- 298 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub
About this book
"A robustly researched and smoothly written overview of the many challenges confronting our devotion to fossil fuels" from the author of
Tar Sands (
Quill & Quire).
Ā
Ancient civilizations relied on shackled human muscle. It took the energy of slaves to plant crops, clothe emperors, and build cities. Nineteenth-century slaveholders viewed critics as hostilely as oil companies and governments now regard environmentalists. Yet the abolition movement had an invisible ally: coal and oil. As the world's most versatile workers, fossil fuels replenished slavery's ranks with combustion engines and other labor-saving tools. Since then, cheap oil has transformed politics, economics, science, agriculture, and even our concept of happiness. Many North Americans today live as extravagantly as Caribbean plantation owners. We feel entitled to surplus energy and rationalize inequality, even barbarity, to get it. But endless growth is an illusion.
Ā
In this provocative book, Andrew Nikiforuk, winner of the Rachel Carson Environment Book Award, argues that what we need is a radical emancipation movement that ends our master-and-slave approach to energy. We must learn to use energy on a moral, just, and truly human scale.
Ā
Published in Partnership with the David Suzuki Institute
Ā
"In his cautionary tale about the evils of oilĀ .Ā .Ā . Nikiforuk makes his case for impending doom if we don't mend our energy-spending ways." ā The Star
Ā
"In this cogently argued book, Andrew Nikiforuk deploys a powerful metaphor. Oil dependency, he writes, is a modern form of slaveryāand it's time for a global abolition movement." āTaras Grescoe, author of Shanghai Grand
Ā
"A startling critique that should rouse us from our pipe dream of endless plenty." āRonald Wright, author of On Fiji Islands
Ā
Ancient civilizations relied on shackled human muscle. It took the energy of slaves to plant crops, clothe emperors, and build cities. Nineteenth-century slaveholders viewed critics as hostilely as oil companies and governments now regard environmentalists. Yet the abolition movement had an invisible ally: coal and oil. As the world's most versatile workers, fossil fuels replenished slavery's ranks with combustion engines and other labor-saving tools. Since then, cheap oil has transformed politics, economics, science, agriculture, and even our concept of happiness. Many North Americans today live as extravagantly as Caribbean plantation owners. We feel entitled to surplus energy and rationalize inequality, even barbarity, to get it. But endless growth is an illusion.
Ā
In this provocative book, Andrew Nikiforuk, winner of the Rachel Carson Environment Book Award, argues that what we need is a radical emancipation movement that ends our master-and-slave approach to energy. We must learn to use energy on a moral, just, and truly human scale.
Ā
Published in Partnership with the David Suzuki Institute
Ā
"In his cautionary tale about the evils of oilĀ .Ā .Ā . Nikiforuk makes his case for impending doom if we don't mend our energy-spending ways." ā The Star
Ā
"In this cogently argued book, Andrew Nikiforuk deploys a powerful metaphor. Oil dependency, he writes, is a modern form of slaveryāand it's time for a global abolition movement." āTaras Grescoe, author of Shanghai Grand
Ā
"A startling critique that should rouse us from our pipe dream of endless plenty." āRonald Wright, author of On Fiji Islands
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Please note we cannot support devices running on iOS 13 and Android 7 or earlier. Learn more about using the app.
Yes, you can access The Energy of Slaves by Andrew Nikiforuk in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Economics & Environmental Economics. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.
Information
Table of contents
- Cover
- Title
- Contents
- Dedication
- Prologue
- 1. The Energy of Slaves
- 2. Slaves to Energy
- 3. The Oil Pioneer
- 4. The New Servitude
- 5. The Unsettling of Agriculture
- 6. The Viagra of the Species
- 7. The Urban Fire
- 8. The Economistās Delusion
- 9. Peak Science
- 10. The Petrostate
- 11. The Surplus Devolution
- 12. Oil and Happiness
- 13. Japan and the Fragility of the Petroleum Age
- Epilogue
- Sources
- Acknowledgments
- Index
- The David Suzuki Foundation
- Copyright