A "next-generation" manifesto about America's addiction to energy‚ this book examines the ways in which oil and non-sustainable/non-renewable energies helped to shape America as an international superpower and yet are currently posing one of the greatest economic and environmental threats that this country has ever seen. With American energy consumption at an all-time high‚ technological innovations in sustainable and renewable energies are imperative. Little maps out how America came to rely so heavily on oil and plastics‚ where this dependence has left us‚ and the ways in which American ingenuity are already starting to cultivate a new energy economy. With curiosity and fervor Little investigates the oil in glossy newsstand magazines and the oil in life-saving pharmaceuticals‚ traveling from the Pentagon's fuel-logistics division to the cornfields of Kansas‚ from underneath New York City's electrical grid to the Talladega Superspeedway and inside the operating room of a silicone breast implant. Written in an optimistic‚ highly accessible prose style by a young reporter with remarkable experience in environmental journalism‚ this promises to serve as the new bible for those who are inheriting the earth.
