I bought this because of the title – a beautiful description of what Peak Oil is about – but I was rather surprised, and stimulated, by the book itself. Instead of being the normal dry and technical discussion, it was a much more spiritual take, very New Agey in its elevation of ‘Older traditions’ despite being avowedly Christian (the quote on the front from Neale Donald Walsch should have given the game away) and asked some of the important questions. What I found stimulating was that it is addressing the Peak Oil issues in the way that I want to explore, ie as a spiritual crisis. Where I disagree with Hartmann is that his analysis is, frankly, theologically flabby. We need to get much more rigorous about the roots of our crisis – for I completely agree that it is precisely a spiritual crisis – and we can only do that by rolling up our theological sleeves.

Stimulating though.