The Crooked Mile: Through peak oil, biofuels, hybrid cars, and global climate change to reach a brighter future [Mass Market Paperback]

Kevin Clemens (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 23, 2009

Americans love their automobiles. More than a mode of transportation, cars provide us with freedom, social equality, and entertainment. The price we pay for our infatuation with four wheels is high. Air pollution, global climate change, energy insecurity, injury and death, and urban sprawl are fair charges against the automobile. Some critics suggest we abandon the automobile. This is not likely. In The Crooked Mile, award-winning journalist and author, Kevin Clemens, examines the past, present, and future of energy and infrastructure to take us through the challenges of depleting oil, global climate change, innovative automotive technologies, and new concepts in personal mobility to reach a better transportation future.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"It's a well-researched, topical and timely book that car enthusiasts owe it to themselves to read if for no other reason than that we might be better prepared to intelligently discuss and defend our favorite topic from ill-informed critics." --Hemmings Motor News, September 2009

About the Author

Kevin Clemens, award winning author and adventurer, has driven north of the Arctic Circle in the dead of winter, across the searing deserts of China in the heat of summer, through the perils in the republics of the former Soviet Union, in 48 foreign countries and all fifty states.

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 290 pages
• Publisher: Demontreville Press, Inc.; First edition (February 23, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0978956338
• ISBN-13: 978-0978956332
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #536,888 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Kevin Clemens, engineer, journalist, author, and adventurer, has driven north of the Arctic Circle in the dead of winter, across the searing deserts of China in the heat of summer, through the perils of the republics of the former Soviet Union, over treacherous roads in the Andes Mountains, in ffty-four countries and fifty states.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Sustainability lesson in 260 non-technical pages, March 14, 2010

By 

Paul Wermer - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Crooked Mile: Through peak oil, biofuels, hybrid cars, and global climate change to reach a brighter future (Mass Market Paperback)

A fellow car enthusiast sent me The Crooked Mile as a gift, and so I had to read it. This was a good gift, worth the reading. While the ideas are developed based on cars, fossil fuel and climate weirdness, The Crooked Mile is a very readable introduction to the much bigger problem of how we (globally) move to a sustainable future.

It offers one of the best assessments of the challenges we face in replacing fossil fuels as our cheap energy supply. Kevin Clemens clearly introduces the idea that we need a multiplicity of solutions - both for energy sources and for transportation.

As a student of sustainable practices, I find that this is easily the most readable, and least preachy, book I've read to date. While focused on the car and transportation, most the the major issues are raised in the context of why the car poses a problem.

As a nitpicker, I'll note that there are a few bloopers - Double check numbers before you cite them. A minor negative in an otherwise very good exposition of the the issues.

5.0 out of 5 stars SpeedReaders.info Review, December 18, 2009

By 

Speed Readers (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Crooked Mile: Through peak oil, biofuels, hybrid cars, and global climate change to reach a brighter future (Kindle Edition)

The Crooked Mile: Through peak oil, biofuels, hybrid cars, and global climate change to reach a brighter future
by Kevin Clemens

Have you ever worried that one day the fossil-fuel spigot will run dry? Or that motor fuel will become so expensive that you will need to drastically change your lifestyle in order to provide life's basic necessities for yourself and your family?

As car enthusiasts, we more than anyone should be tuned in to the ramifications of our nation's dependence on fossil fuel and should be keenly aware of the fact that people have been working on alternative fuel solutions since the dawn of the automobile age, often with limited success. This is more or less the approach automotive journalist Kevin Clemens takes in his latest book, The Crooked Mile, an exploration of the past, present and future of energy and the automobile.

Clemens opens his book with an introductory mea culpa about his own fossil fuel addiction: "My own case of oil addiction has been chronic. For much of my professional career I have written about cars. I've driven cars in all 50 states, in more than 50 countries and on five continents." He goes onto explain that his reason for writing the book was to: "find out for myself and write about what is coming next in the world of transportation and to put a human face on the technologies that we will use to meet the future challenges of personal mobility."

"Unfortunately," he concludes in the intro, "the deeper I got into it, the more I discovered that finding a way out of this mess, caused in part by 100 years of cheap energy, is not going to be easy."

Clemens touches on all of the hot button issues: peak oil, climate change, biofuels, the viability of hybrid cars, the promise of lithium ion batteries in electric cars as well as the question of where electricity to power electric cars (and the lithium for the batteries) will come from. It's a well-researched, topical and timely book that car enthusiasts owe it to themselves to read if for no other reason than that we might be better prepared to intelligently discuss and defend our favorite topic from ill-informed critics.

Copyright 2009 Mike McNessor (Hemmings Motor News - September 2009- used with permission)
(Reviewer McNessor is an Editor at Hemmings Motor News)

5.0 out of 5 stars Everyone should read this book, July 3, 2009

By 

Becky (Vriginia, MN) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Crooked Mile: Through peak oil, biofuels, hybrid cars, and global climate change to reach a brighter future (Mass Market Paperback)

Kevin Clemens tells the facts about how fuels relate to climate change without bias. He gives the history, pros and cons of each type of fuel,and ideas for change all in terms that the everyday person can understand. This is a crisis of our making, and Mr. Clemens not only acknowledges that fact, he gives some wonderful alternatives and things for every citizen to think about.
The planet belongs to all of us, all of us should read this book.