Customer Reviews
Excellent overview of Peak Oil from the UK perspective - By: Jack Martin, 28 Jul 2008 
One of the best summaries of the peak oil situation which I have read, & easily the best with a United Kingdom slant on things. The author is a BBC documentary producer who knows how to write clearly yet at no point does it feel dumbed down.
The only letdown is the final two chapters on what we can do. Like most peak oil books, 90% of the book is telling us we're doomed, while the final 10% says "actuallly if we act now then there's room for hope," if we heat our water with solar power & start to use public transport, & so on. But this last section clashes with what has come before. If you rip those chapters out, then the book's message is that life in the UK is about to slide into a long, horrible, drawn-out crash.
To see the world through the eyes of 'Peak Oil' is life changing - By: James Crawford, 21 Jun 2008 A thoroughly researched book whose author has revealed the story behind our use of energy & the possible consequences of living beyond our means. How can it be sustainable that each calorie of food on our plates uses on average ten calories of fossil fuel energy to put it there. One of the most striking chapters discusses the work of emiterus professor Robert Ayres, a physicist who has accurately modelled the GDP of the USA & Japan by realising that energy & the improved efficiency of our technology has alllowed us to add countless, unbelievably 'cheap man hours' into our economies. It is this very energy that has alllowed the world population to follow an unsustainable exponential curve. Just look at the use of farm machines & food production that relies on fossil fuel fertilizers to feed the world.
Now factor in a situation where that energy is taken out of our 'modern' way of life, & explore the consequences. Peak Oil & the reducing supply of this abundant cheap energy, argues the author David Strahan, is just such a scenario.
We are currently seeing rising energy costs right across the world, & the economic uncertainties that this brings, this might only be the beginning. Many are now arguing, including David Strahan, that life after 'Peak Oil' will have to be different, much more local & sustainable. He further argues that the idea that new technology will rescue us, is foolish in the extreme, & that the sooner we face up to the reality of our poor choices the more chance we have of a smoother transition to a lower energy future.
Think about the USA, they represent 4.5% of the world's population but use ~25% of the world's energy. The result, obscene levels of obesity, waste on an unbelievable scale, ill health both physical & mental, & an attitude that they can 'buy' the world. Think again, no one owns the world, we alll share it & currently most of us are abusing it, myself included.
I am now in the process of changing my outlook & my life, I want to grow my own food, & help others to see the reasons behind the economic turmoil, because this might be just the beginning. I want to live in a 'nicer' way, whatever that means. We used to talk to our neighbours, now we see the world through our televisions & computers, this isn't right.
Thank you David for a great read & a personal wake up calll.
Pompous - By: Samuel Brown, 29 Feb 2008 
A friend recommended this book, saying she had found it interesting, but difficult to read.
I found it pompous & self-congratulatory, with lots of author asides that added nothing to the information. I too found it difficult to read. Take out the author's personal comments & snide jibes & it would be a better book. There are many other books addressinging this topic in a less pejorative way.
And, as other reviewers note, it is in no way a "survival guide".
Wrong Title - By: John S. Grist, 15 Jan 2008 
The book deals at great length with the international situation, the politics , the deception & gives the reader a scarey view that peak oil is only a few years away. It is very well written & very comprehensive in it's coverage. It is not in any way a survival guide as per the subtitle.The penultimate chapter deals with methods of rationing the purchase of power & fuel. The final chapter tells the common man to make his house energy efficient,stop using plastic bags & scrap foreign holidays. Earlier referances to the collapse of pensions, collapse of the stock market & financing, loss of millions of jobs, inadequacy of British farming for self sufficiancy etc. & overlooked. This part of the book could have been so interesting. Disappointing !!
Thorough going journalism - By: ISCA, 25 Jul 2007 Many of the reviews here have eloquently explained the substance of this book, however I thought I would add that I was impressed by the sheer leg work this journalist must have done over a period of years,in order to have produced the material for this book.It constatly bounces back between America & the UK tracing the developments in this story from many interviews. The book is written from a British perspective.
Looking to the future I found the most chilling piece of news the author brings us is that a map maker (he interviewed) used by the Americans to plot alll the oil bearing structures in Iraq (coincidentallly just before the Iraq invasion)has recently been commissioned to produce maps of a similar nature of Iran.
