Beyond Oil: The Threat to Food and Fuel in the Coming Decades

From the back cover of the 1991 edition: "If we don't take seriously books like 'Beyond Oil', we shall some day have a hard time explaining to our children what went wrong." - Richard D. Lamm, governor of Colorado 1975-1986 "We need books like 'Beyond Oil', which lay out in a solid and unemotional way the information needed to begin planning a permanent and truly regenerative future." - the late Robert Rodale, founder of Rodale Press and godfather of organic farming The belief that the United States can increase its per-capita material standard of living and its population ad infinitum is a myth that arose from more than a century of economic success. Though U.S. material wealth has increased tremendously, it was created by the extensive depletion or degradation of nonrenewable and ecological resources, a process which is accelerating. _Beyond Oil_ asserts that the link between resources, energy use and economic activity is far stronger and quite different than most experts believe, and that dependence of vanishing resources implies that either the population or per-capita material standard of living must stabilize, or both. The most thorough blueprint available for our energy future, _Beyond Oil_ is the result of one of the most ambitious computerized assessments of future U.S. energy supplies ever conducted. This study incorporates thousands of geological, social and economic statistics to project probable energy, economic and agricultural outcomes well into the next century. Many divergent opinions from opposing experts give the reader a wide overview of energy supplies and a basis from which to evaluate _Beyond Oil_'s remarkable findings.