The Kaminski Archive
- TRANSPORT REVOLUTIONS: Moving People and Freight without Oil
- "TRANSPORT REVOLUTIONS presents an ambitious vision of a world, 15 years from now, that is well on its way to kicking oil and being run on renewably produced electricity," writes Frank Kaminiski. "The book's authors, internationally recognized transport policy experts Richard Gilbert and Anthony Perl, readily acknowledge the enormity of this challenge, with transport worldwide currently 95 percent dependent on oil. They have no illusions that the transition would be painless. But they nonetheless insist that it could be done."
- SOUND TRUTH & CORPORATE MYTH$: The Legacy of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill
- "As dire as the Deepwater Horizon spill is already, its harm could be magnified still further by a bungled or ill-considered cleanup response. That's exactly what happened with the Exxon Valdez argues marine biologist and oil spill activist Riki Ott, who has been aptly called the Erin Brockovich of that earlier disaster. Ott has written two books showing how gross misconduct on the part of Exxon (now Exxon Mobil Corp.) in the wake of Valdez created a secondary disaster that was just as damaging as the first one. These books, titled NOT ONE DROP and SOUND TRUTH & CORPORATE MYTH$, exhaustively document how Exxon's actions compounded the oil's harm and destroyed the health of thousands of cleanup workers."
- THRIVING BEYOND SUSTAINABILITY
- "The more research you do into the subject of sustainability, the more you realize that talking about sustainability is like talking about matter. It's so wide-ranging, multifaceted and pervasive a topic that it's hard even to know where to begin" writes Frank Kaminski. "Given what a sweeping category sustainability is, author and noted sustainability expert Andrés Edwards is to be commended for distilling it down into two easily digestible volumes for lay readers: THE SUSTAINABILITY REVOLUTION and THRIVING BEYOND SUSTAINABILITY." Kaminski reviews the second of these titles here.
- THE BIOCHAR DEBATE: Charcol's Potential to Reverse Climate Change and Build Soil Fertility
- "It's called biochar, and if you believe its most ardent supporters, then this unassuming, fine black powder is a vital tool in the solutions to some of humanity's most urgent ecological threats, including climate change, peak oil, soil degradation and water pollution due to agrochemicals. However, if you side with biochar's staunch opponents, then it seems like a fledgling, poorly understood technology with real risks, including the displacement of entire communities and the serious jeopardizing of world food security and biodiversity. Which view is correct? That's the question that sustainability expert James Bruges, who is cautiously optimistic about biochar, investigates in his book THE BIOCHAR DEBATE."
- ANOTHER POST-OIL-NOVEL ROUNDUP
- Frank Kaminski reviews two new post-oil novels, Robert Charles Wilson's JULIAN COMSTOCK and Holly Jean Buck's CROSSING THE BLUE.
- WHY YOUR WORLD IS ABOUT TO GET A WHOLE LOT SMALLER
- "Jeff Rubin, former chief economist at Canadian investment bank CIBC World Markets, is not your typical economist," writes Frank Kaminski. "He gets peak oil. As far back as 2000, when public awareness of the issue was essentially nil, he was among the first economists to accurately predict the surge in crude prices that would ensue several years later. And now, in his bestselling book WHY YOUR WORLD IS ABOUT TO GET A WHOLE LOT SMALLER, he argues that oil prices, temporarily dampened by the deepest post-war recession on record, will soon be vaulted to new highs as the economy begins to recover, which in turn will thrust the world into yet another recession right on the heels of this one."
- THE AMERICAN WEST AT RISK: Science, Myths, and Politics of Land Abuse and Recovery
- "Several weeks back, while reading this important, prodigiously researched book from Oxford University Press on America's endangered Western lands," writes Frank Kaminski, "I caught part of an interview on NPR that caused me to shake my head with chagrin. The interviewee was one of those "transhumanist" apostles; and, without a trace of irony, he described future technologies that he believes will allow us to save our minds like computer files and download them into new bodies–thus making ourselves exempt from mortality, the indignity of aging and other pesky earthly inconveniences. This unapologetic über-techno-optimism couldn't possibly have been more at odds with the sober, sensible views expressed in THE AMERICAN WEST AT RISK."
- THE ECOTECHNIC FUTURE: Envisioning a Post-Peak World
- "John Michael Greer has officially established himself as an institution within the peak oil community," writes Frank Kaminski in his review of Greer's latest book THE ECOTECHNIC FUTURE. "Truly one of the finest minds working on the predicament of modern-day industrial civilization, he is so well-read in so many fields that he regularly gains access to insights that utterly elude his contemporaries. For this he is treasured by a growing number of loyal readers–and, I suspect, hated by equally many fellow bloggers who wish that they could be half as good."
- POWER FROM THE SUN
- "For the average home- or small business-owner looking to purchase a solar PV array," writes Frank Kaminski, "there is much homework to be done–and truly good textbooks, amid the cacophony of voices on the subject, are a real find. Thankfully, POWER FROM THE SUN, the latest offering from green building guru Dan Chiras, is just such a book."
- BLACKOUT
- "Richard Heinberg's new book BLACKOUT tries to demolish current assumptions about the world's remaining coal endowment: namely, that it is immense beyond belief, barely tapped and will last for centuries to come. Heinberg argues that these assumptions are off-base, misleading and not at all supported by recent studies that suggest global coal production could peak in less than two decades. He warns that an impending shortage of minable coal threatens to plunge our civilization into one final, irreversible blackout unless we act wisely."
- THREE NOVELS: PRAIRIE FIRE, TAMING THE DRAGON, and THE CARHULLAN ARMY
- Frank Kaminski takes an in depth look a two novels by Mud City Press' Dan Armstrong, PRAIRIE FIRE and TAMING THE DRAGON, and one by Sarah Hall, THE CARHULLAN ARMY. "I like Armstrong's two novels a lot," writes Kaminski. "Set concurrently in the near future, but on opposite sides of the globe, they tell two halves of the same story. It's a complex, sharply written, melodramatic suspense yarn that manages to be at once as entertaining as any kind of Jason Bourne/Ethan Hunt adventure and as serious a treatment of today's issues as an exposé by Upton Sinclair."
- TAR SANDS
- "If you've been following energy news with a discerning eye," writes Frank Kaminski, "then you already know better than to buy into all the hype about the Canadian tar sands. Far from being a panacea for declining supplies of conventional oil, the sands could never contribute more than a proverbial drop in the bucket to daily world oil production. And even achieving this modest rate of production would require such staggering quantities of water, natural gas and boreal forestland as to leave Alberta resembling "a third-rate golf course in the Sudan" before the bulk of the sands' 175 billion barrels had ever been produced. The Sudanese-golf-course quote comes from Andrew Nikiforuk's new book TAR SANDS, a powerful, eloquent litany of horrors associated with North America's frenzied dash toward tar sands bitumen as its next fuel of choice."
- FUTURE SCENARIOS: How Communities Can Adapt to Peak Oil and Climate Change
- "In this short, crisp, well-reasoned book, writer and activist David Holmgren contemplates the possible futures that may lie ahead of us as the threats of climate change and oil depletion grow ever more acute."
- CULTURE CHANGE: Civil Liberty, Peak Oil, and the End of Empire
- "With superb insight, wisdom and erudition–one is almost tempted to say omniscience–Alexis Zeigler's CULTURE CHANGE charts an ambitious course for the future of our civilization. The book calls for a revolution to bring about what Zeigler terms a 'conscious culture' capable of responding intelligently to our ecological crisis." Once again, Frank Kaminski uses his keen eye for topical books and spot on literary analysis to give us a thoughtful and valuable book review.
- NOT ONE DROP: Betrayal and Courage in the Wake of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill
- "Riki Ott's book NOT ONE DROP is a history of the Exxon Valdez oil spill, told from the perspective of those most affected by it. Cutting through the cloak of willful deception, public relations campaigns and skewed, corporate-sponsored science, it finally exposes the truth about Exxon Valdez's devastating effects on the city of Cordova, Alaska, the fishing community where the spill struck," writes Frank Kaminiski in the opeing to this excellent and insightful review of Riki Ott's book on the Exxon Valdez Oil spill.
- RHETORIC FOR RADICALS: A Handbook Tor Twenty-First Century Activists
- "Radical activists are in the midst of a crisis. They have important messages to share, but they don't do nearly a good enough job of communicating those messages to the general public. And their messages and actions too easily fall victim to the distortions of skewed, corporate mass media and the remonstrations of political pundits. In short, radical activists find themselves in a rhetorical crisis–one that urgently needs to be addressed if they are to have any chance of changing the world. That's the assessment of Jason Del Gandio," writes Frank Kaminiski in his review of Gandio's RHETORIC FOR RADICALS.
- THE POST-OIL NOVEL: A Celebration!
- Frank Kaminski reviews four post-petroleum novels. "Novels that deal with the collapse of our oil-based civilization undoubtedly belong under the heading of speculative fiction–and some even qualify as outright science fiction. But even so, there's an inescapable irony to their being categorized as such. This is because, by and large, speculative fiction is an optimistic genre. It celebrates technological progress and often tacitly assumes a near-endless supply of both energy and human ingenuity. Peak oil, in contrast, casts a ruthlessly critical eye on technological progress, human ingenuity, and alternative energy sources. Indeed, it considers the entire technological age to be nothing more than a charade, enabled by the reckless over-consumption of nonrenewable energy resources."
- THE POST-OIL NOVEL REVISITED!
- Frank Kaminski takes a look at another post-oil novel, ILL WIND (Tor Books, 1995) by Kevin J. Anderson and Doug Beason. "Unlike the other post-oil novels published so far," writes Kaminksi, "ILL WIND isn't about peak oil. In those other novels, oil has gradually dribbled away while we've steadfastly ignored the warning signs. But in ILL WIND, the world's oil vanishes suddenly after some bizarre, experimental oil-eating microbe is unleashed on a massive tanker spill, and then runs amok. What ILL WIND and those other novels do have in common, however, is that they imagine a future world without oil."
- THE LONG DESCENT: A User's Guide to the End of the Industrial Age
- "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," writes Frank Kaminski. "Greer's searingly perceptive blog entries on peak oil, which for the past several years have enjoyed a robust online following, have now been incorporated into a single bound volume from New Society Publishers titled THE LONG DESCENT."
- DEPLETION AND ABUNDANCE : Life on the New Home Front
- "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 that she offers in DEPLETION AND ABUNDANCE is both uncommon and vital."
- TWO REVIEWS: PLAN C: Community Survival Strategies for Peak Oil and Climate Change and SMALL IS POSSIBLE: Life in a Local Economy
- Frank Kaminski review two books, PLAN C and SMALL IS POSSIBLE, in this selection from the Energy Bulletin.
- CRASH COURSE: Preparing for Peak Oil
- "We need to be prepared for the worst when it comes to peak oil, insists Zachary Nowak. Just as homeowners pay hefty insurance premiums in exchange for a promise of help in the unlikely event of a fire, so, too, should peak oil believers be developing their own sort of insurance policy against the worst imaginable consequences of peak oil."
- WORLD MADE BY HAND (A Novel)
- Frank Kaminski has done us all a service by adding the post-oil novel to his review of books that take on the subject of peak oil. In this case, it's James Howard Kunstler's novel WORLD MADE BY HAND.
- THE BETTER WORLD SHOPPING GUIDE (2nd Edition): Every Dollar Makes a Difference
- "'[This] book has been purposefully made small so that you can keep it with you in your purse, backpack, briefcase, or pocket…Whatever you do, don't put it on a shelf!' That's author Ellis Jones' advice regarding his latest edition of THE BETTER WORLD SHOPPING GUIDE, a handy, pocket-sized reference book intended to help shoppers make socially and environmentally responsible purchasing choices."