I’m pleased to announce that my second book is now out:

Investing in Renewable Energy: Making Money on Green Chip Stocks

with Jeff Siegel and Nick Hodge

Unlike my first book Profit from the Peak, this book was a true collaboration. I wrote about half of it, including material that I borrowed and rewrote from PFTP. For example, the roughly four chapters on peak oil from the first book were condensed into one chapter in this book.

The timing of this book was, unfortunately, terrible. Whereas PFTP came out just as the world woke up to the possibility of peak oil, and oil prices were hitting new highs every week (and kept on hitting them for months more), this book comes out just as the markets are experiencing their worst selloff in decades. That’s too bad for us as authors, but there were very few people who would have said we’d be in this situation a year and a half ago, when we were writing the book. Certainly not us.

Although this is a tough time to be an investor in stocks, let alone the energy sector, I firmly believe that once the market has truly wrung out the toxins and assets have once again become properly valued, the energy sector will take off again. That point could be months or even a year or more in the future, but when it does happen, those who have invested wisely in renewables should make a bundle.

Check it out, and let me know what you think of it!

–C

Profit from the Peak: The End of Oil and the Greatest Investment Event of the Century

by Chris Nelder and Brian Hicks

This is my first book, released in April 2008. It discusses peak oil in depth, then moves on to examine the possible peaking scenarios for all sources of energy, and recommends investing angles on each one.

Colin Campbell, co-founder of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil (ASPO), called it “the best job I have seen in describing the Peak Oil issue in a sound and very understandable way.”

It’s packed with data and charts, and should be a useful resource for peak oil newbies and experts alike.

I encourage you to pick up a copy and let me know what you think!

The Oil Depletion Protocol: A Plan to Avert Oil Wars, Terrorism and Economic Collapse

by Richard Heinberg

This is Heinberg’s third book about peak oil. It presents a simple and elegant proposal, suggested by ASPO founder Dr. Colin Campbell, for managing the decline of global oil production. The protocol establishes voluntary limits for oil producing nations to reduce their output at a measured rate, and for oil consuming nations to agree to reduce their consumption accordingly. This way, the world can work cooperatively to ensure that the transition to a lower energy world is measured and steady and fair, so that we can readjust our economies without too much pain and chaos. It’s probably too sensible an idea to work, but it’s the only suggestion I’m aware of which even attempts to take a proactive approach to the problem of peak oil. I sincerely hope that the world’s governments will see the sense of it and sign on.

Powerdown: Options and Actions for a Post-Carbon World

by Richard Heinberg

This is Heinberg’s second book about peak oil, and examines the four major strategies that people might use in dealing with peak oil: “Last One Standing,” “Powerdown,” “Waiting for a Magic Elixir,” and “Building Lifeboats.” Good, clear thinking on a very difficult topic and guaranteed to leave you reconsidering your own future, and how you will deal with the coming challenges.

Don’t Think of an Elephant: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate–The Essential Guide for Progressives

By George Lakoff

Everything progressives need to know about why we lost the last election, and how we lost it (aside from the many instances of corruption and dirty dealing at the polls), and what we need to do next, is contained in this slim (119 page), easy-to-read volume by cognitive scientist George Lakoff. Buy it, it’s a lousy $8.00. Read it. Get ten copies for your friends. Seriously.

High Noon for Natural Gas

The New Energy Crisis

Julian Darley

Book overview:

Blackouts, rising gas prices, changes to the Clean Air Act, proposals to open wilderness and protected offshore areas to gas drilling, and increasing dependence on natural gas for electricity generation. What do all these developments have in common, and why should we care?

In this timely expose, author Julian Darley takes a hard-hitting look at natural gas as an energy source that rapidly went from nuisance to crutch. Darley outlines the implications of our increased dependence on this energy source and why it has the potential to cause serious environmental, political, and economic consequences. In High Noon for Natural Gas readers can expect to find a critical analysis of government policy on energy, as well as a meticulously researched warning about our next potentially catastrophic energy crisis.

Did you know that:

• Natural Gas (NG) is the second most important energy source after oil;
• In the U.S. alone, NG is used to supply 20% of all electricity and 60% of all home heating;
• NG is absolutely critical to the manufacture of agricultural fertilizers;
• In the U.S. the NG supply is at critically low levels, and early in 2003 we came within days of blackouts and heating shutdowns;
• Matt Simmons, the world’s foremost private energy banker, is now warning that economic growth in the U.S. is under threat due to the looming NG crisis?

“While much is known about the growing pressures on peteroleum supplies, far less is known about natural gas. As Julian Darley convincingly demonstrates in this important book, the long-range future for gas is equally bleak as that for oil. This invaluable book arrives at a critical juncture.” –Michael Klare, author of Resource Wars

About the Author
Julian Darley is a British environmental researcher who writes about nonmarket and non-technology-based responses to global environmental degradation. He runs an Internet broadcasting station (GlobalPublicMedia.com), develops OpenSource web database sites for nonprofits and civil society organizations, and is currently writing a book on how and why we need “global relocalization” of the economy, society and culture. Julian lives in Vancouver, Canada. For more information on Julian Darley, please visit his personal website

The Party’s Over: Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies

by Richard Heinberg

An excellent and well-researched book on the realities of Peak Oil, overpopulation, and unsustainable economics. I can’t recommended it highly enough. Should be required reading for every college freshman in my opinion. Packed with enough charts and data to make it worthy of your reference shelf, yet lively and empathetic enough to make the subject accessible to all.

Natural Capitalism - Paul Hawken and Amory and Hunter Lovins
Creating the next industrial revolution

Called “One giant leap for sustainability,” this book is “both a calls to arms and a revelation. The authors not only show how today’s industrialists and economists can change to work in harmony with the environment, they reveal how many of them already are doing so—and improving profitability in the process….This is radical stuff.” - Christian Science Monitor

Highly recommended!

The Best Democracy Money Can Buy - Greg Palast
The Truth About Corporate Cons, Globalization, and High-Finance Fraudsters

Greg Palast is the investigative journalist who brought us the truth about:


- The 2000 Florida election scandal


- Enron


- How Bush killed the FBI’s investigation of the financing of terrorist organizations by Saudi Arabia

Painstakingly researched, this is solid journalism, and a shocking look at our political reality.