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Comments

1. The ingenuity Gap, was a great book–I read it a few years back. He certainly uncovered many critical environmental factors, from many first hand interviews with noted scientists, political scientists etc, throughout the world.

   I have not yet read his new book, although it has a more precise premise from my understanding.

   I emailed Tad-Homer-Dixon in the past via his website, and he made a point to return thoughtful replies. His forum is highly academic in nature, but I’m glad to see a more mainstream person bring to bear the possibility of collapse, rather than all of the more minor-mitaged scenarios via new technologies and the like.

   The questions remains, how much longer to the upsdide down transformation hits?

   Comment by Bubba — 6 December 2006 @ 3:27 PM

2. Have you read it yet? Is it more Diamond than Quinn? Is it more “Long Emergency” than “Collapse?” I’d be interested in hearing a review as to “where it fits on the shelf.”

   Comment by Urban Scout — 13 December 2006 @ 8:03 PM

3. I’m halfway through the upside of down, Mr. Dixon’s excellent mainstream work. I appreciate that he doesn’t try to sugarcoat the critical stressors that we are faced with.

   The book is still scholarly in many respects, although it is more readable than his previous work imo. He interviews Joseph Tainer, and focuses alot on the issue of energy scarcity (oil mostly), the breakdown of complex society’s, the lack of redundancies within our networks etc. He uses an abundance of statistics, but also uses many metaphors to paint a clear picture.

   I’m not quite done with the book, but I would say its more like Richard heinberg’s work, I’m not too familiar with Diamond beyond online postings and the like Uscout.

   Professor Homer-Dixon, does comment that prediction is very challenging, and complex systems such as civilization & the environment could certainly collapse much quicker than most would imagine.

   I would strongly suggest picking this book up, its getting some mainstream success, particularly in Canada.

   I often think the fact that few people truly realize the ‘big picture’ for the next couple decades, is part of the reason breakdown isn’t occurring sooner…

   If anyone else has read the book, please comment I would be interested in hearing other’s opinions, since mine is so overwhelmingly positive (unlike me

   Comment by Bubba — 6 January 2007 @ 4:37 PM

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