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REVIEWS @ OIL APOCALYPSE sources and concludes we may have no by Vernon Coleman choice but to become more reliant on Blue Books, Devon, UK, 2007 nuclear power in the future. He offers a ISBN 978-1-899726-07-3 (157pp tpb) "personal survival plan" to help us make the Available: www.vernoncoleman.com transition to an oil-depleted society more hile the problems of global warming bearable, plus investment strategies for sur- and climate change are now gripping vival (although he himself invests in mining the world, the issue of peak oil is given little | Companies that are depleting metal resources emphasis from politicians, policy makers and causing ecological damage). . and corporations. With 60 out of 98 oil- Coleman's book is full of information producing nations in supply decline and made easy for the layperson to follow. with world demand and consumption at all- time highs, we're heading for an "oil apoca- © SCARED TO DEATH: From BSE to lypse" warns Vernon Coleman. A prolific Global Warming... author (e.g., Living in a Fascist Country, by Christopher Booker, Richard North reviewed in 14/03), this former medical doc- Continuum, London and New York, 2007 tor believes we're on a collision course with —_ |SBN 978-0-8264-8614-1 (494pp he) disaster and we'd be foolish not to prepare Available: www.continuumbooks.com for it because the decline in this resource is o period in history has been more ready going to change our world utterly; indeed, it Ne give credence to imaginary "scares" will be the end of civilisation as we know it. than our own, say journalist Christopher _ According to the petroleum geologists and Booker and former food safety technologist industry experts whom Coleman cites, most py Richard North. They have identified the - pattern by which a scare unfolds, manufac- tured by "pushers" and denied by "blockers", with both of these protagonists changing camp when it suits themselves. There are seven attributes of a scare. A real problem becomes exaggerated, often by extrapolating from it to include something else. The threat must be universal and con- tain a strong element of uncertainty. It must seem scientifically plausible and also be pro- moted by the media. The crisis arrives when the threat is acknowledged by the govern- ment. Finally, the truth emerges. To show how a scare pans out, Booker and North analyse some of the food crises of the 1980s—1990s: in the UK, the "killer eggs" of the salmonella outbreak; soft cheese "lysteria hysteria"; BSE/CJD; E. coli conta- mination of meat and cheese; and more. In many cases, incorrect scientific evidence was wrongly extrapolated and unqualified "experts" were appointed to investigate these outbreaks—the causes of which were often misidentified or not properly identified at all. The authors are prepared to expose incompetence and political machinations, but not necessarily to accuse governments of deliberately promoting fear in the popu- lace—as conspiracy theorists might. Next, they consider general scares, includ- ing the millennium bug and global warming, which they dub "the new secular religion" where dissenters are treated like heretics. The final chapter is about the organophos- phates crisis, when the UK government went all-out to cover up the emerging scientific data and keep the public in the dark. oil-producing nations will reach their "peak oil" production by 2010 (if they haven't already), and so, with few large reservoirs having been found in the last 20 years, the downhill slide will escalate. Coleman refers to Richard Heinberg's writings on the major steps that are heralding the end of the oil age as well as his protocols to ease industry and individuals off their addiction to this energy source. He looks at the history and politics of past and present oil wars and believes there'll be future ones, as wars have always been fought over access to resources. His scenarios of what will happen when the oil runs out are frightening, although there is some hope if communities band together and become self-sufficient in food and energy. Industrialised food production, so dependent on oil, will suffer, and increasingly large volumes of land being devoted to biofuel , ve . production will cause major food shortages. Booker and North aren't deriding real sci- In discussing a "new energy blueprint", he entific data, but are pointing out that vested examines the pros and cons of renewable interests can blow matters out of all propor- tion, with huge financial and social costs. sources and concludes we may have no choice but to become more reliant on nuclear power in the future. He offers a "personal survival plan" to help us make the transition to an oil-depleted society more bearable, plus investment strategies for sur- vival (although he himself invests in mining companies that are depleting metal resources and causing ecological damage). Coleman's book is full of information made easy for the layperson to follow. SCARED TO DEATH: From BSE to Global Warming... by Christopher Booker, Richard North Continuum, London and New York, 2007 ISBN 978-0-8264-8614-1 (494pp hc) Available: www.continuumbooks.com N period in history has been more ready to give credence to imaginary "scares" than our own, say journalist Christopher Booker and former food safety technologist Dr Richard North. They have identified the pattern by which a scare unfolds, manufac- tured by "pushers" and denied by "blockers", with both of these protagonists changing camp when it suits themselves. There are seven attributes of a scare. A real problem becomes exaggerated, often by extrapolating from it to include something else. The threat must be universal and con- tain a strong element of uncertainty. It must seem scientifically plausible and also be pro- moted by the media. The crisis arrives when the threat is acknowledged by the govern- ment. Finally, the truth emerges. To show how a scare pans out, Booker and North analyse some of the food crises of the 1980s—1990s: in the UK, the "killer eggs" of the salmonella outbreak; soft cheese "lysteria hysteria"; BSE/CJD; E. coli conta- mination of meat and cheese; and more. In many cases, incorrect scientific evidence was wrongly extrapolated and unqualified "experts" were appointed to investigate these outbreaks—the causes of which were often misidentified or not properly identified at all. The authors are prepared to expose incompetence and political machinations, but not necessarily to accuse governments of deliberately promoting fear in the popu- lace—as conspiracy theorists might. Next, they consider general scares, includ- ing the millennium bug and global warming, which they dub "the new secular religion" where dissenters are treated like heretics. The final chapter is about the organophos- phates crisis, when the UK government went all-out to cover up the emerging scientific data and keep the public in the dark. Booker and North aren't deriding real sci- entific data, but are pointing out that vested interests can blow matters out of all propor- tion, with huge financial and social costs. 74 = NEXUS APRIL — MAY 2008 www.nexusmagazine.com