No Good Alternative

April 23, 2018
The world’s attachment to fossil fuels is questioned at length but with little depth in this second volume of the author’s scattershot jeremiad on global warming and unclean energy. Journalist and novelist Vollmann (Rising Up and Rising Down) reports on public opinion in hydrocarbon hotspots, including West Virginia coal towns ravaged by pollution and mountaintop removal; Colorado natural gas lands, where fracking has frayed nerves; and United Arab Emirates oil fields, where fearful immigrants work for a pittance. In rambling interviews with townspeople, workers, government officials, and anticarbon activists, he uncovers both dismay at the local downside of fossil fuels and support for them as necessary sources of jobs, energy, and cultural tradition despite the prospect of climate change. While the reportage is evocative, Vollman’s case against carbon-tolerant “ideologies” relies on glib sarcasm—thanks to fracking, he jibes, Americans “could go on generously warming the world!”—and undigested factoids (for example, that coal byproducts are in everything from stockings to pills) that never add up to a coherent argument. His ideological biases constantly intrude, especially in his ill-informed attack on nuclear power, a leading low-carbon energy source; the book often feels like a confused, omnidirectional assault on all of industrial civilization. The result is long but feckless, a lightweight analysis of energy and society. Photos. Agent: Susan Golomb, Writers House.

Starred review from June 1, 2018
Vollmann undertook the massive inquiry chronicled in his two-volume Carbon Ideologies series to tell the stories of people involved in the fuel industries and to attempt to understand the economic, health, and environmental consequences of our energy choices. In No Immediate Danger (2018), he established the scientific foundation for this epic effort, then focused on nuclear power. Here Vollmann reports on his intrepid forays in the worlds of coal, natural gas, and oil. In West Virginia, where coal rules, he traverses pillaged and polluted land, visits decaying towns with toxic water supplies, catalogs coal-mining catastrophes, and speaks with people proud of their coal heritage. In Colorado, he embarks on a Tour of Destruction, taking measure of the grave damage done by fracking. Vollmann talks with oil workers in Oklahoma, Mexico, and, at great risk, the United Arab Emirates. Refused interviews by fuel-industry executives and U.S. Department of Energy staff, Vollmann portrays individuals who have endured intimidation to speak out against the callous villainies of fuel corporations. Unflinching, exacting, and forthright, Vollmann brings abiding respect, empathy, and tenderness to this endeavor, both documenting the fuel industry's betrayal of hardworking people and recognizing the stubbornly irrational component in human affairs. Invaluable, enlightening, and heartrending testimony to how enmeshed we all are in the carbon-industrial complex and accelerated climate change.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)