Half Gone
My account (1997 – 2005) of the peak oil threat: how the global oil industry is overblowing both its reserves and resources assessment and its ability to deliver oil to market in a timely manner, how the growing numbers of whistleblowers in an around the oil industry are faring with their warnings about the great global energy crisis that looms as a consequence, and how peak oil conflates with climate change.
Amazon.com: readers’ reviews and ordering
Portobello: publisher’s website
“Oil depletion is now meeting global warming …it’s scary….a mix of a textbook and a call to arms ….Few people could make the transition from geologist to oil consultant to chief scientist for Greenpeace and then to boss of Britain’s largest solar energy company ….his personal insights are fascinating ….the writing is always clear and conveys complicated but important technicalities in very accessible terms.”
Daily Mail
“Jeremy Leggett, former oil geologist and a fine writer, spells out the reality in Half Gone - and very different it is from the official blandishments from on high, in which the incompetence seems beyond belief and deception is a way of life.”
Guardian
“Leggett knows what he is talking about. ….The resulting book is a fast-moving, easily readable polemic whose unashamed populism doesn’t obscure the weight of it arguments.”
Sunday Times
“His arguments are so powerfully and persuasively drawn that his statements begin to seem obvious. ….a compelling must-read for politicians, pundits and punters alike.”
Independent
“Really excellent. Personal and passionate, but strong on the science and eminently reasonable. Certainly the best account of the Peak Oil debate that I have come across so far, and I really hope that it is having the impact on key people that it deserves.”
Jonathon Porritt, Commission on Sustainable Development
“Among the shelf full of books on the oil situation that have been published in the last year or so, (this) is far and away the best.”
Lester Brown, President, Earth Policy Institute
“What makes Half Gone important is that it goes beyond the conventional clarion call about “peak oil” to consider also the other great fossil-fuel-related crisis we face - global warming. ….Despite its gloomy topic, (it) is an impressive and jaunty read and should be mandatory for politicians and planners ….a detailed, finely poised, buoyantly optimistic and ultimately plausible vision of how increased energy efficiency and renewable energy sources can lead to an ecologically viable and soft, rather than hard, landing.”
Sydney Morning Herald
“Leggett’s case is equally convincing and frightening. ….gives a fresh, keen understanding of the imminent need to alleviate our economic dependency on oil.”
Internationalist: Journal of Culture and Currents, Winter 2005 (US)
“Leggett summarizes data…. that convincingly indicate that world oil production is in irreversible decline.”
Gilbert Taylor, Booklist (US)
Book of the year: Ian Irvine, Independent-on-Sunday
Bookseller magazine votes Half Gone one of the top 50 environmental books ever (November 2009).
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