Why Your World Is about to Get a Whole Lot Smaller: Oil and the End of Globalization

by Jeff Rubin

Book Overview

Soaring oil prices caused four out of the last five recessions. They caused the current recession. And they will cause the next one. Expensive oil costs us more than just money. It costs jobs, homes... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1400068509
• ISBN13: 9781400068500
• Release Date: May 2009
• Publisher: Random House (NY)
• Length: 286 Pages
• Weight: 5.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.0" x 8.1"

Customer Reviews

An economist's view of peak oil implications

Jeff Rubin approaches the issue of peak oil and its implications for the future of modern civilisation from an interesting perspective - that of an oil expert economist, who predicted the soaring oil prices back in 2000. He sees the oil price spike in 2008 as a cause, rather than an effect, of the global financial crisis and recession. The credit bubble needed low inflation, which relied on cheap energy. He also looks beyond the doom and gloom of oil depletion, to encourage the reader to grasp the opportunities for localisation (going local) and downsizing our bloated materialistic existence - transforming to a small new world. I enjoyed his story that before the world ran on oil, it ran on coffee! My interest in reading his study of oil depletion in all its ramifications is a PhD in adapting cities and suburbs to an oil constrained future. Having read a lot of peak oil literature, I regard Rubin's insights in 2009 as valuable as James Kunstler's ground breaking, sobering view of the converging catastrophes back in 2005The Long Emergency: Surviving the End of Oil, Climate Change, and Other Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century. Rubin shares Kunstler's view that the future look a lot like the past, in relying on more farmers and local food production. He would also be sympathetic to the Transition Towns movement The Transition Handbook: From Oil Dependency to Local Resilience (Transition Guides). His expertise in evaluating the economic perspective is a counterbalance to the alternative fuel optimists. He contends "Peak oil could mean peak GDP. But it doesn't have to if we can de-link economic growth from oil." Hence Plan 'B' is not optional and even that is only a step to the "small new world" of Lester Brown's Plan 'C' Plan C: Community Survival Strategies for Peak Oil and Climate Change. Rubin's book is highly recommended.

Thoroughly enjoyable and plausible

I read Jeff Rubin's book because I invest in energy stocks and like to know the broad societal implications of energy issues. I was fascinated by his major premise that high energy costs will end the global marketplace. It is the opposite of Tom Friedman's World is Flat premise. Rubin's basic argument is that high energy prices will trump low labor costs of developing countries. That will mean we will re-industrialize and start making things again in America. That may make us look more like 1950's America. Most economists say globalization is irreversible but Rubin disagrees. Globalization is only possible when cheap energy allows shipping anything at low cost. There are two other books that have the same end of cheap energy theme. One is Stephen Leeb's Game Over and the other is $20 a Gallon by Chris Steiner. Leeb's book is more of an investment survival guide while Steiner's $20 a Gallon is more of a sociological portrait of America in the age of prohibitive gas prices. Leeb is rather depressing in positing the end of cheap energy and commodities in general. Leeb sees global insecurity as countries fight for resources. Steiner sees high energy as an opportunity to re-urbanize America with close in dense communities without cars. Steiner does a great job of predicting how escalating gas prices will change our lives. He says we may be happier living a simpler less consumption oriented lifestyle. Rubin's book is the best all round book for it covers both economics and sociology. If you want to know how to make money from energy shortages, Leeb has some valuable and practical advice. Steiner will leave you hopeful for a simpler, more community minded America. I recommend all three books without hesitation as helpful guides to an America facing a dearth of resources in the next 20 years. They certainly reinforce the need for a national energy policy now while we may be able to extend resources.

Excellent points of view based on objective information

I've been following the world oil reports for some time, and I thought this book did a neat job of tying the current objective information into one coherent summary..as to whether the Author's projections of the future play out it is impossible to tell.The unintended or unexpected consequences of world oil actions are nearer than we may suppose.

The end of the world as we know it ain't so bad...

Jeff Rubin gets right to it on page 1, declaring that the global financial meltdown of 2008 had as much to do with $150 oil as it did with bad mortgages. I was waiting for somebody to say what I suspected was true. And Rubin delivers, continuing, that we are at a turning point in modern society. In 2008, we passed over the peak of the age of cheap energy. From here on out, energy, especially oil is going to be harder to get out of the ground, and we may never produce much more than we did last year. Furthermore, he warns that the world has two choices in the next few years. Either transition our society to less energy-intensive, more localized communities; or keep banging our collective heads against the wall of this rapidly depleting resource and face recession after recession each time supply fails to meet demand. Two years ago, he was right in predicting when $100 oil would happen. And it appears this book may be right just weeks after being published, with the supposed "green shoots" of economic recovery triggering a doubling in the price of oil in the first half of 2009. The book predicts we'll soon be back in the triple digits. Maybe even $200 a barrel and $7/gallon. I was very impressed with the book because: A) An economist acknowledged what most economists don't; that resources are limited - and so is economic growth B) He presents us with hope that a smaller (less energy-intensive) world may actually be a happier world I'm eager to see what else Rubin may have to say about this in the coming years.

A Good Education for the Average Citizen

I am neither an economist, politician, oil company employee, nor geologist: I am the average citizen who gained information from this book about how the price and supply of oil could potentially affect my life. Although there are aspects of the book that I've been exposed to previously, Rubin provided me with more detail and with new information that will certainly be new to others also as evidenced by the lack of disussion of these topics by colleagues, neighbours etc. who are also average citizens. There is certainly a population of people who will benefit from reading this. Whether the world evolves as Rubin expects, and to what degree, is obviously unknown; however, the material between the covers is certainly food for thought and gives a better understanding of the intricacies of how the world currently operates and why it may indeed unfold as he suggests. Rubin presents much diverse information yet manages to tie together all the pieces in cohesive, friendly prose that is not statistically boring and stuffy yet is backed with facts. There are 11 pages of source notes at the back should anyone question the validity or sources of his information or desire to read more. The book is thorough in that it gives good background, demonstrates relationships between various elements of our world and takes into account numerous countries and their roles in all of this. It's a good read if you don't want to live with your head in the sand.