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"The second volume of William T. Vollmann's epic book about the factors and human actions that have led to global warming begins in the coal fields of West Virginia and Eastern Kentucky, where "America's best friend" is not merely a fuel, but a "heritage." Over the course of four years Vollmann finds hollowed out towns with coal-polluted streams and acidified drinking water; makes covert visits to mountaintop removal mines; and offers documented accounts of unpaid fines for federal health show more and safety violations and of miners who died because their bosses cut corners to make more money. To write about natural gas, Vollmann journeys to Greeley, Colorado, where he interviews anti-fracking activists, a city planner, and a homeowner with serious health issues from fracking. Turning to oil production, he speaks with, among others, the former CEO of Conoco and a vice president of the Bank of Oklahoma in charge of energy loans, and conducts furtive roadside interviews of guest workers performing oil-related contract labor in the United Arab Emirates. As with its predecessor, No Immediate Danger, this volume seeks to understand and listen, not to lay blame--except in a few corporate and political cases where outrage is clearly due. Vollmann is a carbon burner just like the rest of us; he describes and quantifies his own power use, then looks around him, trying to explain to the future why it was that we went against scientific consensus, continually increasing the demand for electric power and insisting that we had no good alternative."--Amazon.com. show lessTags
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Vollmann visits with coal miners and opponents in West Virginia, an oilman in Oklahoma, fracking supporters/opponents in Colorado, Bangladeshis threatened with displacement for a new coal mine, and immigrant energy workers in the Middle East. Most of the people he talks to are, in his view, stuck in particular ideologies regarding fossil fuel usage, so that the overall message we pick up is despair for the future. Vollmann is chronicling our behavior, not proposing any solutions.
“There had only been one hope for us: To reduce demand” (627).
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Author Information
Journalist and novelist William T. Vollmann was born in 1959 and educated at Cornell University. He worked as a comptuer programmer before becoming a journalist and covering Bosnia, Sarajevo and Afghanistan. He has written extensively since 1987, when his first book, You Bright and Risen Angels, was published. The Atlas (1996) won the PEN Center show more USA West Award for the best novel by a writer living west of the Mississippi. His newest work of Non-Fiction is entitled, Imperial. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Awards and Honors
Awards
Series
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- No Good Alternative
Classifications
- Genres
- Science & Nature, Nonfiction, General Nonfiction, History, Travel
- DDC/MDS
- 363.738 — Society, government, & culture Social problems and social services Public Safety - Police, Crime Investigation Environmental Issues - Pollution, Recycling, Global Warming Pollution Pollutants by source
- LCC
- QD181 .C1 .V648 — Science Chemistry Chemistry Inorganic chemistry
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 105
- Popularity
- 307,736
- Reviews
- 2
- Rating
- (4.39)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Audiobook, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 5
- ASINs
- 1
