Amanda Kovattana

I came to the topic of Peak Oil in 2005 at a workshop given by Richard Heinberg in Palo Alto. The information had a profound affect on how I would view the future going forward.

What better way to upset the paradigm than to make one’s own shoes? A village cobbler could help turn a community away from exclusive designer brands to unique one-of-kind efforts in a locally made product.

A generous memoir full of intriguing cases of healing by a doctor who discovers slow medicine. Sustenance for the caretaker. Make that a life raft. I was sorry when I got to the end.

It was suggested that I read this book because I was looking for a Western proclivity for apocalypse fever. My conclusion after reading it is that change is simply scarier for the Westerner, while in Asia, change is so much the expected norm that it is taken in stride. I would add that Americans tend to spin out their horror far into the future or, as one therapist I know puts it, to awful-ize a situation. Watching Bangkok friends and family face the recent flood crisis with a remarkable amount of equanimity confirmed this for me.

John Michael Greer takes on economics, a subject in desperate need of his characteristic, level-headed analysis. The usual growth oriented fantastical notions that have plagued the subject over the last half century were in particular need of such cool headed dispatching.

Cody Lundin imparts details that often pester my mind when thinking about emergency scenarios and in so doing makes me far less cavalier about the more grim possibilities. A great deal of this information would be useful right now for my family in Thailand as they suffer through the flood. Indeed there is a very third world flavor to Cody’s frugal, homemade approaches that speaks to me.