Commentary/Book & Movie Reviews

Reinventing Collapse
The Soviet Example and American Prospects

A Dry Dipstick Book Review

Author: Dmitry Orlov
176 pages
ISBN 0865716064
2008, New Society Publishers

Buy It Now!

Well, first of all, it's funny. Really. I don't mean it's filled with jokes, but Dmitry Orlov has a very humorous and biting style. This humorous approach serves two important purposes:

1. It makes the book enjoyable to read.
2. It helps the reader develop a certain healthy detachment from the subject matter. If you can see the humor in the situation, it can lessen the melodrama of the Cold War in the past, and the collapse of both the Soviet Union (past) and its mirror twin the United States (very current).

Orlov observes that the citizens of both the U.S. and the S.U. were targets of marketing campaigns that successfully developed intense brand loyalty. In each country, it was forbidden (either legally or through intense peer pressure) to advocate for the other brand. The U.S. was for capitalists (Yes, we're #1), and the S.U. for communists (Da, we're #1), and never the twain shall meet.

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Post Carbon Cities:
Planning for Energy and Climate Uncertainty

A Guidebook on Peak Oil and Global Warming for Local Governments

A Dry Dipstick Book Review

Author: Daniel Lerch
100 pages
ISBN 0-9767510-5-4
2008, Post Carbon Press

Buy It Now!

When I read this book, I was impressed with the attractive layout, the clarity of writing, and the quality of the information it contained. However, I felt it was a bit too basic, too simplistic. While it was a good introduction to the problems of Peak Oil and climate change that are facing communities, I felt it didn't provide the depth of detail necessary for towns to deal with the multitude of effects we can likely expect. In short, I felt it wasn't enough for what is needed.

Then reality straightened me out.

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World Made by Hand - a Novel

A Dry Dipstick Book Review

Author: James Howard Kunstler
336 pages
ISBN: 0-87113-978-2
2008, Atlantic Monthly Press
www.worldmadebyhand.com
Buy the book

This book could more precisely, but less poetically, be named "World Made by Kunstler". Author and Peak Oil commentator James Howard Kunstler has written a novel that brings to life a community and world that Kunstler himself has created. It's not just any creation, however, because what he has created is informed by his many years of study of our society, its built environment, and the Peak Oil threat.

As a novel it's entertaining and interesting. As a demonstration of Kunstler's vision for the post-Peak Oil future, it's vivid and compelling. Kunstler imagines a world where all systems have broken down because of Peak Oil, climate change, economic collapse, apparent nuclear war—a number of U.S. cities are gone—and, of course, famine and pestilence. In short, it's a world ravaged by the Four Horsemen and a bunch of their close friends.

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After the Peak - The End of Cheap Oil

A Dry Dipstick Movie Review
by Mick Winter

27 minute DVD
Filmmaker: Jim McQuaid
www.afterthepeak.com
Buy the DVD

After the Peak is a mock-TV news program. It's presented as if live from a local television station in North Carolina, with anchors in the studio reporting and talking to reporters in the field. And, yes, there's even the obligatory sports guy.

The time is "one year from today". Worldwide oil production has peaked and is declining. It's still early in the Peak Oil saga with gasoline usually available, but prices are going up. Oil is now $195 a barrel and prices at the pump average $10.29 a gallon, seriously affecting people's lives, their businesses and their commutes.

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Monbiot on the Biofuel Fantasy

George Monbiot in the Guardian has written what I consider the best, and most accessible, summary of the biofuel fantasy. Read his article: Apart from used chip fat, there is no such thing as a sustainable biofuel.

The Circle is Closed - The End of Suburbia's Beginner

In a little noticed news item, it was reported on November 11th ("Levitt and Sons files Chapter 11") that Levitt and Sons, a builder in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, had filed for bankruptcy under Chapter 11 on November 9th.

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There's a Choo-Choo Train A-Comin'

There's a train speeding toward me. Toward all of us, actually. I'm aware of the train. A number of people are. Far more people aren't. But it is coming, regardless of awareness or non-awareness.

I can see it coming. So how do I deal with this approaching train? I have a comfortable chair and a computer and I sit in the middle of the tracks with a cup of coffee and I read about the speeding train.

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What a Way to Go -
Life at the End of Empire

A DryDipstick Movie Review

Documentary - 123-minute DVD
What a Way To Go DVD

A two-hour poem of great power and beauty. The story of a personal journey; yet a journey that is also deeply universal. As humanity rushes towards a nexus of catastrophe, is there a world beyond denial and despair? The film suggests the possibility.

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