I picked up The Last Oil Shock while I was on a bookshop spree in Newtown. A pang of conscience wouldn’t let me leave the book on the shelf when I had already collected an armful of other fun stuff.

There is, within these pages, some scary, scary stuff. The Last Oil Shock is what happens when the next big oil shortage happens, courtesy of Peak Oil. Peak Oil is the idea that, as a combination of increasing demand and a depletion of available resources, oil production no longer exceeds demand, and suddenly we’ve got a big problem on our hands due to our incredible reliance on oil.

The author (David Strahan, long-time journalist) is clever in leaving the real apocalyptic potential of Peak Oil just at the outside edge of what he’s talking about. The metrics on worldwide consumption (in the millions of barrels per day) are really, really scary.

I’ve talked to friends about Peak Oil, and the rejoinder has always been that there will always be more oil, or technology to create oil from other mechanisms. The Last Oil Shock doesn’t dispute this, but points at the fundamental flaw underpinning that logic: no other technology can produce energy as fast as drilling oil out of the ground. So, there are changes ahead.

It took me six weeks to read this damned thing because, despite the really easygoing tone of the author, it’s often a trudge through a lot of (necessary) figures and projections. When you’re cramming a bunch of technical information for work, Harry Potter becomes a much smoother choice for the off hours.

The first section I read through, and the part that makes the book pay for itself, is the section on what to do to protect yourself. Most of what’s in there makes sense, and even if you don’t buy into Peak Oil, it’s worth doing from an environmental point of view. The bleaker projections put the date for Peak Oil somewhere in the next six to eight years, which is more than enough time to make some necessary changes that will save you money either way. And if you don’t buy into Peak Oil, it keys you in on what the Dirty Hippies are saying! Rebuttal food!

Highly recommended! Scary stuff, but worthwhile. READ IT! (and if you do read it and still disagree, let me know why!)

I picked up The Last Oil Shock while I was on a bookshop spree in Newtown. A pang of conscience wouldn’t let me leave the book on the shelf when I had already collected an armful of other fun stuff.

There is, within these pages, some scary, scary stuff. The Last Oil Shock is what happens when the next big oil shortage happens, courtesy of Peak Oil. Peak Oil is the idea that, as a combination of increasing demand and a depletion of available resources, oil production no longer exceeds demand, and suddenly we’ve got a big problem on our hands due to our incredible reliance on oil.

The author (David Strahan, long-time journalist) is clever in leaving the real apocalyptic potential of Peak Oil just at the outside edge of what he’s talking about. The metrics on worldwide consumption (in the millions of barrels per day) are really, really scary.

I’ve talked to friends about Peak Oil, and the rejoinder has always been that there will always be more oil, or technology to create oil from other mechanisms. The Last Oil Shock doesn’t dispute this, but points at the fundamental flaw underpinning that logic: no other technology can produce energy as fast as drilling oil out of the ground. So, there are changes ahead.

It took me six weeks to read this damned thing because, despite the really easygoing tone of the author, it’s often a trudge through a lot of (necessary) figures and projections. When you’re cramming a bunch of technical information for work, Harry Potter becomes a much smoother choice for the off hours.

The first section I read through, and the part that makes the book pay for itself, is the section on what to do to protect yourself. Most of what’s in there makes sense, and even if you don’t buy into Peak Oil, it’s worth doing from an environmental point of view. The bleaker projections put the date for Peak Oil somewhere in the next six to eight years, which is more than enough time to make some necessary changes that will save you money either way. And if you don’t buy into Peak Oil, it keys you in on what the Dirty Hippies are saying! Rebuttal food!

Highly recommended! Scary stuff, but worthwhile. READ IT! (and if you do read it and still disagree, let me know why!)

Gorgeous, gorgeous book. The author kept pulling my heartstrings in a certain direction, and I was glad to see that what I wanted to happen panned out.

Very touching book about, well, just life, if you’ll forgive the cliche.

Knocked it over in a day while I had the flu. Very rewarding!

Not as good as I’d hoped.

I could have done without the countless references to the author in the book. Maybe if I’d been reading Coupland for years I’d be part of the cult, but it was all too smug. I wanted more of the “management are nuts” stuff, less jet-setting to everywhere on Kam’s behest.

I might have dug the puzzles more if I wasn’t sick with the flu. As it was, they just ended up being a LOT of pages to turn through. Maybe I have to hand in my nerd points.

Is Microserfs better, Coupland fans, or more of the same?

Great album – very punchy, very cool. They only really lost me during the Irish folky part, but the rest was awesome. Thanks to this and Get Behind Me Satan combined, I’m going to go check out Elephant next.

All in all, I probably dug this a little more than Get Behind Me Satan – a little less polished, a little more brassy.

Great album, great message, but I’m now at the point where I must give Tori a break from the playlist.

Great album, great message, but I’m now at the point where I must give Tori a break from the playlist

The world has moved on…

I love that concept, and that phrase in The Dark Tower – there’s this beautiful, melancholy lyricism that stays on in part from the first book, and that phrase is almost a mantra, a refrain for everything that has been lost, fallen behind in Roland’s world.

The other thing I love about the series is Roland. He’s a hollow man – scooped empty of everything but one purpose – something that he’s just wired to do. Find the Dark Tower. Everything else goes by the wayside. He’s an old, bitter killer. David Gemmell had a similar concept with the Sipstrassi Tales, but for my liking, Roland is the real deal.

The little flashes of the history of Roland’s world are a great device to leave you gagging for Wizard & Glass, too.

Finished reading it last night curled up in bed. No one has a handle on modern mythic stories like Neil Gaiman.

I think reading it mostly on the train commute to and from work in Sydney gave it a little extra something, too.

Awesome read – well recommended.