The Long Descent: A User’s Guide to the End of the Industrial Age
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- ISBN13: 9780865716094
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Product Description
SeattleOil.com The Internet writings of John Michael Greer – beyond any doubt the greatest peak oil historian in the English language – have finally made their way into print. Greer fans will admit many of the book’s passages from previous essays, but will be delighted to see them fleshed out here with additional examples and analysis.The Long Descent is one of the most highly anticipated peak oil books of the year, and it lives up to every ounce of hype. Greer is a captivating, brilliantly inventive writer with a deep knowledge of history, an impressive amount of mechanical savvy, a flair for storytelling and a gift for drawing art analogies. His new book presents an astonishing view of our society’s past, present and future trajectory–one that is unmatched in its breadth and depth. Reviewed by Frank Kaminski
Wired.com The Long Descent is a welcome antidote to the armageddonism that regularly accompanies peak oil discussions. “The decline of a civilization is rarely anything like so sudden for persons who live through it” writes Greer, encouragingly; it’s “a much slower and more complex transformation than the sudden catastrophes imagined by many soical critics today.”
The changes that will follow the decline of world petroleum production are likely to be sweeping and global, Greer concludes, but from the perspective of persons who live through them these changes are much more likely to take gradual and local forms. Reviewed by Bruce right
Americans are expressing deep concern about US dependence on petroleum, rising energy prices, and the threat of climate change. Unlike the energy crisis of the 1970s, but, there is a lurking dread that now the times are different and the crisis may not easily be resolved.
The Long Descent examines the basis of such dread through three core themes:
- Manufacturing society is following the same well-worn path that has led additional civilizations into decline, a path involving a much slower and more complex transformation than the sudden catastrophes imagined by so many social critics today.
- The roots of the crisis lie in the cultural tales that shape the way we know the world. Since problems cannot be solved with the same thinking that made them, these ways of thinking need to be replaced with others better suited to the needs of our time.
- It is too late for massive programs for top-down change; the change must come from individuals.
Hope exists in actions that range from taking up a handicraft or adopting an “obsolete” equipment, through planting an organic vegetable garden, taking charge of your own health care or spirituality, and building community.
Focusing eloquently on constructive adaptation to massive change, this book will have wide appeal.
John Michael Greer is a certified Master Conserver, organic gardener, and scholar of ecological history. The current Grand Archdruid of the Very ancient Order of Druids in America (AODA), his widely-cited blog, The Archdruid Report (thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com) deals with peak oil, among additional issues. He lives in Ashland, Oregon.
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This book has some appealing parts, but, like Kunstler’s Long Urgent situation (which is racist, histrionic junk), it also contains some major logical inconsistencies. The key point is one of efficiency. That is to say, both authors assume that manufacturing civilization can only be sustained with the current level of energy and material consumption, and this is patently untrue. The citizens of the E.U. have most of the modern conveniences but use only half the resources that we do, and the Japanese do the same on a quarter of our level. Moreover, there are excellent reasons to reflect that most of the things we really care about can be managed on no more than a tenth of the resources we currently use.
Both authors also seem to assume that the average person will be really sheep-like in response to a change in circumstances. Again, patently untrue. Just question the huge auto companies how much money they are building selling SUV’s with gas near $4.00 a gallon. And consider the food situation in Shanghai, where 85% of the vegetables are grown right inside the city. I say again, this is happening today, and with small distress. Same in Havana, Cuba. When the Russians cut off the oil subsidy to Cuba after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Cuban agriculture ground to a halt in a single season, but in a couple of years they had gone back to plowing with oxen, and growing kitchen gardens in every back yard. Consider in particular that they had no real warning, while we are getting years to reflect about the problem. Reasonably a few of us may go back to the farm, but that’s just an adjustment, not a catastrophe, much less the end of civilization.
Civilization, in any case, is not a matter of material consumption, but rather is based on low-tech, inexpensive institutions like libraries. The very ancient libraries in places like Alexandria, Baghdad, Cordoba and many others were not as convenient as the Web, but they successfully sustained sophisticated civilizations for millenia, and there is no reason we cannot depend on such systems again, if we have to.
I would also point out that I have managed on a personal level to cut my own energy and resource consumption by a factor of three (compared to the average for all Americans) lacking even breaking a sweat. Nor is it obvious that this is the case unless I point it out to people. The only difference between me and the rest of the citizens of the manufacturing world is that I’m more proactive about the problem, and I’m also thrifty, which helps. With a small more effort I expect to get down to about a tenth of the average by doing things anyone can do reasonably easily and inexpensively.
Consider also that my life is far from deprived or unpleasant. Even at ten dollars an hour, I only need to work a day or two a week to take in my expenses, my job has nearly no stress, and I have most of the week for the civilized pleasures of life: reading, composition, some travel, friends, family tree, enjoying the outdoors, and much more.
In additional words, a lot of us have already solved the so-called “problem” of peak oil reasonably handily, and we’re just waiting for the rest of the manufacturing world to notice. It would be amusing to watch if it weren’t so pathetic.
Reader’s Rating: 2 / 5
John Michael Greer writes eloquently, knowledgeably, and thoughtfully about the decline of civilizations in the past and speculates about the path that will be followed by our own manufacturing civilization as fossil fuel availability declines. I judge he’s overlooks the potentially catastrophic changes in climate caused by greenhouse gases, though he does mention climate change. He discusses the powerful effects of myths, such as the myth of eternal progress and growth, on our inability to respond wisely. Overall, I establish it fascinating, realistic, and inspirational.
Reader’s Rating: 4 / 5
Is our present manufacturing society on the same downward spiral path as persons of civilizations past, which have risen and fallen? John Michael Greer provides a vision of the aftermath of the age of oil, using past studies of civilizations in decline to fuel discussions of global energy challenges, offering suggestions on how to handle an inevitable descent and change from an oil-based society. The discussion is perfect for high school to college-level libraries strong in environmental issues and social change alike.
Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5
I consider myself honestly well-read on the theme addressed by THE LONG DESCENT, e.g. Heinberg, Orlov, Kunstler, Diamond, etc., etc., and so was disappointed with Mr. Greer’s addressment of the theme. While his writing is clear, it posits only one likely future for the post-manufacturing future: a long descent into some sort of agrarian stability achieved through an inferred series of stairsteps downward to that stability. He cites, as many do, the descent of the Mayan and Imperial Roman Empires but overlooks the real possibility of some sudden, jarring, avalanching degradations of the complex, overpopulated manufacturing society that neither the Mayans nor the Imperial Romans faced. That is, in between his neatly-conceived stairsteps, there could be long, vertical drops into social, manufacturing abysses brought on by tectonic forces that could be anything but neatly stairstepped, e.g. nuclear war and winter; natural or manmade pandemics; global warming effects that could include the attempted mass migration of major populations, mass dieoffs due to starvation, major loss of arable land; and a loss of access to and knowledge of the engines of materiel production, energy production, etc. His presentation is one point of view but it excludes a number of factors that could individually be devastating and, in combination, cataclysmic. I’m worried I cannot recommend this book when there are so many better discussions and inquiries on the Web.
Reader’s Rating: 2 / 5
I don’t judge in peak oil in the same way as Mr. Greer does, but establish The Long Decent an incredible and well written opposing viewpoint. I am permanently willing to give credit to authors who can spectacle their thoughts in an intelligent manner. Mr. Greer provides realistic solutions to his beliefs of peak oil as a replacement for of mournful about the problems were are facing in current times.
Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5