Interesting: Pretty mainstream guy warns that industrial society cannot survive

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Update: Think it can't happen? Did you ever think US bonds might not be rated AAA?

Good blog too.

In his new book Brace for Impact: Surviving the Crash of the Industrial Age by Sustainable Living, Thomas A. Lewis analyzes the gathering threats to our society's life-support systems, and the inability of our political and economic institutions to save us. With chapters on food, water, oil, electricity, politics and finance, he makes a convincing case that we can't win the race against catastrophe. What sets Brace for Impact apart is that after it faces the conclusion from which others shrink -- that industrial society cannot survive -- it then shows how easily individual families and communities can weather the coming collapse through sustainable living. . . .

Brace for Impact begins with chapters on the mounting failures of industrial agriculture. "Losing Ground" chronicles the destruction wrought by the way agribusiness grows crops, and "Fat of the Land" the horrors -- and dangers -- of the way it raises animals. With subsequent chapters on water (dwindling supplies and worsening pollution), imminent oil shortages (peak oil, in fact, may already have arrived) and rampant problems in the electrical grid (for which the solution is not a "smart" grid, but no grid at all), the book offers an exhaustive catalog of the rising threats to our supplies of food, water and energy. Then, after examining the political and financial institutions that refuse to recognize the dangers, let alone move to counter them, Brace for Impact faces the inevitable conclusion: industrial society is about to crash, and cannot be saved.

But Lewis argues that while it is not possible to save everyone from the crash, it is entirely possible, indeed relatively simple, for any individual, family or community that embraces sustainable living to avoid the worst consequences. In a final chapter, "Sanctuary," Lewis points the way toward security and prosperity in the ruins of an age destroyed by greed. . . .