I’ll keep at it, all 308 pages of The Upside of Down (plus 100 pages of notes), pedaling hard, because I’m relatively patient and interested in its author’s scholarly attempt to compare our era to Roman times.
["Ready, set...": photo GAH]
Thomas Homer-Dixon writes:
“Of the five stresses [link to earlier post for context], energy stress plays a particularly central role. I discovered in investigating the story of ancient Rome that energy is society’s critical master resource: when it’s scarce and costly, everything we try to do, including growing our food, obtaining other resources like fresh water, transmitting and processing information, and defending ourselves, becomes harder.”
If you like being better informed by history, this may be the book for you.
[‘Read This,’ in right hand margin, provides a link to The Upside of Down and other books]
The author adds:
“Most of the five stresses spring from our troubled relationship with nature. Indeed, one of my most important points in this book is that we can’t ignore nature any longer, because it affects every aspect of our well-being and even determines our survival. Yet today, despite a growing intuitive awareness of this fact, most politicians, corporate leaders, social scientists, and commentators in Western societies give nature little attention. They push it to the sidelines of public discussion, focusing instead on the headline issues that regularly hijack social, economic and political debate.”
355 more pages of riding should help me deal with stresses.
Ready, set...
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