Product Description
An internationally renowned energy expert has written a book essential for every American–a galvanizing account of how the rising price and diminishing availability of oil are going to radically change our lives. Why Your World Is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller is a powerful and provocative book that explores what the new global economy will look like and what it will mean for all of us.
In a compelling and accessible style, Jeff Rubin reveals that despite the recent recessionary dip, oil prices will skyrocket again once the economy recovers. The fact is, worldwide oil reserves are disappearing for good. Consequently, the amount of food and other goods we get from abroad will be curtailed; long-distance driving will become a luxury and international travel rare. Globalization as we know it will reverse. The near future will be a time that, in its physical limits, may resemble the distant past.
But Why Your World Is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller is a hopeful work about how we can benefit–personally, politically, and economically–from this new reality. American industries such as steel and agriculture, for instance, will be revitalized. As well, Rubin prescribes priorities for President Obama and other leaders, from imposing carbon tariffs that will increase competition and productivity, to investing in mass transit instead of car-clogged highways, to forging “green” alliances between labor and management that will be good for both business and the air we breathe.
Most passionately, Rubin recommends ways every citizen can secure this better life for himself, actions that will end our enslavement to chain-store taste and strengthen our communities and timeless human values.
Product Features
For anyone interested in climate change, Jeff Rubin’s book is a must read. Although he writes as an economist, his focus is really from an environmentalist’s lens. Mr. Rubin’s provides numerous real-life examples of the precariousness of dwindling oil – “Take away our oil and we are all vulnerable”. At the same time however he recognizes the opportunities that present themselves by “adapting to the realities of a new, smaller world”. A smaller world forced to conserve and change its energy footprint, might provide some breathing room from the ravages of green house gases on the environment. At the very least, the challenges which are so clearly laid in out in this powerful book will force society-its leaders, scientists and other intellectuals to supply a new set of answers. The demand has never been higher for imaginative solutions. Read this book.
An excellent insight from Jeff Rubin. He understands what we face, including a return to local economies due to the future exorbitant costs of fossil-fuel energy. The problem, of course, will be the transition period from global to local economies, a transition eased if we start taking the necessary steps now. In light of the hemorrhaging of middle-income jobs over the past 20+ years, local economies represent one of the few alternatives remaining for a fully functioning economy. See the http://www.the-small-r.com for more information.
I’ve been following the world oil reports for some time, and I thought this book did a neat job of tying the current objective information into one coherent summary..as to whether the Author’s projections of the future play out it is impossible to tell.The unintended or unexpected consequences of world oil actions are nearer than we may suppose.
Jeff Rubin gets right to it on page 1, declaring that the global financial meltdown of 2008 had as much to do with $150 oil as it did with bad mortgages. I was waiting for somebody to say what I suspected was true. And Rubin delivers, continuing, that we are at a turning point in modern society. In 2008, we passed over the peak of the age of cheap energy. From here on out, energy, especially oil is going to be harder to get out of the ground, and we may never produce much more than we did last year.
Furthermore, he warns that the world has two choices in the next few years. Either transition our society to less energy-intensive, more localized communities; or keep banging our collective heads against the wall of this rapidly depleting resource and face recession after recession each time supply fails to meet demand.
Two years ago, he was right in predicting when $100 oil would happen. And it appears this book may be right just weeks after being published, with the supposed “green shoots” of economic recovery triggering a doubling in the price of oil in the first half of 2009. The book predicts we’ll soon be back in the triple digits. Maybe even $200 a barrel and $7/gallon.
I was very impressed with the book because:
A) An economist acknowledged what most economists don’t; that resources are limited – and so is economic growth
B) He presents us with hope that a smaller (less energy-intensive) world may actually be a happier world
I’m eager to see what else Rubin may have to say about this in the coming years.
The author is right on the money. His prediction about the future of our oil are based on activities happening now and veiw it in the future. Great book.