2018-09-12
Author: Samuel Alexander
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780994282804
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 144
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Book Description
Carbon civilisation is powered predominately by finite fossil fuels and with each passing day it becomes harder to increase or even maintain current supply. Our one-off fossil energy inheritance is but a brief anomaly in the evolution of the human story, a momentary energy spike from the perspective of deep time. Today humanity faces the dual crises of fossil fuel depletion and climate change, both of which are consequences of the modern world's fundamental reliance on the energy abundance provided by fossil energy sources. Can renewable energy replace the fossil energy foundations of carbon civilisation? This book examines these issues and presents a narrative linking energy and society that maintains we should be preparing for renewable futures neither of energy abundance nor scarcity, but rather energy sufficiency. For industrial societies, this means navigating energy descent futures.
Author: Samuel Alexander
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780994282804
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 144
View
Book Description
Carbon civilisation is powered predominately by finite fossil fuels and with each passing day it becomes harder to increase or even maintain current supply. Our one-off fossil energy inheritance is but a brief anomaly in the evolution of the human story, a momentary energy spike from the perspective of deep time. Today humanity faces the dual crises of fossil fuel depletion and climate change, both of which are consequences of the modern world's fundamental reliance on the energy abundance provided by fossil energy sources. Can renewable energy replace the fossil energy foundations of carbon civilisation? This book examines these issues and presents a narrative linking energy and society that maintains we should be preparing for renewable futures neither of energy abundance nor scarcity, but rather energy sufficiency. For industrial societies, this means navigating energy descent futures.
Author: Rupert Read
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780994282835
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 106
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Book Description
Industrial civilisation has no future. It requires limitless economic growth on a finite planet. The reckless combustion of fossil fuels means that Earth's climate is changing disastrously, in ways that cannot be resolved by piecemeal reform or technological innovation. Sooner rather than later this global capitalist system will come to an end, destroyed by its own ecological contradictions. Unless humanity does something beautiful and unprecedented, the ending of industrial civilisation will take the form of collapse, which could mean a harrowing die-off of billions of people. This book is for those ready to accept the full gravity of the human predicament - and to consider what in the world is to be done. How can humanity mindfully navigate the inevitable descent ahead? Two critical thinkers here remove the rose-tinted glasses of much social and environmental commentary. With unremitting realism and yet defiant positivity, they engage each other in uncomfortable conversations about the end of Empire and what lies beyond.
Author: Graham Palmer
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030330931
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 173
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Book Description
Fossil fuels comprise the accumulation of prehistoric biomass that was energised by sunlight, and formed by earth system dynamics. Fossil fuels can be conceptualized as stored energy stocks that can be readily converted to power flows, on demand. A transition from a reliance on stored energy stocks, to renewable energy flows, will require a replication of energy storage by technological devices and energy conversion methods. Most analyses of energy storage focus solely on the economic-technical properties of storage within incumbent energy systems. This book broadens the scope of the study of storage by placing it within a broader, historical, biophysical framework. The role and value of storage is examined from first principles, and framed within the contemporary context of electrical grids and markets. The energy-economic cost of electrical storage may be critical to the efficacy of high penetration renewable scenarios, and understanding the costs and benefits of storage is needed for a proper assessment of storage in energy transition studies. This book provides a starting point for engineers, scientists and energy analysts for exploring the role of storage in energy transition studies, and for gaining an appreciation of the biophysical constraints of storage.
Author: Samuel Alexander
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 9811321310
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 219
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Book Description
This book addresses a central dilemma of the urban age: how to make the vast suburban landscapes that ring the globe safe and sustainable in the face of planetary ecological crisis. The authors argue that degrowth, a planned contraction of economic overshoot, is the only feasible principle for suburban renewal. They depart from the anti-suburban sentiment of much environmentalism to show that existing suburbia can be the centre-ground of transition to a new social dispensation based on the principle of self-limitation. The book offers a radical new urban imaginary, that of degrowth suburbia, which can arise Phoenix like from the increasingly stressed cities of the affluent Global North and guide urbanisation in a world at risk. This means dispensing with much contemporary green thinking, including blind faith in electric vehicles and high-density urbanism, and accepting the inevitability and the benefits of planned energy descent. A radical but necessary vision for the times.
Author: Samuel Alexander
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 9811578613
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 255
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Book Description
This book presents a series of urban investigations undertaken in the metropolis of Melbourne. It is based on the idea that ‘enchantment’ as an affective state is important to ethical and political engagement. Alexander and Gleeson argue that a sense of enchantment can give people the impulse to care and engage in an increasingly troubled world, whereas disenchantment can lead to resignation. Applying and extending this theory to the urban landscape, the authors walk their home city with eyes open to the possibility of seeing and experiencing the industrial city in different ways. This unique methodology, described as ‘urban tramping’, positions the authors as freethinking freewalkers of the city, encumbered only with the duty to look through the delusions of industrial capitalism towards its troubled, contradictory soul. These urban investigations were disrupted midway by COVID-19, a plague that ended up confirming the book’s central thesis of a fractured modernity vulnerable to various internal contradictions.
Author: Samuel Alexander
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 9811665303
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 184
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Book Description
As the crises of capitalism continue to intensify, radical thinkers must conjure realistic and inspirational alternative futures beyond this failing social order. This book presents a stimulating array of essays exploring such post-capitalist futures. With contributions and perspectives from the Global North and Global South, central topics include ecosocialism, ecofeminism, degrowth, community economies, and the Green New Deal. There are also chapters offering analyses of land, energy, technology, universal basic services, and (re)localisation of economies. The book is in three parts. The first presents various alternative paradigms for thinking about – and working toward – post-capitalist futures. The second section offers perspectives on alternative governance strategies and approaches for post-capitalist futures. The closing section gathers various analyses of post-capitalist geographies and resistance. Going beyond critique and instead envisioning alternative imaginaries, this collection should challenge and inspire readers to think and act upon the range of possibilities immanent in our crisis-ridden present.
Author:
Publisher: Greenhaven Publishing LLC
ISBN: 1534507825
Category : Young Adult Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 202
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Book Description
With the threat of climate change looming over the present, many consumers and companies have prioritized minimizing their environmental impact through making more sustainable choices. This volume examines the role that individual consumption plays in climate change, and how companies have attempted to become more sustainable and the effectiveness of these practices. Readers will evaluate whether countries and local municipalities should regulate consumption, and if it is even possible to change consumption practices enough to meaningfully impact climate change. Through reading opposing perspectives on these questions, readers will become better equipped to form their own intelligent opinions on these important issues.
Author: Ernest Garcia
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1349951765
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 285
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Book Description
This book deals with one of the most pressing social and environmental issues that we face today. The transition to a post-carbon society, in which the consumption of fossil fuels decreases over time, has become an inevitability due to the need to prevent catastrophic climate change, the increasing cost and scarcity of energy, and complex combinations of both of these factors. As the authors point out, this will not only entail political adjustments and the replacement of some technologies by others, but will be accompanied by social and cultural changes that bring about substantial modifications in our societies and ways of life. This book examines whether the current conditions, which date back to the crisis that began in 2007, favour a benign and smooth transition or will make it more difficult and prone to conflict. It argues that, even if this transformation is unavoidable, the directions it will take and the resulting social forms are much less certain. There will be many post-carbon societies, the authors conclude, and any number of routes to social change. Transitioning to a Post-Carbon Society therefore represents a significant contribution to global debates on the environment, and is vital reading for academics, policymakers, business leaders, NGOs and the general public alike.
Author: John Urry
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1780321716
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 232
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Book Description
What would a de-carbonised society be like? What are the implications of a general de-globalisation for our social futures? How will our high-carbon patterns of life be restructured in a de-energized world? As global society gradually wakes up to the new reality of peak oil, these questions remain unanswered. For the last hundred years oil made the world go round, and as we move into the century of 'tough oil' this book examines some profound consequences. It considers what societies would be like that are powering down; what lessons can be learned from the past about de-energized societies; will there be rationing systems or just the market to allocate scarce energy? Can virtual worlds solve energy problems? What levels of income and wellbeing would be likely? In this groundbreaking book, John Urry analyzes how the twentieth century created a kind of mirage of the future that is unsustainable into even the medium term and envisions the future of an oil-dependent world facing energy descent. Without a large-scale plan B, how can the energizing of society possibly be going into reverse?
Author: John Michael Greer
Publisher: New Society Publishers
ISBN: 155092396X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 240
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Book Description
The author of Dark Age America shares a harrowing vision of the future and what you can do to take action and make change. 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, however, there is a lurking fear that, now, the times are different, and the crisis may not easily be resolved. The Long Descent examines the basis of such fear through three core themes: Industrial society is following the same well-worn path that has led other 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 stories that shape the way we understand the world. Since problems cannot be solved with the same thinking that created 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” technology, 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. Praise for The Long Descent “At once erudite and entertaining, Greer’s exploration of the dynamics of societal collapse couldn’t be more timely.” —Richard Heinberg, Senior Fellow, Post Carbon Institute, and author of The Party’s Over and Peak Everything “Candidates for public office, and the voters who elect them, should be required to read [Greer’s] accurate diagnosis of the terminal illness our fossil-energy subsidized industrial civilization has too long denied. He shows how stubborn belief in perpetual progress blinded us to the abyss toward which we were speeding and thus impeded wise preparation for our unavoidable descent into a deindustrial age. We must hope that the array of mitigating tools he prescribes may yet render that descent down the back side of Hubbert’s peak less devastating than it will be if we insistently claim a right to be prodigal in using this finite Earth.” —Willam R. Catton, Jr., author of Overshoot: The Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change
