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Plan C: Community Survival Strategies for Peak Oil and Climate Change | 
 enlarge | Author: Pat Murphy
Publisher: New Society Publishers
Category: Book
List Price: $19.95
Buy New: $11.91
You Save: $8.04 (40%)
New (20) Used (7) from $11.91
Avg. Customer Rating:  2 reviews
Sales Rank: 46758
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 304
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 5.9 x 1
ISBN: 0865716072
Dewey Decimal Number: 333
EAN: 9780865716070
ASIN: 0865716072
Publication Date: June 1, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand new item. Over 3.5 million customers served. Order now. Selling online since 1995. Few left in stock - order soon. Code: P20080826171450S
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Product Description
Concerns over climate change and energy depletion are increasing exponentially. Mainstream solutions still assume a panacea that will cure our climate ills without requiring any serious modification to our way of life. Plan C explores the risks inherent in trying to continue our energy-intensive lifestyle. Using dirtier fossil fuels (Plan A) or switching to renewable energy sources (Plan B) allows people to remain complacent in the face of potential global catastrophe. Dramatic lifestyle change is the only way to begin to create a sustainable, equitable world. The converging crises of Peak Oil, climate change, and increasing inequity are presented in a clear, concise manner, as are the twin solutions of community (where cooperation replaces competition) and curtailment (deliberately reducing consumption of consumer goods). Plan C shows how each person's individual choices can dramatically reduce CO2 emissions. It offers specific strategies in the areas of food, transportation, and housing. One chapter analyzes the decimation of the Cuban economy when the USSR stopped oil exports in 1990 and provides an inspiring vision for a low-energy way of living. Plan C is an indispensable resource for anyone interested in living a lower-energy, saner, and more sustainable lifestyle. Pat Murphy is the executive director of The Community Solution. He co-wrote and co-produced the award-winning documentary The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil, has initiated four major Peak Oil conferences, and has given numerous presentations and workshops on the subject. He has extensive construction experience and developed low-energy buildings during the nation's first oil crisis.
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| Customer Reviews:
 Low on overbreeding and defense August 17, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
This book has an excellent core. It explains our predicament fairly well. And it has some good recipes for the future. But it does not dare to explain the need for action in two areas: A) reducing the world population and B) local defense. Overbreeding is certainly the Mother of Misery. And no community can prosper in a crowded world without any self defense. "As the crisis deepens, a one child family should become a key value for Americans and all other nations" is a neglecting way of treating the most important problem of all civilizations. Buy the book, read it, may be recommend it, but be aware of its serious deficiencies. Good wishful thinking, but the motto "Only tribes will survive" demands a covert Plan D.
 Best Overall Guide to Peak Oil yet August 6, 2008
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
this book just came out and there are no customer reviews yet, so i thought i'd add more info for potential purchasers. my field is peak oil and this was the 69th book i've read on the subject; i believe it to be the best book yet written on peak oil and "where do we go from here". as americans, what are our real options now (that gasoline is more than $22 per gallon if you remove u.s. subsidies and the era of cheap energy is leaving us for good, never to return)?
the best book of the last century on this subject was, hands down, william r. catton's 1982 masterpiece, "overshoot: the ecological basis of revolutionary change" which, with joseph tainter's 1990 "the collapse of complex societies", gave the reader a taste of where the united states is heading. fossil fuels allowed the world's population to surpass one billion and now that we have used up one half of the world's supply of oil (around 2005) the rest will be harder and more expensive to get -so either everyone starts having one child families or nature will force a die-off this century (as the rest of us compete or cooperate for the remaining fossil fuels).
plan c is about cooperating instead of competing for the remaining supply of fossil fuels and each of us curtailing our energy usage (he shows you why a whopping 90% reduction is needed) on behalf of our children and future grandchildren. in 20 years, most of implied threat of peak oil will be obvious to the average american citizen because our leaders cannot keep it a secret for much longer, present high gas prices are just the tip of the iceberg; it's the end of our "non-negotiable way of life", the end of the growth economy, and the return of the community and localization (supporting the local economy, staying near home, work and our food source). i don't mean to be alarmist here and neither does pat murphy. politicians and corporations want you to stay in your seat believing that business will solve everything but that is the most dangerous thing you can do and think.
hey, i'd love to read fiction (i loved tolkien too) but while we are enjoying even informed escapism our consumer culture is destroying our planet for our kids and in 20 years few of us will be unaffected, let alone flying in airplanes. so let's take a look at pat murphy's book and what sets it apart from others like it:
chapter one: fossil fuel depletion & climate change
chapter two: peak oil-peak economy
chapter three: peak-oil peak empire
chapter four: peak america-is our time up?
chapter five: peak technology and the private car
chapter six: peak technology and electric power
chapter seven: corporations, media and disinformation
chapter eight: plan c: curtailment & community
chapter nine: post-peak: change starts with us
chapter ten: the energy impact of buidings
chapter eleven: the smart jitney - rapid realistic transport
chapter twelve: food, fuel and CO2
chapter thirteen: food, health & survival
chapter fourteen: changing practices
chapter fifteen: kicking the media habit
chapter sixteen: localization
chapter seventeen: reviving & renewing community
on the back are glowing reviews from peak oil's and climate change's leaders, david orr, richard heinberg, bill mckibben, albert bates, and david korten. they have all written great books of the subject yet they all recognize that pat murphy has done a brilliant job of putting everything together artfully in a single book for the first time. pat shows you why efficiency is not enough (jevon's paradox), why technology will not save us (it doesn't exist without fossil fuels - a one time non-renewable gift from nature) why buildings use 50% of u.s. electricity (and how we personally can help), how each american uses 57.8 barrels of oil (the equivalent) per year, the perils of innumeracy, the amount of waste each american creates, embodied energy costs, 10 calories of oil creates each calorie of food (what we eat is swimming in petroleum), false solutions to the energy crisis, the relationship between empire & financial inequity and the current problem before us, what to do, how to re-create community and why re-localize to save the remaining energy for future generations.
hey, i know i'm over-simplifying "Plan C" but that's the drawback of writing a review of any book that is great. there is simply no replacement for reading this amazing book. i know the subject is depressing but pat's solution is hopeful, so rush to buy this for yourself and a copy for everyone you know. there is power in knowing where the exit signs are in a theatre when people start shouting fire; and in this case people have already begun shouting so don't be the last one to look up. this book will dramatically minimize your shock later on and tells you very clearly what to do now for the inevitable tightening of everyone's energy belts.
every year there will be 2.7% more demand for energy (due to incresed consumerism) and 2.7% less energy than the year before (due to hitting peak oil in 2005). even someone mathematically challenged (innumerate) when faced with the simple facts of supply and demand can, upon reading Plan C, realize that waiting for our leaders to respond to the approaching crisis (without any leadership it will be bigger and longer than the Great Depression) will be the biggest mistake of their life. read, roll up your sleeves and get to work changing your own life, then educating others. as eleanor roosevelt said, "you must do things you think you cannot." with pat's advice you will be able to follow the old kenyan proverb "a dog that sees the shore, does not drown". please don't drown; empower yourself, your children and those you love now by reading this timely important book.
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