Limitations
- Introduction
- Avoiding the Obvious
- Insoluble Problems, Soluble Opportunities
- Bottomless Wells?
- Oil, Peaking?
Values
- Introduction
- Trouble with Ideology
- The Good Life
- Changing Separately and Together
- Eating for the Planet
- Small Steps, Large Ideals
- Offsetting Without Tears
Design
- Introduction
- Dead Spaces
- Requiem for the Car Industry
- Smart Cars, Hybrids, and Our Spaceship
- Hip Deep in the Big Muddy
- The Virtues of Age
- Two Suburbs—An American Journey
- The Wasteland at the End of the Street
Strategy
Strategy for the Future
Building a sustainable future is not merely a moral imperative. It is a necessity for survival. And it is good strategy for the world's security and the global economy. Andrew Revkin's Dot Earth reported in September, 2008, that U.S. intelligence agencies were preparing a report warning the incoming President about the destabilizing effects of climate change on the world and the danger to the United States of excessive dependence on fossil fuels, particularly oil, to power the economy.
The rise in gasoline prices was a painful example of the danger. Although the near-collapse of the global financial system resulted in a temporary fall in fuel prices, the long-term picture is bleak. Oil and other fossil fuels are finite resources which will eventually disappear, even if our civilization survives the effects of climate change. Restraining our use of fossil fuels and developing other sources of power for industry and transportation are the only remedy. We cannot drill or mine our way out of this crisis. And we cannot base long-term national or international strategy on continuing and expanding our use of fossil fuels. If we do so, we will fail, and the planet may become uninhabitable.