AltWeeklies Wire » Books » Nonfiction

Running On Empty

By Nikki Davis
Columbus Alive | September 8, 2005
SUV owners have gotten a bad rap, but not in the way you think. While the drivers of Expeditions, Escalades and other such land barges casually weather the storm of environmentalist fist-shaking, there are actually more of “us” than them. In a sobering and timely update of his 2003 book, The Party’s Over: Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies (New Society), Richard Heinberg calmly (re-)emphasizes that the imminent depletion of worldwide oil reserves has a direct correlation to the consumer in us all.

Informed by the controversial theory known as Hubbert’s Peak, in which the late geophysicist Marion King Hubbert predicted that overall oil production in the U.S. would fall off in the late ’60s to early ’70s, Heinberg goes one step further. In an exhaustively researched tour de force ranging from refresher courses in the natural and geological sciences to modern-day cultural criticism, Heinberg’s analysis is often downright depressing (though virtually unassailable).

As a core faculty member at the New College of California and author of several award-winning books on energy resources, it’s clear that Heinberg has made his case before. Let’s just hope that we take note before another long national emergency.
Tags: Richard Heinberg, Peak theory, The Party's Over

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