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Title: Eating Fossil Fuels: Oil, Food and the Coming Crisis in Agriculture
ISBN: 0865715653
Author:
Dale Allen Pfeiffer
Publicate Date: 2006-10-01
Publish: 2006-10-01
List Price: $11.95
Average Customer Rating: 4.0
Format: Paperback
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $6.70
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $6.90
Amazon Merchant Price: $9.56
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| Customer Review: |
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1: OK
Even though I believe that this book is on an important subject, I thought that the material was overly brief and only stated what others have said without proof. Seemed really short on background facts and technical reasoning.
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2: Very informative!
One good thing about this book is that the author does not need 300 pages to explain the Oil/Agricuture relation. What I liked most of this book is the explanation on the evolution of agricuture to these days, making clear that Oil is an important contributor to production performance, due to the use of fertilizers, pesticides and of course the energy derived from it in Industrial Agriculture. I agree with the author that we are beginning a transition to a new way of living, not pleasant, due to the fact that oil depletion will make difficult to attain a sustainable agriculture, even a sustainable civilization with the population numbers we have. The effects are visible, inflation and food crisis.
Most people think that technology will remedy the situation, but if you read more about energy you will realize the future's precarious situation. Governments in the world need to put an eye on it and start doing energy projects, particularly Nuclear. India must control its population growth also. I have my opinion on Cuba but considering all this is a very informative book.
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3: Crisis in Agriculture
I bought this book by Mr. Dale Allen Pfeiffer even after reading his horrible book "The End of the Oil Age." I don't care who this author hates, blames or votes for. I did buy Eating Fossil fuels and I must say that I am glad I did. It's a good work! It's professional. It's well written and in this book the author is not foaming at the mouth political. All liberal democrats leaning to the left just love Cuba and it's redistributing of wealth and the Cuban miracle. The Cubans decided to get up and grow vegetables rather than starving to death. Really, you guys give them too much credit for doing what's necessary to eat. Overall, I liked Mr. Pfeiffer's book. It's well done. Regards, Keith Renick, Peachtree City, Ga.
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4: We Need to Bring Back the Victory Garden
I wish I had read this book last year, I would already have prepared a vegetable garden to plant this spring. I know about Peak Oil, etc. but this book really got my attention. It provides a clear explanation of how dependent our food supply is on fossil fuels. Higher and higher food prices are in store for us, soon. And that's before we start to see food shortages. The agricultural land in the U.S. can only support about 200 million people, and we have almost 300 million. Plus this agriculture is heavily dependent on oil (to run the irrigation pumps, harvest, process and transport the products), and natural gas (to make fertilizer..who knew?). In a politically unstable world of rising fuel prices, not to mention a future without those fuels, do we really want to rely on imported food to feed our nation? Or go to war over food? This book outlines the problems and has an action plan and extensive list of resources to help solve the problems. Yes! There are things you can do to avert this crisis, whether you live in the city, suburbs, or country.
Spade up those (organic) Victory Gardens, folks, and learn how to provide and preserve at least some of your own food. Support your local food producers. This year. You'll be glad you did.
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5: Food Via Domestic Coal, If Necessary
This book creates a false alarm about our future limited by fossil energy availability, energy utilization, and its impact on food production. The author says the US population has already exceeds the level of long-term sustainability. Increased malnutrition and even starvation are possibilities. The author has selected data to support his own nightmare of a very dramatic food crisis within our lifetimes.
He appears to imply that the food and energy crisis in North Korea may be an example of what will happen to the world, without discussing North Korea's dictatorial government and its military expenditures, including preparations for nuclear weapon manufacture and their delivery. He says that the increased food productivity due to the Green Revolution is largely due just to increased fossil energy usage, but new plant varieties and agricultural technologies are most important for the successes of the green revolution.
The author, D. A. Pfeiffer, does not clearly acknowledge that domestic coal, and then shale can be processed, in an environmentally benign manner, into transportation fuels and nitrogen fertilizer with proven technologies, when oil and natural gas availability becomes a truly economy limiting energy constraint for our nation.
The author has his agenda to promote permaculture and similar agricultural technologies, and blames the government and agricultural industries for these technologies not being utilized now. He does not acknowledge that less that 2% of our US population are farmers, and that they feed us in a very economical manner, as a result of large-scale agriculture, use of considerable inanimate energy, and improved technologies. In contrast, the author advices, "Sustainable agriculture, for all intents and purposes, means a return to small scale farming, where the acreage can be managed by a family, and a horse or mule with a plow." (P. 69) Which option would you choose? This reviewer labored very hard on his father's medium-sized farm until college graduation, and then I chose not to return to the farm. This choice of not to farm is made by many rural youths. For this reason our rural population declines and increases in average age.
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