The Essential Amory Lovins ─ Selected Writings

Amory B. Lovins is one of the world's leading authorities on energy, integrative design, and their links with economy, environment, development, and security. This unique collection brings together his most important and influential writings and forms an inspiring resource for anyone wishing to gain a deeper understanding of the issues which lie at the heart of sustainability and energy challenges. Featuring work from across his long career spanning energy, design, transport, climate, security, law, mountaineering, politics, proliferation, health, business, biotechnology, physics, and politics, the book explores the relevance of the ideas to the sustainability problems we face today – a relevance which is often [exasperatingly] evident. The collection also includes old and new personal essays on the environment and poignant letters to the editor. The selection shows Lovins's development as an expert in the complex technical fields of energy and resource policy as well as his simple love of the planet we call home.
A key 'getting up to speed' text for undergraduate and graduate students on sustainability-related courses, it also arms professionals with the visions and arguments they need to drive through policy and innovation, and is an inspiring read for anyone working in or interested in the field of sustainability.

Amory B Lovins is Co-founder, Chairman, and Chief Scientist of Rocky Mountain Institute and a co-author of Factor Four (Earthscan, 1997). He is widely considered among the world's leading authorities on energy - especially its efficient use and sustainable supply - and is a fertile innovator in integrative design. The Centennial Issue of The Wall Street Journal named him among 39 people in the world most likely to change the course of business in the 1990s, and Time in 2009 called him one of the 100 most influential people in the world.

Cameron M. Burns is Senior Editor at the Rocky Mountain Institute and formerly served as corporate communications manager for the World Green Building Council. Burns has written about environmental, green architecture, energy, and sustainability issues for more than twenty years as a reporter/correspondent with various newspapers and as a contributing editor with numerous magazines.

Part 1: Into The Wildness: Mountain Climbing, Wales, and Fighting a Copper Mine 1. New England Wanderer, 1969 (excerpt from the journal Oxford Mountaineering) 2. Longing, 1971 (excerpt from Eryri: The Mountains of Longing) 3. To a Poet Met in Cwm Dyli, 1971 (unpublished poem) Part 2: Resources and Energy: Efficiency, Analysis, Policy, Potential 4. Only One Earth, 1972 (excerpt from Only One Earth) 5. Long-Term Constraints on Human Activity, 1976 (from Environmental Conservation) 6. Energy Strategy: The Road Not Taken?, 1976 (from Foreign Affairs) 7. Cost-Risk-Benefit Assessments in Energy Policy, 1977 (from George Washington Law Review) 8. Energy End-Use Efficiency, 2005 (paper commissioned by the InterAcademy Council in Amsterdam) Part 3: Nuclear Power: Fission and Confusion 9. Clean Energy or a Choice of Poisons?, 1972 (letter published in the N.Y. Times) 10. Why Nuclear Safety Is Unattainable, 1973 (letter published in the N.Y. Times) 11. Out of the Frying-pan into the PWR, 1978 (from Nature) 12. Nuclear Follies, 1985 (unpublished letter to Forbes in response to James Cook's article of the same name) 13. Mighty Mice, 2005 (from Nuclear Engineering International) 14. Nuclear Socialism, 2010 (from The Weekly Standard) Part 4: Vehicles and Oil: Goodbye Crude World 15. Energy: The Avoidable Oil Crisis, 1987 (from Atlantic Monthly) 16. Reinventing the Wheels, 1995 (from Atlantic Monthly) 17. Drilling in All the Wrong Places, 2008 (from RMI Solutions Journal) Part 5: De Architectura: Building Better, Building Smarter 18. Air Conditioning Comfort: Behavioral And Cultural Issues, 1992 (paper prepared for ESOURCE) 19. The Super-Efficient Passive Building Frontier, 1995 (from ASHRAE Journal) 20. Foreword to Sustainable Design Guide of the Japan Institute of Architects, 1996 Part 6: Energy Security and the Military: Blood and Treasure (and Opportunities) 21. The Fragility of Domestic Energy 1983 (from Atlantic Monthly) 22. Military Transformation and the Roots of National Security, 2002 (from Whole Earth Review) 23. Towering Design Flaws, 2003 (from the Globe and Mail) 24. How Innovative Technologies, Business Strategies, and Policies Can Help the U.S. Achieve Energy Security and Prosperity, 2006 (testimony prepared for the U.s. Senate, 2006) 25. DOD's Energy Challenge as Strategic Opportunity, 2010 (from Joint Force Quarterly) 26. On Proliferation, Climate, and Oil: Solving for Pattern, 2010 (from Foreign Policy) Part 7: Business and Climate: Making Sense, Making Cash, Making Good 27. A Roadmap for Natural Capitalism, 1999 (from Harvard Business Review) 28. Climate: Making Sense and Making Money (pp. 11-20), 1997 (RMI white paper) Part 8: Miscellany: Letters, a Poem, and a Socratic Dialogue 29. Vaguely We Walk, 1962 (unpublished poem) 30. Gulf of Tonkin Resolution a Red Herring, 1964 (unpublished letter) 31. Dialogue on Models in Physics, 1970 (unpublished Socratic dialogue) 32. Definition of British Nationality (letter to The Times (London)) 33. A Tale of Two Botanies, 1999 (from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch) 34. Imagine a World, 2007 (based on a keynote address by Amory Lovins celebrating RMI's 25th anniversary) 35. Remarks on Acceptance of the Blue Planet Prize, 2007 (description TK) 36. Applied Hope, 2008 (essay published by RMI)