Review: Peak Everything: Waking Up to the Century of Declines
5 Star, Consciousness & Social IQ, Culture, Research, Economics, Environment (Problems), Environment (Solutions), Water, Energy, Oil, ScarcityI was tempted to limit this book to four stars because it fails to properly recognize, among many others, Buckminster Fuller, e.g. his Critical Path and it provides only passing reference to such foundation works as Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update and Human Scale, but place it at five stars for two reasons: 1) excessive negativity by other reviewers; and 2) a superb primer for the public ready to get past Al Gore's hysteria, the venom surrounding The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World, and connect in a very easy to read and understanding elementary counterpoint to The Resilient Earth: Science, Global Warming and the Fate of Humanity.
Another important reason for attending to this book and respecting its author, apart from him many prior works including the globally recognized The Party's Over: Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies, is the endorsement of two of the top ten (in our view) in this arena, Lester Brown (Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization (Substantially Revised)), and Bill McKibben (Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future).
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Review: Global Ethics–Seminal Essays
4 Star, Consciousness & Social IQ, Education (General), Philosophy, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution1) A heroic work that carefully selected important essays on global ethics from the past 40 years (the book itself, Australian in origin, is published for the first time in 2008).
2) Part of a Paragon Series on Philosphy that is utterly mind-boggling–if only they would make it digital and provide some visualization tools and navigation tools, they could be on to something HUGE.
3) The editors make a very substantive case to the effect that poverty is the central ethical issue of our time. This corresponds to the United Nations High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges, and Opportunities, whose report, A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility–Report of the Secretary-General's High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change, concluded that poverty was the greatest threat to humanity, easily rising above infectious disease, environmental degradation, inter-state conflict, civil war, genocide, other atrocities, proliferation, terrorism, and crime.
Other aspects of this book that captured my attention and tie in elsewhere:
Review: Soft Despotism, Democracy’s Drift: Montesquieu, Rousseau, Tocqueville, and the Modern Prospect
5 Star, Civil Society, Congress (Failure, Reform), Culture, Research, Democracy, Economics, Education (General), Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Justice (Failure, Reform), Power (Pathologies & Utilization)As other reviewers have noted, this is not for the lay person or even the average Libertarian, for whom I would like to see (and would benefit myself) a pamphlet or article version. This is erudition in its highest form, offering a painstakingly devised integration and application of the works of three author's to the question: “what is the ideal state of unfettered democracy, and where does the USA stand in that regard?”
The book begins with an utterly devastating full page quote from Tocqueville in which I underline the words “petty and vulgar pleasures,” “elevated an immense, tutelary power,” “a network of petty regulations,” and “it does not destroy, it prevents things from being born.”
Published in 2009 this book is totally current with our recent financial collapse based on Congressional failures of integrity combined with Wall Street moral hazard and bad judgment, and the author notes that as of 2008 25% or more of US citizens were not happy with the state of America or its government. I believe a more telling statistic is the migration of over 44% of the population away from the two-party tyranny and toward declared Independent status. See also:
Review: The Design of Business–Why Design Thinking is the Next Competitive Advantage
6 Star Top 10%, Best Practices in Management, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Change & Innovation, Complexity & Resilience, Culture, Research, Economics, Education (Universities), Environment (Solutions), Future, Intelligence (Commercial), Intelligence (Government/Secret), Intelligence (Public), Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Philosophy, Public Administration, Strategy, True Cost & Toxicity, Values, Ethics, Sustainable EvolutionReview: The War After Armagedoon
5 Star, Atrocities & Genocide, Culture, Research, Force Structure (Military), Impeachment & Treason, Intelligence (Government/Secret), Military & Pentagon Power, Misinformation & Propaganda, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Religion & Politics of ReligionThe non-fiction foundations or complements to this book are American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America and Endgame: The Blueprint for Victory in the War on Terror.
In a nut-shell, this a marvelous depiction of what happens in the future when enemies of the USA plant two small nuclear devices in Los Angeles and Las Vegas, leading to a nation-wide call to arms with crusade overtones.
Review: Green Intelligence: Creating Environments that Protect Human Health
5 Star, Environment (Problems), Environment (Solutions)Among the books I recommend (and have reviewed) for more detailed insights:
Pandora's Poison: Chlorine, Health, and a New Environmental Strategy
High Tech Trash: Digital Devices, Hidden Toxics, and Human Health
Exposed: The Toxic Chemistry of Everyday Products and What's at Stake for American Power
The Blue Death: The Intriguing Past and Present Danger of the Water You Drink
Blue Frontier: Dispatches from America's Ocean Wilderness
The Next Catastrophe: Reducing Our Vulnerabilities to Natural, Industrial, and Terrorist Disasters
Big-Box Swindle: The True Cost of Mega-Retailers and the Fight for America's Ind
Ecological Economics: Principles And Applications
This book would normally have been a four on the substnace of the five domains, especially if one is looking for more in-depth appreciations, but I found the Notes and the Index satisfactory, and the intelligence-information perspective that this author makes a special effort to address carries the book most easily to a solid five.
Highlights from my fly-leaf notes:
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