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Carbon Ideologies #2
No Good Alternative: Volume Two of Carbon Ideologies
The second volume of William T. Vollmann's epic book about the factors and human actions that have led to global warming begins in the coal fields of West Virginia and Eastern Kentucky, where "America's best friend" is not merely a fuel, but a "heritage".
Over the course of four years, Vollmann finds hollowed out towns with coal-polluted streams and acidified drinking water; makes covert visits to mountaintop removal mines; and offers documented accounts of unpaid fines for federal health and safety violations and of miners who died because their bosses cut corners to make more money.
To write about natural gas, Vollmann journeys to Greeley, Colorado, where he interviews anti-fracking activists, a city planner, and a homeowner with serious health issues from fracking. Turning to oil production, he speaks with, among others, the former CEO of Conoco and a vice president of the Bank of Oklahoma in charge of energy loans, and conducts furtive roadside interviews of guest workers performing oil-related contract labor in the United Arab Emirates.
As with its predecessor, No Immediate Danger, this volume seeks to understand and listen, not to lay blame - except in a few corporate and political cases where outrage is clearly due.
PLEASE When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
Over the course of four years, Vollmann finds hollowed out towns with coal-polluted streams and acidified drinking water; makes covert visits to mountaintop removal mines; and offers documented accounts of unpaid fines for federal health and safety violations and of miners who died because their bosses cut corners to make more money.
To write about natural gas, Vollmann journeys to Greeley, Colorado, where he interviews anti-fracking activists, a city planner, and a homeowner with serious health issues from fracking. Turning to oil production, he speaks with, among others, the former CEO of Conoco and a vice president of the Bank of Oklahoma in charge of energy loans, and conducts furtive roadside interviews of guest workers performing oil-related contract labor in the United Arab Emirates.
As with its predecessor, No Immediate Danger, this volume seeks to understand and listen, not to lay blame - except in a few corporate and political cases where outrage is clearly due.
PLEASE When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
688 pages, Hardcover
First published June 25, 2018
32 people are currently reading
1271 people want to read
About the author
William T. Vollmann
99 books1,454 followersWilliam Tanner Vollmann is an American author, journalist, and essayist known for his ambitious and often unconventional literary works. Born on July 28, 1959, in Los Angeles, California, Vollmann has earned a reputation as one of the most prolific and daring writers of his generation.
Vollmann's early life was marked by tragedy; his sister drowned when he was a child, an event that profoundly impacted him and influenced his writing. He attended Deep Springs College, a small, isolated liberal arts college in California, before transferring to Cornell University, where he studied comparative literature. After college, Vollmann spent some time in Afghanistan as a freelance journalist, an experience that would later inform some of his works.
His first novel, You Bright and Risen Angels (1987), is a sprawling, experimental work that blends fantasy, history, and social commentary. This novel set the tone for much of his later work, characterized by its complexity, depth, and a willingness to tackle difficult and controversial subjects.
Vollmann's most acclaimed work is The Rainbow Stories (1989), a collection of interlinked short stories that explore the darker sides of human nature. His nonfiction is equally notable, particularly Rising Up and Rising Down (2003), a seven-volume treatise on violence, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award.
Over the years, Vollmann has continued to write prolifically, producing novels, short stories, essays, and journalistic pieces. His work often delves into themes of violence, poverty, and the struggles of marginalized people. He has received several awards, including the National Book Award for Fiction in 2005 for Europe Central, a novel about the moral dilemmas faced by individuals during World War II.
Vollmann is known for his immersive research methods, often placing himself in dangerous situations to better understand his subjects. Despite his literary success, he remains somewhat of an outsider in the literary world, frequently shunning public appearances and maintaining a low profile.
In addition to his writing, Vollmann is also an accomplished photographer, and his photographs often accompany his written work. Painting is also an art where's working on, celebrating expositions in the United States, showing his paintings. His diverse interests and unflinching approach to his subjects have made him a unique voice in contemporary American literature.
Vollmann's early life was marked by tragedy; his sister drowned when he was a child, an event that profoundly impacted him and influenced his writing. He attended Deep Springs College, a small, isolated liberal arts college in California, before transferring to Cornell University, where he studied comparative literature. After college, Vollmann spent some time in Afghanistan as a freelance journalist, an experience that would later inform some of his works.
His first novel, You Bright and Risen Angels (1987), is a sprawling, experimental work that blends fantasy, history, and social commentary. This novel set the tone for much of his later work, characterized by its complexity, depth, and a willingness to tackle difficult and controversial subjects.
Vollmann's most acclaimed work is The Rainbow Stories (1989), a collection of interlinked short stories that explore the darker sides of human nature. His nonfiction is equally notable, particularly Rising Up and Rising Down (2003), a seven-volume treatise on violence, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award.
Over the years, Vollmann has continued to write prolifically, producing novels, short stories, essays, and journalistic pieces. His work often delves into themes of violence, poverty, and the struggles of marginalized people. He has received several awards, including the National Book Award for Fiction in 2005 for Europe Central, a novel about the moral dilemmas faced by individuals during World War II.
Vollmann is known for his immersive research methods, often placing himself in dangerous situations to better understand his subjects. Despite his literary success, he remains somewhat of an outsider in the literary world, frequently shunning public appearances and maintaining a low profile.
In addition to his writing, Vollmann is also an accomplished photographer, and his photographs often accompany his written work. Painting is also an art where's working on, celebrating expositions in the United States, showing his paintings. His diverse interests and unflinching approach to his subjects have made him a unique voice in contemporary American literature.
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June 24, 2018[this my third Review today so I'lls keep it short for ya]
It should be known, Viking made a serious mistake pub'ing this in two volumes. Let it be made clear, this is a single work, a single book. I have to make that clear because I was a little non=plussed with that first volume (a lot of number crunching, a lot of frisking; Japan and nuclear aren't up there on the top of my interests generally) ;; but it's only the ground laying and beginning of his argument. It's just the laying down of some track, not the blasting ahead over the rails with a full head of steam.
Let it be known, some folks have had a hard time with Vollmann's concept of 'ideology' ; a concept that would not be all that unfamiliar to the average reader of Zizek. Look, those who stutter askance that a pro- (or anti-) nuke person is a 'carbon ideologue', those are the type for whom it's always the other guy who's got the ideology while they are free (how blessed!) of the contamination of ideology. The point is that the entire energy discussion revolves around the question of carbon ; nuke is only significant in relation to this question. The claim made is that all energy questions reference carbon and are thus all positions are carbon ideologies. Every structured set or system of beliefs is an ideology (most clearly is the "I have no ideology" guy an ideologue).
At any rate, this second volume raises the whole project up to the level of Vollmann's other best non-fic work--Poor People, Imperial, RURD. Here for the most part we aren't dealing with a language barrier as in the first volume and so the interviewees tend to take up pages at a time rather than a few words or a small paragraph (which the UAE and Bangladeshi sections here make clear). This is of course one of Vollmann's strongest journalist points, letting his subjects speak for themselves and in their own words and own tones. Here too of course is a wider diversity of energies, as we deal with coal and gas and oil. Diversity also of geography, from Appalachia to Colorado, Mexico, Bangladesh, UAE, etc. All of which made it a more rewarding reading experience. Nearly every paragraph bristles with a knowledge of what we are doing to ourselves and our planet and to those who are yet to come and to whom this work is primarily addressed.
And famously too Vollmann is not giving you answers or telling you what to do. Mostly one could characterize his work as attempting to at least trace out how difficult the question itself is to get ahold of, never mind how tempting it is to grab an easy answer beforehand. But for those pesky folks who want to save the environment with a green curbside bucket and insist on an answer to their impatient "What is to be done?" let me speculate what Vollmann's first target would be. "No Comment". The nearly total resistance on the part of the energy industries to even participate in civil society, to be somewhat transparent, to return phone calls or interact with journalists. And the legal layer allowing near total secrecy about what they are up to. It is these private tyrannies that are killing us. So I'd say, if you want to Do Something (and not just sit there), drag these private tyrannies into the courts of accountability.
It should be known, Viking made a serious mistake pub'ing this in two volumes. Let it be made clear, this is a single work, a single book. I have to make that clear because I was a little non=plussed with that first volume (a lot of number crunching, a lot of frisking; Japan and nuclear aren't up there on the top of my interests generally) ;; but it's only the ground laying and beginning of his argument. It's just the laying down of some track, not the blasting ahead over the rails with a full head of steam.
Let it be known, some folks have had a hard time with Vollmann's concept of 'ideology' ; a concept that would not be all that unfamiliar to the average reader of Zizek. Look, those who stutter askance that a pro- (or anti-) nuke person is a 'carbon ideologue', those are the type for whom it's always the other guy who's got the ideology while they are free (how blessed!) of the contamination of ideology. The point is that the entire energy discussion revolves around the question of carbon ; nuke is only significant in relation to this question. The claim made is that all energy questions reference carbon and are thus all positions are carbon ideologies. Every structured set or system of beliefs is an ideology (most clearly is the "I have no ideology" guy an ideologue).
At any rate, this second volume raises the whole project up to the level of Vollmann's other best non-fic work--Poor People, Imperial, RURD. Here for the most part we aren't dealing with a language barrier as in the first volume and so the interviewees tend to take up pages at a time rather than a few words or a small paragraph (which the UAE and Bangladeshi sections here make clear). This is of course one of Vollmann's strongest journalist points, letting his subjects speak for themselves and in their own words and own tones. Here too of course is a wider diversity of energies, as we deal with coal and gas and oil. Diversity also of geography, from Appalachia to Colorado, Mexico, Bangladesh, UAE, etc. All of which made it a more rewarding reading experience. Nearly every paragraph bristles with a knowledge of what we are doing to ourselves and our planet and to those who are yet to come and to whom this work is primarily addressed.
And famously too Vollmann is not giving you answers or telling you what to do. Mostly one could characterize his work as attempting to at least trace out how difficult the question itself is to get ahold of, never mind how tempting it is to grab an easy answer beforehand. But for those pesky folks who want to save the environment with a green curbside bucket and insist on an answer to their impatient "What is to be done?" let me speculate what Vollmann's first target would be. "No Comment". The nearly total resistance on the part of the energy industries to even participate in civil society, to be somewhat transparent, to return phone calls or interact with journalists. And the legal layer allowing near total secrecy about what they are up to. It is these private tyrannies that are killing us. So I'd say, if you want to Do Something (and not just sit there), drag these private tyrannies into the courts of accountability.
Read
April 26, 2020The two volumes should be treated as one, but the second is a better “book” than the first. Anyway, essential reading for our failed human experiment; though it is rarely entertaining, it is often deeply humane. I adore Vollmann. We are doomed.
October 1, 2020
List of Maps and Illustrations
--Carbon Ideologies Volume II: No Good Alternative
Acknowledgments
(For source notes to both volumes of 'Carbon Ideologies', please see: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/carbonideologies.)
--Carbon Ideologies Volume II: No Good Alternative
Acknowledgments
(For source notes to both volumes of 'Carbon Ideologies', please see: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/carbonideologies.)
June 17, 2018
If you are attracted to and desirous of immersion in Grade A glut, then you either know or should know that William T. Vollmann is your man. His last novel, THE DYING GRASS, was over 1300 pages long and apparently he was forced to expend some effort cutting it down to that. Reading THE DYING GRASS was extremely rewarding in the way hard work often is. It was not a breezy readerly dalliance. Having now read the twin collections comprising the single work that is CARBON IDEOLOGIES (together chalking in at damn near 1300 pages), I have to say that though I would hardly call them breezy, neither do they demand (exactly) to be impugned as "hard work." THE DYING GRASS took me something close to two months to read; I read the 667 pages of NO GOOD ALTERNATIVE is eleven days. As circumstances conveniently aligned themselves for me (who only ever undertakes one book at a time, and finishes every last one, disfavour be damned) to commence w/ NO GOOD ALTERNATIVE on its release date, I have the unique pat-myself-on-the-back privilege of submitting the first Goodreads review of the backend of this remarkable bisected work. Whereas the first two-hundred-some-odd pages of NO IMMEDIATE DANGER involved much straight science and a whole heap-load of British Thermal Unit number crunching, only then to move on to Vollmann's adventures in post-Fukushima Japan w/ his dosimeter, pancake frisker, kindliness, and razor wit, NO GOOD ALTERNATIVE is almost entirely reportage and essayistic asides. While Vollmann can be biting and sarcastic, he is always a man on the ground in good faith; he is interested in people, even sometimes declaring that he likes very much people that you or I might find it very difficult to like indeed; the sarcasm and gallows humour are counterpoint to what must be a genuine streak of folksy ingenuousness. He is, of course (I should think it would be a matter of obviousness), a truly remarkable writer, somehow both conversational and hyper-literary, guided as the best folks are by a brawny curiosity. Just look at all the places he went and all the people he spoke to! (Check out that epic closing "Acknowledgements" section.) This is a man who will go considerable distance to get his story. He never seems to stop. Hence the glut. (At one point he tells us he revised the chapter we are in the process of reading on a bullet train to Tokyo.) NO GOOD ALTERNATIVE seems even more remarkable to me than the super remarkable NO IMMEDIATE DANGER. Very early, when we are traveling w/ Vollmann through West Virginia coal country, I was aware of reading something as immortal as the rhetorical conceit of CARBON IDEOLOGIES (which is addressed to readers in our "hot dark future") would seem to require it to be. I suddenly realized that the great crime of my existence is that I have not yet read James Agee's LET US NOW PRAISE FAMOUS MEN (which I shall commence reading as soon as I finish this review.) Agee would have to be a touchstone for Vollmann's sublimely-written reportage. Vollmann is a giant of the same literary breed. Except more giant. Yes, alas, there is the matter of glut. Not only have I read NO GOOD ALTERNATIVE in eleven days, I have also taken the opportunity to espy and at some length consider Wen Stephenson's lightly chastising "Carbon Ironies," which curious readers can likewise go espy over at THE BAFFLER's website. Stephenson says that Vollmann is a marvelous writer who has written a pair of volumes people ought to read, but that his position as a kind of defeated fatalist means he seems not to acknowledge that democracy and good citizenship require us to take action when it may only make a minor difference (or maybe even none at all). Stephenson says it is too late for anything other than calamity to darken our horizon, but that we should be working on precipitating very bad scenarios that are slightly less bad than the worst bad scenarios. I think Vollmann would take this criticism seriously. I think he flirts with saying the same himself. A short chapter near the end entitled "What We Should Have Done," is a real tour de force and he is by no means being glib in wrestling w/ this stuff. It is true that Vollmann tends to get a lay of the land based on where he happens to be standing at any given moment. The only crusaders we meet are almost completely solitary individuals fighting Quixotic local battles. Vollmann loves these people and he praises them beautifully in accordance. The beast at the heart of the story is our demand for energy and the products only made possible by resource extraction (Vollmann again and again takes himself to task as a blasé twenty-first century consumer), but the villains are the "regulated community," the bottom-line-driven business interests w/ their loathsome politicial bedfellows, utterly affronted by any obstacle that would presume to impede their spree. Vollmann would like nothing more than to see a way out of their chokehold, and to his dismay he cannot. If Vollmann is a fatalist, it pleases him not one jot. Is he what Rebecca Solnit would call a lazy cynic? Well, man, Vollmann is about as unlazy as they come. A cynic? Maybe. But that's definitely not necessarily the same thing as being irrational.
January 30, 2025
Fantastic. Another Vollmann done. Volume 2 of Carbon Ideologies was amazing, but god it kills me.
Want to read
June 24, 2018No Literary Merit
Read
April 8, 2023“There had only been one hope for us: To reduce demand” (627).
August 20, 2018
Whew. Together with Volume 1, that is one long, depressing book about how we're killing the Earth and everyone on it. Good, though! Vollmann gets into oil and coal and natural gas in this volume. He interviews all kinds of people, from the little to the big, from pro-coal/oil/gas to anti, and no matter what anyone says, however hopeful or pessimistic, however uninformed or insightful, the takeaway becomes clearer and clearer the more one reads: we are doomed, doomed, and still more doomed. We can't help it. We are all of us woefully human. We like convenience, and we like it now. We're no good at basing our actions on what may or may not happen 100 years in the future. Knowing what we're doing is awful just isn't enough, and too few people even think coal/gas/oil/nuclear is bad to begin with. We are addicted to energy. And like any junkie, we'll keep using more until it kills us.
May 13, 2019
Whew! Volume II done. Well, the news doesn't get better, does it? While Volume I mostly dealt with Japan and its nuclear disaster, Volume II focuses on oil, gas, and coal. This volume is much more interviewing intensive where the reader gets first hand impressions from those working on the front line or fighting on the front line. For me, it was a shocking read that only confirmed even more that we have no way out of this mess. Reading the comments from West Virginia to Abu Dhabi to Greeley, Colorado, the message is pretty clear: jobs before safety, selfishness before selflessness, pride before prudence. I personally liked the snark by the author considering he is writing to the future and trying to explain why things happened the way they did. In the end, what can be done? Seriously, what can really be done right now, today to mitigate the worst of what is to come?
January 3, 2019
One of the most powerful, disturbing, frightening, insightful books on the on the ground contributors to climate change I've read. A must read for those who want a dose of reality about Climate Change.
July 29, 2021
A less negative carbon ideologue than I might interpret the lonely wariness of Mr. Winkler and of Sharon Carlisle as proof of wrongheaded irrelevance. Socrates was equally irrelevant once the Athenians had served him his hemlock. The insipidities of the hollowed out Greeley Tribune, the no comment of most people to whom I “reached out,” and the typical anomie of an American metropolis, whose citizens I rarely saw except in their cars, in retail establishments or at the Fourth of July parade, operated synergistically to create the usual hot wide silence—about fracking, climate change, democracy and every other thing. A certain form of economic development held sway, and that was that.
[I]f I can be sure of any aspect of your character, it is that you are not as I. Since all I can do here is imagine you in my image, of course I have failed. I was as fossil fuels made me. They kept my lights on. Hence I who imagine myself to be open-minded will appear to you as deservedly dead, fossilized in the stratum of my own period’s prejudices.
See my review of Volume I.
November 14, 2021
The closer the material gets to things I know a lot about, the thinner it feels. So excellent work on coal but the fracking and oil sections could have delved a great deal deeper. Still a masterful ironic voice and excellent pursuit of direct experiences.
April 18, 2022
"I write this book unable to comprehend in my bones that someday all our choices will probably run out."
I hope it doesn't spoil it for you to tell you that was the ending sentence of the book. Vollmann travels the depths of the fossil-fuel industries, looking at the harms they do, emphasizing our addiction to their products. The long quotations are fascinating, often misguided, and somewhat terrifying, indicating as they do a general denial or lack of understanding of what these fuels are doing to our planet, and to our civilization. He says the book lacks balance from the industries themselves (their spokespersons or upper caste representatives I suppose), but that is because they mostly refuse to talk. Cowards. But, while there is some discussion of renewable energies, their benefits and limitations in meeting current demand let alone future demand, I think this book is best read in conjunction with more hopeful acc0unts. But if Carbon Ideologies is anything, it's honest. He writes it as a confessional to the future, and it is also damning. Often we hold to hope because it gets us to the next day, but he points out its limitations in getting us to do the right things to allow a future for our kind. Personally, I hold little hope that our species will last much longer. If it does, it will be in drastically reduced numbers without much that we would currently recognize as technology. Whether their lives will be better or worse than ours, I really don't know. Survival from day to day will be challenging and lifespans will be shorter, but at least they won't waste so much time wondering what is their purpose.
I hope it doesn't spoil it for you to tell you that was the ending sentence of the book. Vollmann travels the depths of the fossil-fuel industries, looking at the harms they do, emphasizing our addiction to their products. The long quotations are fascinating, often misguided, and somewhat terrifying, indicating as they do a general denial or lack of understanding of what these fuels are doing to our planet, and to our civilization. He says the book lacks balance from the industries themselves (their spokespersons or upper caste representatives I suppose), but that is because they mostly refuse to talk. Cowards. But, while there is some discussion of renewable energies, their benefits and limitations in meeting current demand let alone future demand, I think this book is best read in conjunction with more hopeful acc0unts. But if Carbon Ideologies is anything, it's honest. He writes it as a confessional to the future, and it is also damning. Often we hold to hope because it gets us to the next day, but he points out its limitations in getting us to do the right things to allow a future for our kind. Personally, I hold little hope that our species will last much longer. If it does, it will be in drastically reduced numbers without much that we would currently recognize as technology. Whether their lives will be better or worse than ours, I really don't know. Survival from day to day will be challenging and lifespans will be shorter, but at least they won't waste so much time wondering what is their purpose.
August 30, 2020
Not sure if this is the stronger of Volmann's 2 Carbon Ideologies books, but I found No Good Alternative an easier read than No Immediate Danger. Volmann's self flagellating & male-gazing asides were less common & less jarring; perhaps I just got used to them? Full of interesting interviews & has many tidbits of information about worldwide energy use and generation. Does a good job of showing how thoroughly the coal industry has poisoned West Virginia's water while also drawing parallels with uninhabitable radioactive zones around the Fukushima Daiichi disaster site. Discusses the extreme contempt of oil, gas, & coal extractors for anything but their profits, and the the US's extreme lack of regulation of these industries. Still gives capitalism too much of a pass, conflating the nature of capitalism with the nature of humans, leading to the flawed conclusion that it would be easier to lower the population and reproduction than it would be to lower consumption. I would have thought Volmann would recognize telling people to have less sex would be harder than telling them to have less stuff. In the end, Volmann is still a carbon ideologue, unable see any alternative to capitalism, despite deploying examples from such alternative formulators as Ursula K Leguin. Perhaps the problem was that he never spoke to anyone presenting a real alternative to capitalism. He spoke to Solar experts, but they were still speaking in terms of simply meeting energy demand as it exists now, as if ordained by laws of nature. All in all a good read though. Good for book clubs, pandemics, etc.
December 30, 2020
I hate this man for being so brutally honest; yet I’m extremely grateful for the experience. You’ve GOT to read the whole thing. I know—it’s a lot. It’s worth it. I’ve been an academic in this field and I feel like I’ve acquired an understanding that is simultaneously more nuanced yet clearer than before. He’s known for writing long works. They’re worth following.
September 3, 2019
this may be one of the bleakest and most honest books i've ever read...perfect reading for a long, hot, humid summer suffocated by rampant tourism in NYC.
December 26, 2025
Honestly this fall I hit a very hard wall. I've had a very up and down year from a mental health perspective, and while Carbon Ideologies #1 was compelling (esp the scenes with Vollmann hanging out in radioactive zones in Japan), Vol #2 fucked me up. I found it so discouraging, so depressing, and it filled me with a sense of dread and hopelessness that honestly caused me to spiral a bit. I took 10 days off work in late October.
And I was not even realizing until sitting down to fill in some Goodreads reviews at the end of the year, a few books I read but forgot to capture here when I realized (1) I hadn't documented my feelings about Carbon Ideologies #2 and (2) there is probably good reason for that, in hindsight.
I'm only two years into documenting my reading this way, logging books and dates read. I feel like there is something wrong with my brain, and even though I'm 47, I am so forgetful now. Long Covid? Microplastics? Decades of cannabis abuse? As an academic and someone who sells ideas for a living, I have always read more than the average person. This year I hit 60, that's been my average for many, many year,s and I've never really tried that hard to "hit a number" (if I read 60 books or I read 40 books or I read 100 books does it fucking matter when the average number of books most people read in a year is somewhere between zero and one and is likely to be some form of self-help thing). And while it's certainly rewarding to have a complete record of what I read, my life has been much less disciplined when it comes to reflecting on my reading. I own enough books and have been reading long enough that I started documenting comprehensively on Goodreads because I got tired of picking up a book and having no memory of reading it until 1/2 way in).
And yet, here I am completing an entry for this book that fucked my ass up and am probably better off forgetting because if you ever want to trigger an existential spiral, read a book about how hopelessly fucked we are because of our relationship to burning carbon and how captured so many people are in terms of not being able to think clearly about the consequences of their behaviour. That short-term economic gain is all that is worth thinking about and pursuing.
Vollmann is a genius. I learned a thing or two about structuring research in a readable way (I'm working on a long-form piece in the Vollmann style about Canadian symbology). But this book literally almost cost my job, so reader beware!
And I was not even realizing until sitting down to fill in some Goodreads reviews at the end of the year, a few books I read but forgot to capture here when I realized (1) I hadn't documented my feelings about Carbon Ideologies #2 and (2) there is probably good reason for that, in hindsight.
I'm only two years into documenting my reading this way, logging books and dates read. I feel like there is something wrong with my brain, and even though I'm 47, I am so forgetful now. Long Covid? Microplastics? Decades of cannabis abuse? As an academic and someone who sells ideas for a living, I have always read more than the average person. This year I hit 60, that's been my average for many, many year,s and I've never really tried that hard to "hit a number" (if I read 60 books or I read 40 books or I read 100 books does it fucking matter when the average number of books most people read in a year is somewhere between zero and one and is likely to be some form of self-help thing). And while it's certainly rewarding to have a complete record of what I read, my life has been much less disciplined when it comes to reflecting on my reading. I own enough books and have been reading long enough that I started documenting comprehensively on Goodreads because I got tired of picking up a book and having no memory of reading it until 1/2 way in).
And yet, here I am completing an entry for this book that fucked my ass up and am probably better off forgetting because if you ever want to trigger an existential spiral, read a book about how hopelessly fucked we are because of our relationship to burning carbon and how captured so many people are in terms of not being able to think clearly about the consequences of their behaviour. That short-term economic gain is all that is worth thinking about and pursuing.
Vollmann is a genius. I learned a thing or two about structuring research in a readable way (I'm working on a long-form piece in the Vollmann style about Canadian symbology). But this book literally almost cost my job, so reader beware!
September 20, 2018
If you are looking for book on the facts on climate change and greenhouse emissions and understanding the Carbon Ideology of our times. There is no better book.
But be warned this book is not a uppie book. Together “No Immediate Danger” and “No Good Alternative” include over 2000 pages of climate journalism covering everything from Nuclear power, including extensive details on the Fukushima nuclear disaster, coal usage around the world and West Virginia specifically, Fracking energy exploitations in Colorado, and Oil industry futures in the Arab world, and the difficulties of embracing renewable energy.
William includes many literature quotes along the way, Goethe is a favorite, “the man who is best educated can assume to have the majority against him”. Political theory is also interwoven, as we watch Capitalism move toward rent extractions instead of innovation investment for risk management with land grabbing and dispossession of people becoming more common.
We are seeing human nature, the self-interest chase going out at all costs, up to and beyond the boundary lines drawn by law to protect us from harming each other. We see self-interest over running itself and eroding public safety, with roaring, howling people screaming irrational injustices if we look into ways to limit our climates destruction.
Many people believe success is never bad, that strength and success are above morality. What is worse nuclear catastrophes or climate catastrophes? We have pro-fracking and pro-coal propaganda that refuse to share the facts that justify their belittling the danger of each. They are passing “freedom loving” laws that make our environment less safe.
William wrote these two books as an apology to children a hundred years from now who will be suffering the result of our lack of action to address climate challenges. William foresees these children living in dark hot caves, with overly polluted landscapes and energy scarcity, a very rough group of humans who are even more under-educated then our people today, where there is no more electricity at night for reading and were sea levels have risen over 15 feet. He tries to explain how we let this happen to the world, reports all the data we have today to understand the problems, interviews hundreds of people in all industry and areas.
William explains how our choices for addressing climate change continue to be passed down to further generations until they have no choices.
But be warned this book is not a uppie book. Together “No Immediate Danger” and “No Good Alternative” include over 2000 pages of climate journalism covering everything from Nuclear power, including extensive details on the Fukushima nuclear disaster, coal usage around the world and West Virginia specifically, Fracking energy exploitations in Colorado, and Oil industry futures in the Arab world, and the difficulties of embracing renewable energy.
William includes many literature quotes along the way, Goethe is a favorite, “the man who is best educated can assume to have the majority against him”. Political theory is also interwoven, as we watch Capitalism move toward rent extractions instead of innovation investment for risk management with land grabbing and dispossession of people becoming more common.
We are seeing human nature, the self-interest chase going out at all costs, up to and beyond the boundary lines drawn by law to protect us from harming each other. We see self-interest over running itself and eroding public safety, with roaring, howling people screaming irrational injustices if we look into ways to limit our climates destruction.
Many people believe success is never bad, that strength and success are above morality. What is worse nuclear catastrophes or climate catastrophes? We have pro-fracking and pro-coal propaganda that refuse to share the facts that justify their belittling the danger of each. They are passing “freedom loving” laws that make our environment less safe.
William wrote these two books as an apology to children a hundred years from now who will be suffering the result of our lack of action to address climate challenges. William foresees these children living in dark hot caves, with overly polluted landscapes and energy scarcity, a very rough group of humans who are even more under-educated then our people today, where there is no more electricity at night for reading and were sea levels have risen over 15 feet. He tries to explain how we let this happen to the world, reports all the data we have today to understand the problems, interviews hundreds of people in all industry and areas.
William explains how our choices for addressing climate change continue to be passed down to further generations until they have no choices.
August 12, 2019
I listened to this book and it’s companion volume on Audible. I’m glad I did. They provide a comprehensive look at why we use the sources of energy we use and why we are so lackadaisical about the effects our energy creation and usage have on our environment, global ecosystem, and the lives of those living now and those to come. Along with many numbers collected mostly from government sources — which may cause you to fall asleep in the bus, miss your stop, and be awakened by the bus driver — it includes much data personally collected by the author through interviews, instrument measurements, and personal observations, as well as astute analysis of what he has learned. It is a thorough, disheartening, and intense call to action to anyone whose care for the earth we bequeath to future generations could fit into a thimble. And “future generations” includes people who are alive today, not just faceless, nameless heirs we’ll never meet about whom we can say, Well, I hope they figure it out. If you flipped in a light switch today, you owe it to yourself and everyone else to expose your mind to the contents of this book. The creation of the GHGs behind human-induced global warming is something humans literally do in their sleep, as well as through almost every single thing we do while we are awake. (But don’t worry, GHGs are definitely not the only thing we are doing to despoil our only home.) The best thing that can come out of reading these books is a deep commitment to trying anything and everything to get us as a world off of using fossil fuels for transportation and the production of electricity. The issue is getting everybody in every industry or residence that uses fossil fuels for transportation or electricity to get on board as well. How do we do that? Unfortunately Vollman doesn’t know and neither do I. That’s definitely above my par grade.
April 13, 2021
In his second volume of the Carbon Ideologies, Vollmann dives into three of our favorite alternatives to nuclear power: natural gas, oil, and coal. In the same witty, dark humor, Vollmann attempts to apologize for the actions of his generation by arguing that there was no good alternative to powering the life we led.
Diving deep into the communities built on these fossil fuels, he interviews dozens of people, mostly those at the frontlines as those at the top ignore his inquiries, to find out just how much of life is based on these ideologies.
We learn of the dirty, dangerous jobs of coal mining in West Virginia, and the enshrined heroism of these workers when they die (a sacrifice they make “to keep the lights on”) and the deflected blame of the corporations that cut safety corners to save money. We learn of the environmental degradation of mountaintop removal, the health effects of black lung, and the pollution of coal ash and sludge.
Vollmann travels next to Colorado to learn more about fracking. Along the way, Vollmann details the technical process of these actions, characterizing not only the human risk but also the environmental consequences, both short term and long. Similarly, traveling to Bangladesh and Abu Dhabi, Vollmann finds how corporations don’t just exploit American workers, but workers all over the world, paying them even less to do similar work. Meanwhile, everyone seems to realize climate change exists, but prefer instead to pay it no mind.
With a metaphorical shrug, Vollmann once again makes no excuses for their behavior other than that was the way it was — he himself acknowledges that he is part of the problem, with all his power use. In this way, No Good Alternative, and the larger Carbon Ideologies, is a relative breath of fresh air compared to most climate books out there.
We don’t need all climate books to be like this, but being pragmatic about our current situation — specifically the political and economic systems that have created the daily and cultural dependence on fossil fuel — is sometimes more welcomed than the formulaic climate narrative of problem, human story, solution, hope. Vollmann is more interested in uncovering how we got here, rather than figure out where we go from here.
Looking into the past, and the collateral damage of this fossil fuel economy, Vollmann indirectly makes a case for change without outright advocating it. His rhetorical style is that of a sardonic, witty historian who tries to understand how we got here by getting down into the extraction-based communities and their boom and bust economies.
What he finds is a significant separation of class between the worker and the corporations, a negligence of health and safety, both short term and long, and a wildly profit-driven environment, which does not ever stop to consider he planetary harm being done by continual extraction, refining, and burning of fossil fuels. Our self-serving behavior of waste and excess was justified by “the way it was” and a magnified view of present gains over future livelihoods. The theme endured then as such: Should a miner or two die or a generation be screwed, oh well — we kept the lights on.
Diving deep into the communities built on these fossil fuels, he interviews dozens of people, mostly those at the frontlines as those at the top ignore his inquiries, to find out just how much of life is based on these ideologies.
We learn of the dirty, dangerous jobs of coal mining in West Virginia, and the enshrined heroism of these workers when they die (a sacrifice they make “to keep the lights on”) and the deflected blame of the corporations that cut safety corners to save money. We learn of the environmental degradation of mountaintop removal, the health effects of black lung, and the pollution of coal ash and sludge.
Vollmann travels next to Colorado to learn more about fracking. Along the way, Vollmann details the technical process of these actions, characterizing not only the human risk but also the environmental consequences, both short term and long. Similarly, traveling to Bangladesh and Abu Dhabi, Vollmann finds how corporations don’t just exploit American workers, but workers all over the world, paying them even less to do similar work. Meanwhile, everyone seems to realize climate change exists, but prefer instead to pay it no mind.
With a metaphorical shrug, Vollmann once again makes no excuses for their behavior other than that was the way it was — he himself acknowledges that he is part of the problem, with all his power use. In this way, No Good Alternative, and the larger Carbon Ideologies, is a relative breath of fresh air compared to most climate books out there.
We don’t need all climate books to be like this, but being pragmatic about our current situation — specifically the political and economic systems that have created the daily and cultural dependence on fossil fuel — is sometimes more welcomed than the formulaic climate narrative of problem, human story, solution, hope. Vollmann is more interested in uncovering how we got here, rather than figure out where we go from here.
Looking into the past, and the collateral damage of this fossil fuel economy, Vollmann indirectly makes a case for change without outright advocating it. His rhetorical style is that of a sardonic, witty historian who tries to understand how we got here by getting down into the extraction-based communities and their boom and bust economies.
What he finds is a significant separation of class between the worker and the corporations, a negligence of health and safety, both short term and long, and a wildly profit-driven environment, which does not ever stop to consider he planetary harm being done by continual extraction, refining, and burning of fossil fuels. Our self-serving behavior of waste and excess was justified by “the way it was” and a magnified view of present gains over future livelihoods. The theme endured then as such: Should a miner or two die or a generation be screwed, oh well — we kept the lights on.
Read
March 20, 2024I'm reading through Lithub's 365 Books to Start Your Climate Change Library, a reading list in four sections (Classics, Science, Fiction & Poetry, and Ideas). This book is #15 of Part 4: The Ideas and #57 overall.
Really a shame that these were separated into two volumes, since they really would work best as a big, unwieldy whole. These books address a hypothetical future reader, living in a post-climate-inaction world, attempting to explain, or at least examine what it was like to live in a world that cheerfully burned fossil fuels, and why we didn't stop until it was too late.
The book itself is a bit overwhelming, filled with energy calculations and dosimeter readings (Vol. 1), and long passages from interviews with people living in areas affected by fossil fuel infrastructure, in one way or another (Vol. 2). Vollmann is not quick to lay blame, and largely lets the people & the situation speak for themselves. It's shaggy and contradictory and hard to parse. It is a document of the incomprehensibility of climate change - not in the usual way, where not knowing the exact effects of fossil fuel burning is a reason for oil executives to keep raking in more cash - but in a way that seems honest to the reality of the problem.
Not a fun read, not always an engaging read, but memorable & unique all the same.
Really a shame that these were separated into two volumes, since they really would work best as a big, unwieldy whole. These books address a hypothetical future reader, living in a post-climate-inaction world, attempting to explain, or at least examine what it was like to live in a world that cheerfully burned fossil fuels, and why we didn't stop until it was too late.
The book itself is a bit overwhelming, filled with energy calculations and dosimeter readings (Vol. 1), and long passages from interviews with people living in areas affected by fossil fuel infrastructure, in one way or another (Vol. 2). Vollmann is not quick to lay blame, and largely lets the people & the situation speak for themselves. It's shaggy and contradictory and hard to parse. It is a document of the incomprehensibility of climate change - not in the usual way, where not knowing the exact effects of fossil fuel burning is a reason for oil executives to keep raking in more cash - but in a way that seems honest to the reality of the problem.
Not a fun read, not always an engaging read, but memorable & unique all the same.
May 5, 2025
As I have been saying for years now, the problem isn't climate change or this or that specific modern crisis—it's civilization itself. As such, the two-volume read of Carbon Ideologies, by William T. Vollman, one of the great living authors of both fiction and nonfiction such as this, felt more validating than terrifying.
For others who may not yet have taken such a broad and long view of things as I, this book in two parts will no doubt prove an edifying and enlightening journey down the rabbit hole of how modern humanity lives, with a concomitant price to pay for all this luxury and comfort, a bill which will come due either sooner or later to whomever remains on the planet.
Vollmann's razor wit and keen eye for detail keeps the pages turning in what might have proven a densely math-laden slog through some crank's climate polemic. Instead, we get a very human view of the people who mine coal or decontaminate irradiated Japanese villages, all told with a wry sense of fatalism. Like the author, I could do nothing but go to the fridge and grab an ice-cold beverage to wash down the sense of guilt I now felt for having been born during this particular epoch of plentiful food and conditioned air.
For others who may not yet have taken such a broad and long view of things as I, this book in two parts will no doubt prove an edifying and enlightening journey down the rabbit hole of how modern humanity lives, with a concomitant price to pay for all this luxury and comfort, a bill which will come due either sooner or later to whomever remains on the planet.
Vollmann's razor wit and keen eye for detail keeps the pages turning in what might have proven a densely math-laden slog through some crank's climate polemic. Instead, we get a very human view of the people who mine coal or decontaminate irradiated Japanese villages, all told with a wry sense of fatalism. Like the author, I could do nothing but go to the fridge and grab an ice-cold beverage to wash down the sense of guilt I now felt for having been born during this particular epoch of plentiful food and conditioned air.
February 5, 2022
CARBON IDEOLOGIES is one of Vollmann's greatest achievements. In this second volume, he investigates coal, oil, fracking, and even batteries -- going to West Virginia, Abu Dhabi, Bangladesh, and damn near every part of the world to give voice to the many residents and workers who are victims of inept government and corporate malfeasance, what he italicizes as the "regulated community." (Vollmann often pulls this sampling effect in his nonfiction volumes of repeating a term over and over again.) In short, we are fucked. Past the point of no return. Using our energy like a frat boy on a bender. Vollmann offers no solutions. He is merely presenting the landscape -- as we understand it now -- to a reader in some plausibly apocalyptic future. But the immense shoe leather journalism he has done here -- in his inimitable style -- is truly important.
September 20, 2025
Audiobook listen. Never would I have thought a book about climate change and the fossil fuel industry would be so transformative and poignant. This is the magic of Vollmann’s immersive journalism. This isn’t just a haughty condemnation of the industry, Vollmann takes all variables into consideration and travels around the world investigating the barons and interviewing the workers who risk their life every day for the sake of our cozy electrical life. Humanity has collapsed the tunnel behind us, there is no way out of this, but can you blame the working class whose entire livelihood depends on coal, as if their government has given them any other option? The issue is much deeper and more complicated than that.
November 2, 2018
The author continues in the same tone as the first volume, but with a focus on coal, oil, and natural gas rather than nuclear power. My short summary is, “Wow, look at all the carbon we are releasing in order to move about the planet and cook our food and heat and cool our homes! And everything else in the modern world that requires electricity! Too bad no one can envision a way around the global warming catastrophe that is bound to ruin the earth at some unspecified time in the future!”
I think the author could have made his point as clearly with a much shorter book, I’m not sure why both he and his editors left it this long.
I think the author could have made his point as clearly with a much shorter book, I’m not sure why both he and his editors left it this long.
February 21, 2020
This is definitely a weaker book for having been cleaved in two, and like most of Vollman's fiction (but unlike most of his nonfiction), it would probably benefit from some slimming down. The coal section of the book is much longer than the other two, and feels a bit repetitive as you're reading it, though each person's view is as unique in a nuanced way as you'd expect from individuals. Which is Vollman's nonfiction strength: presenting individuals as individuals. It all adds up to a powerful, nuanced read on an obviously important topic, with a perspective that is unlikely to appear in any other writing on climate change.
September 16, 2024
Pretty much criminal that this book was turned into a second volume rather than being published as a whole work with its first half.
This book is a nightmare which millions of us are living, and with which countless billions yet unborn will live. Troubling and so so human.
To quote one of my favorite unconventional ecologists:
“it shows things that were, and things that are, and things that yet may be. But which is it that he sees, even the wisest cannot always tell.”
This book is a nightmare which millions of us are living, and with which countless billions yet unborn will live. Troubling and so so human.
To quote one of my favorite unconventional ecologists:
“it shows things that were, and things that are, and things that yet may be. But which is it that he sees, even the wisest cannot always tell.”
October 19, 2020
"If I can be sure of any aspect of your character, it is that you are not as I. Since all I can do here is imagine you in my image, of course I have failed. I was as fossil fuels made me. They kept my lights on. Hence I who imagine myself to be open-minded will appear to you as deservedly dead, fossilized in the stratum of my own period’s prejudices."
April 28, 2019
This is more approachable than Volume One because it's less scientific and covers a wider variety of fuels and locations. The last 50 pages are devastating as Vollman tries to explain what we could have done to prevent "the hot dark future."
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