If you've browsed the links on this site, you may sense the threat of
information overload. Here are some recommended starting sources.
1. Watch Chris Martenson's The Crash Course (note
that the transcript is also available at the site). This will take at
least 3.5 hours (twenty 3- to 20-minute chapters), but you may need to
replay some parts of it unless you have a little economics background.
2. Read/watch this overview
of Peak Oil (one of many worthy ones available online and in
print); note that you can also/instead download a PDF, PowerPoint, or
both.
3. Read Dire Predictions
(Mann & Kump, 2008) for an effective introduction to climate
change. It is very reasonably priced, and the content is current and
accurate.
4. Read Garrett Hardin's Tragedy
of the Commons and very brief Extension
of the TotC.
5. Coming in Fall 2009 is an online mini-course in Climate, Energy, and Resource designed and presented by me. This may be more "school-like" than you
want or need, but perhaps you will find parts of it useful. Pre-college
teachers should definitely check it out.
6. Read James Kunstler's The Long Emergency (2005), hope that things don't
work out the way he describes, and then figure out a Plan B or C for
your life in case (when?) they do. We take out auto, home, and life insurance
in response to far, far smaller probabilities.
7. Read John Michael Greer's The Long Descent (2008) for a somewhat gentler view of the forthcoming simplification, slowdown, and shrinkage.
8. Read the posts at The Oil Drum (many TOD articles are linked here on my site, including recommendation
#2 above). TOD is a forum for "Discussions about energy and our future."
Then keep reading. Beware: neutrality is in short supply,
particularly in on-line sources. Almost every proposal, claim, idea, or
projection has critics as well as defenders, and many, perhaps most, sources
present a partisan perspective.