Eating Fossil Fuels: Oil, Food and the Coming Crisis in Agriculture [Paperback]

Dale Allen Pfeiffer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 2006

The miracle of the Green Revolution was made possible by cheap fossil fuels to supply crops with artificial fertilizer, pesticides, and irrigation. Estimates of the net energy balance of agriculture in the United States show that ten calories of hydrocarbon energy are required to produce one calorie of food. Such an imbalance cannot continue in a world of diminishing hydrocarbon resources.
 
Eating Fossil Fuels examines the interlinked crises of energy and agriculture and highlights some startling findings:
 
• The worldwide expansion of agriculture has appropriated fully 40 percent of the photosynthetic capability of this planet.
• The Green Revolution provided abundant food sources for many, resulting in a population explosion well in excess of the planet’s carrying capacity.
• Studies suggest that without fossil fuel-based agriculture, the United States could only sustain about two-thirds of its present population. For the planet as a whole, the sustainable number is estimated to be about two billion.
 
Concluding that the effect of energy depletion will be disastrous without a transition to a sustainable, re-localized agriculture, the book draws on the experiences of North Korea and Cuba to demonstrate stories of failure and success in the transition to non-hydrocarbon-based agriculture. It urges strong grassroots activism for sustainable, localized agriculture and a natural shrinking of the world’s population.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Dale Allen Pfeiffer is a novelist, freelance journalist and geologist who has been writing about energy depletion for a decade, building a reputation as a detailed but accessible science journalist. The author of The End of the Oil Age, he is also widely known for his web project: www.survivingpeakoil.com.

Product Details

• Paperback: 125 pages
• Publisher: New Society Publishers (October 1, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0865715653
• ISBN-13: 978-0865715653
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 0.4 x 5.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #873,360 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 28 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars The Wane Of Industrial Agriculture? April 29, 2007

By Kevin Spoering VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

As a farmer, albeit part time, I am concerned about rising fuel prices, and other costs of production, nearly all energy related. In this book author Dale Allen Pfeiffer reviews possible consequences of the coming worldwide peaking of the production of conventional oil. These consequences may be dire and not limited to transportation, also affecting agriculture as we know it. Industrial agriculture with it's vast corporate interests tends to be very fuel inefficient, which includes all sorts of things such as tilling, fertilizer, perticides, harvesting, processing, transportation to markets, and more. When peak oil hits food may become much more expensive.

Do we have time to correct this, as a move to a sustainable food production system would allow? Pfeiffer writes to this question to some length, the jury is still out on it. He does write that most oil experts expect about a two percent decline per year of oil after peak oil hits, that would allow a transition, however rough, to a more energy efficient food production infrastructure. Pfeiffer gives the example of North Korea, where many have starved after their oil supply was mostly cut off after the Soviet Union collapsed, very poor planning there, then gives the example of Cuba, which also lost most of it's supply of Soviet oil, and how they successfully overcame that and converted to a sustainable agriculture system. North Korea and Cuba remain exceptions, Pfeiffer writes, as they abruptly lost most of their oil stream. The rest of the world will face a more gradual decline (my guess, sometime between now and 2025 peak oil will hit). Anyway, Pfeiffer writes that production and consumption need to be closer to each other, with local communities and individuals participating in food production. This is obviously a large and difficult problem to solve. There is also discussion in the book about corporations with their special interests which could be a problem to overcome. In the last chapter Pfeiffer describes twelve 'fun' activities if you want to become an activist. Farmers' markets, for example, are a good way to sell local produce to local people, eliminating the middleman, and overall more energy efficient than buying food shipped thousands of miles, Pfeiffer writes. But in reality the marketplace will determine the real winners and losers here, with convenience and quality also considerations, none of this is stressed in the book. Overall, though, Pfeiffer gives readers a great introduction to a subject that will probably get much more attention in the future.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars good concise review of the coming crisis in agriculture April 25, 2007

By John G. Curington

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

"Eating Fossil Fuels," by David Allen Pfeiffer, is a fascinating review of the upcoming crisis in production of food for our population. He starts with a quick discussion of land degradation and water degradation, and then goes into the data behind the use of fossil fuels in modern agriculture. With the approaching decline in global oil production, our ability to produce food will be severely compromised.

For anyone who reads much about "peak oil" or modern agricultural policy, this will come as no surprise. Pfeiffer's book shines, though, in his discussions of the examples of South Korea and Cuba. It is fascinating to consider the different paths taken by each of these countries during their politically-imposed sudden drop in oil availability.

Pfeiffer goes finishes with a discussion of sustainable agriculture and some ideas for what a concerned activist might do.

On the whole, I learned much from the short, well-written book about an important topic.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Feast or famine without oil? (review by author of When Technology Fails) November 17, 2007

By Matthew I. Stein

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

Concerned about food and how a world economy fueled by oil will continue to feed over 6 ˝ billion people when the oil squeeze comes? I suggest you read this book. Pfeiffer, a geologist and science journalist who has been intimately involved with peak oil issues for more than ten years, provides profound insight with his analysis of two parallel nations suffering from similar predicaments, but with radically different outcomes. He uses the powerful example of how Cuba and North Korea each dealt with nearly instantaneous loss of their supplies of oil after the Soviet Union dissolved. In the case of North Korea, their economy was shattered and millions of people died of starvation and disease. In the case of Cuba, people lost weight and made do with less, but a shift to sustainable agriculture and natural healing averted catastrophe. Cuba provides us with a glimpse of a possible future that avoids violent collapse and provides a good quality of life in spite of having to get by using less energy and buying less stuff.