Being and Oil: Volume One: Peak Oil Philosophy and the Ontology of Limitation

Chad A Haag has the ability to explain the actual predicament of modern civilization....it won't exist without the black goo...namely oil. He points out the obvious in a stark style that is refreshing to read.Interesting person and some passages are over my grade level but the pages that hit me was worth the price of the book.I'm old, so lucky I lived in the sweet spot of the fossil fuels party in the USA. I am also aware we were warned repeatedly of the danger of its depletion....which was obviously ignored.The next phase of existence will be turbulent as a new paradigm take hold in the mindset of survivors...Chad is a must read for that reason and a spattering of all the well known Philosophical figures of the past.

I disagree with the entire "peak oil" philosophy, in that I view the current situation as a technology problem: it's technological growth that has led to oil's unique benefits, use, and extraction and there will be further as yet inconceivable resources that will be extracted as our technological system expands. Further, oil reserves continually increase as the technological system expands in efficiency...this is why the term itself, "peak," is so relative and therefore meaningless--it's relative to the efficiency and technological state of the entire world-system. I could go on and on...But this is not the place to criticize "peak oil" as a philosophy, perspective or "movement." This is a book about peak oil, and it's philosophical underpinnings...And it's a very good introduction to understanding peak oil. I recommend it especially to anyone who comes from a more formal educational background in the humanities (history and philosophy in particular), as that background will be helpful to understanding the full context of the ideas presented.

Not for the faint of heart, this book explores questions you hadn't realized you had

Rather than actually discussing Peak Oil Philosophy; the author spends a sizeable (and even preoccupying) amount of pages ranting and digressing about how much he hates colleges and academia. While it is important to acknowledge the author's unfortunate experiences with student debt and the current problems with the educational system that places a huge burden on students' future (which the author does mention); a noticeable part of Being and Oil is a tedious regurgitation of far-right scapegoat arguments blaming or discrediting academic fields and people that the author doesn't like.While Deep Ecology Theory (which the author is familiar with) does place an emphasis on the hypocrisy of the current environmental movement; Haag prefers to ignore much of what is actually destroying the planet (like...capitalism) and put most of the blame on his inaccurate, misleading and erroneous vision of liberals, in which apparently all of them (according to the author) have high paying jobs in corporate offices and travel in private jets on a weekly basis from their chalets in the Californian woods to their 2nd houses in Washington D.C. to participate on environmental protests.The author's constant vicious and almost delusional attacks on "the left" or "the liberals" keeps the reader wondering when will the author actually discuss Peak Oil Philosophy in a book about Peak Oil Philosophy. If the real objective of this book is about "owning the gender-fluid libs", at least the title of the book should reflect it.To be fair to the author, in the insufficient sections of the book where he actually talks about oil and philosophy, he does make some interesting and valid points. But if this "manifesto" is supposed to be a rendition of what the author calls "the anti-academia philosophy"; this philosophy is doomed to be mediocre and unremarkable.

amazingly insightful, unapologetically creative and iconaclastic, Haag's thesis here feels like a very necessary rupture with the academy as well as castrated responses to ecology! i'll read every word he writes