country negotiation and adoption and mobilizing public support. To this end, this book:

Provides an overview of the data concerning Peak Oil and its timing
Briefly explains the protocol and its implications for the reader and for
decision-makers in government and industry around the world
Deals with frequently asked questions and objections
Looks forward to how the protocol can be adopted and how municipalities and ordinary citizens can facilitate the process

Timely and critically important, The Oil Depletion Protocol is a must-read for policymakers and for all who seek to avert a Peak Oil collapse..
Price: $7.99 [Notify me when price goes down.]

“We are now so abusing the Earth that it may rise and move back to the hot state it was in fifty-five million years ago, and if it does, most of us, and our descendants, will die.”
—James Lovelock, leading climate expert and author of The Revenge of Gaia

“I don’t see why people are so worried about global warming destroying the planet — peak oil will take care of that.”
Matthew Simmons, energy investment banker and author of Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy

The twin crises of climate change and peaking oil production are converging on us. If they are not to cook the planet and topple our civilization, we will need informed and decisive policies, clear-sighted innovation, and a lucid understanding of what is at stake. We will need to know where we stand, and which direction we should start out in. These are the questions Carbon Shift addresses.

Thomas Homer-Dixon, author of The Ingenuity Gap and The Upside of Down, argues that the two problems are really one: a carbon problem. We depend on carbon energy to fuel our complex economies and societies, and at the same time this very carbon is fatally contaminating our atmosphere. To solve one of these problems will require solving the other at the same time. In other words, we still have a chance to tackle two monumental challenges with one innovative solution: clean, low-carbon energy.

Carbon Shift brings together six of Canada’s world-class experts to explore the question of where we stand now, and where we might be headed. It explores the economics, the geology, the politics, and the science of the predicament we find ourselves in. And it gives each expert the chance to address what they think are the most important facets of the complex problem before us.

There are no experts in Canada better positioned to explain the world that awaits us just beyond the horizon, and no better guide to that future than this collection of their thoughts. Densely packed with information, but accessibly written and powerfully timely, Carbon Shift will be an indispensable handbook to the difficult choices that lie ahead.

David Hughes is a former senior geoscientist with the Geological Survey of Canada

David Keith is Canada Research Chair in Energy and the Environment, University of Calgary

Jeff Rubin is Chief Economist, Chief Strategist and Managing Director, CIBC World Markets

Mark Jaccard is professor of environmental economics in the School of Resource and Environmental Management at Simon Fraser University and former member of the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)

William Marsden is an investigative reporter and author of Stupid to the Last Drop: How Alberta Is Bringing Environmental Armageddon to Canada (And Doesn’t Seem to Care)

Jeffrey Simpson is a Globe and Mail national columnist and author, with Mark Jaccard, of Hot Air: Meeting Canada’s Climate Change Challenge

With a foreword by Ronald Wright, author of A Short History of Progress and What is America?.
Price: $19.77 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Hailed in the Foreign Service Journal as "a landmark book that should command the attention of every serious student of American diplomacy, international environmental issues, or the art of negotiation," and cited in Nature for its "worthwhile insights on the harnessing of science and diplomacy," the first edition of Ozone Diplomacy offered an insider's view of the politics, economics, science, and diplomacy involved in creating the precedent-setting treaty to protect the Earth: the 1987 Montreal Protocol on Substances That Deplete the Ozone Layer.

The first edition ended with a discussion of the revisions to the protocol in 1990 and offered lessons for global diplomacy regarding the then just-maturing climate change issue. Now Richard Benedick--a principal architect and the chief U.S. negotiator of the historic treaty--expands the ozone story, bringing us to the eve of the tenth anniversary of the Montreal Protocol. He describes subsequent negotiations to deal with unexpected major scientific discoveries and important amendments adding new chemicals and accelerating the phaseout schedules. Implementing the revised treaty has forced the protocol's signatories to confront complex economic and political problems, including North-South financial and technology transfer issues, black markets for banned CFCs, revisionism, and industry's willingness and ability to develop new technologies and innovative substitutes. In his final chapter Benedick offers a new analysis applying the lessons of the ozone experience to ongoing climate change negotiations.

Ozone Diplomacy has frequently been cited as the definitive book on the most successful environment treaty, and is essential reading for those concerned about the future of our planet.

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Price: $18.99 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Ray and Guzzo take on the scare-mongers who preach environmental catastrophe by pointing out facts about such contentious issues as acid rain, the greenhouse effect, radiation, pesticides, and nuclear waste--facts that are far less alarming than the propagandists would have us believe..
Price: $5.98 [Notify me when price goes down.]

This text focuses on the atmosphere and how it works as a global entity to maintain a given global climate or ozone shield and how it is influenced by human activity. A complete reference for students of environmental science and related fields, it introduces aspects of global change from a meteorological perspective. An accompanying guide to the Internet helps keep readers up to date on the latest information in the field..
Price: $34.00 [Notify me when price goes down.]