Life without Oil

This title provides a timely and intelligent look at how we can plan for a future without a dependence on oil and other fossil fuels. We have spent the last 200 years building a civilization on coal, and the last century building it bigger still on oil. Fossil fuels have been the wellspring of our complex, glorious modern world, but they are about to run out. And in order to survive, we must plan for a future without reliance on oil. But successful planning depends on a realistic assessment of our current situation, a deeper appreciation of limitations placed on our civilization and its growth by the natural world and its resources, and the development of renewable and sustainable energy sources. Timely and sobering, yet hopeful, this volume offers a realistic vision of the near future and the many important lessons about the limitations of our resources we desperately need to learn.