Who Turned Out the Lights?: Your Guided Tour to the Energy Crisis

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Who Turned Out the Lights?: Your Guided Tour to the Energy Crisis Pub. Date: 10/27/2009 Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers

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Overview

From the editors of PublicAgenda.org, an entertaining, irreverent, and absolutely essential nonpartisan guide to the energy crisis

Energy: It's a problem that never goes away (despite our best efforts as a nation to ignore it). Why has there been so much talk and so little action? In Who Turned Out the Lights? Scott Bittle and Jean Johnson offer a much-needed reality check: The "Drill, Baby, Drill" versus "Every Day Is Earth Day" battle is not solving our problems, and the finger-pointing is just holding us up.

Sorting through the political posturing and confusing techno-speak, they provide a fair-minded, "let's skip the jargon" explanation of the choices we face. And chapters such as "It's All Right Now (In Fact, It's a Gas)" prove that, while the problem is serious, getting a grip on it doesn't have to be. In the end, the authors present options from the right, left, and center but take just one position: The country must change the way it gets and uses energy, and the first step is to understand the choices.

Editorial Reviews

Blogcritics.org

“I would hope that government officials, politicians, and everyone that should be involved in the energy crisis- which means you and me-would read Who Turned Out the Lights? This book is factual but not boring. Its suggestions for energy consumption are meaningful.”

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780061715648
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date: 10/27/2009
Pages: 339
Sales rank: 1,138,624
Product dimensions: 5.26 (w) x 8.02 (h) x 0.85 (d)

Meet the Author

Scott Bittle is an award-winning journalist, policy analyst, and web producer who has written extensively about the federal budget, energy, and foreign policy.

Jean Johnson writes frequently about public opinion and public policy and is the author of You Can’t Do It Alone, a book on how parents, teachers, and students see education issues. Both authors are senior fellows at Public Agenda and blog frequently for the Huffington Post, National Geographic, and other outlets.

Preface: Where We're Coming From xv

Chapter 1 Six Reasons the United States Needs to Get Its Energy Act Together 1

Playing the Blame Game

The Great Energy Debate Pop Quiz

Suppose People in China Really Start Living the Way We Do

Chapter 2 Groundhog Day, or Haven't We Seen This Movie Before? 24

America's Energy Chronicles, or How We Got to Where We Are Today

Chapter 3 Giving the Voters What They Want 36

Chapter 4 Seemed Like a Good idea at the Time, or How Three Flawed Ideas Could Get Us Off Track 43

A Message to Our Readers

Chapter 5 The Basics: Ten Facts You Need to Know 57

The Great All-in-One Fossil Fuel Centerfold

Chapter 6 Double, Double, Oil, and Trouble 81

Peak Oil, or When Will We Run Out?

The Return of Snidely Whiplash: Are Evil Speculators to Blame?

Chapter 7 You Load Sixteen Tons and What Do You Get? 110

Clean Coal: The Ad Wars

Chapter 8 It's All Right Now (In Fact, It's a Gas) 129

Chapter 9 Time for the Nuclear Option? 141

Chernobyl and Three Mile Island: Twice-Told Tales

Chapter 10 As Long as the Wind Blows and the Sun Shines 162

Dam It: Hydroelectric Power

Looking for the Newest Hot Spots: Geothermal Power

Grid and Bear It: Why the United States Needs a New Electricity Grid

Chapter 11 No Place Like [an Energy-Efficient] Home 193

Are We Looking to Live in All the Wrong Places?

On the Rebound: Why More Efficiency Doesn't

Always Save Energy

Chapter 12 Driven to Distraction 211

The Big Bang Theory of Auto Safety

Take Your Pick: Food or Fuel?

Chapter 13 Looking for Mr. Wizard 235

Green-Collar Jobs, You Say? Name Some

Chapter 14 Sitting on Top of the World247

Setting theGlobal Thermostat: How to Tell if We're Really

Making Progress on Climate Change

Chapter 15 So Now What? Ideas from the Left, Right, and Center 261

This Little Piggy Went to Market; This Little Piggy Passed Laws

President Obama's Promises

Chapter 16 The Reality Show 292

Acknowledgments 301

Notes 303

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scentednights2002

Posted November 9, 2009

Who Turned Out the Lights?

Who Turned Out the Lights? is an invaluable resource for the person who is trying to decipher all the political jargon out there right now. This book goes beyond partisan explanations of the energy crisis and shows all sides of the argument in language your average person can understand.

This book begins with how we got to where we are today and goes on to discuss the challenges we are facing as a country. Who Turned Out the Lights? talks about all forms of energy from coal to oil to electricity to solar to wind to geothermal. It explains how each type of energy is made and the pros and cons of using it or other sources.

The authors discuss a wide variety of topics including global warming, energy efficient homes, hybrid cars, nuclear power accidents, our aging electric grid and President Obama's promises regarding the energy crisis.

If you're looking for an easy to understand book that will introduce you to the energy crisis and offer non-biased explanations and suggestions, I'd highly recommend you read this book.
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Posted January 27, 2010

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