Interesting and Useful Links

Global Warming: The Answer, by Wilfred Candler. Published by AuthorHouse, 2007.

This book pulls no punches in its hard-nosed analysis of policy alternatives for mitigating the human component of global warming. Candler takes a careful look at such schemes as "cap-and-trade", and finds them to be woefully deficient in their benefits. In the end he chooses a particular type of carbon tax, levied only on carbon-based fuels and materials that derive from fossil carbon (coal, petroleum, tar-sands, natural gas, and cement).

Winning the Oil Endgame, by Amory Lovins and others. Published by the Rocky Mountain Institute, 2006.

This book offers a coherent strategy for ending oil dependence, starting with the United States but applicable worldwide. There are many analyses of the oil problem. This synthesis provides a roadmap for the oil solution — one led by business for profit, not dictated by government for reasons of ideology. This roadmap is both independent and extensively peer-reviewed. It combines innovative technologies and new business models with uncommon public policies: market-oriented without taxes, innovation-driven without mandates, not dependent on major national legislation, and designed to support, not distort, business logic.

War before Civilization: The Myth of the Peaceful Savage, by Lawrence Keeley. Published by Oxford University Press, 1996.

When first published, this book almost singlehandedly inaugurated the scientific study of war in prehistory and in premodern tribal societies. It's most controversial finding is that the annual risk of dying due to warfare has been steadily declining for millennia, as humanity makes the transition from bands and tribes to modern states. This is an extremely hopeful book, and essential reading for anyone interested in what the future of war might hold for humanity.


Found on the Web: "I read every issue of Forbes, in order to get an idea of the worldview of the prototypical 'Rich Person' ... For the same reason, but in search of information about a very different worldview, I read The Quaker Economist, and am often astonished at what I find there. Sometimes I agree, sometimes I don't, but I always learn something. Unlike Forbes, it's free." — Ozarque, 8 Jan 2006.