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In the face of today's environmental and economic challenges, doomsayers preach that the only way to stave off disaster is for humans to reverse course: to de-industrialize, re-localize, ban the use of modern energy sources and forswear prosperity. But in this provocative and optimistic rebuke to the catastrophists, Robert Bryce shows how innovation and the inexorable human desire to make things Smaller Faster Lighter Denser Cheaper is providing consumers with Cheaper and more abundant energy, Faster computing, Lighter vehicles, and a myriad of other goods. That same desire is fostering unprecedented prosperity, greater liberty, and yes, better environmental protection. Utilizing on-the-ground reporting from Ottawa to Panama City and Pittsburgh to Bakersfield, Bryce shows how we have, for centuries, been pushing for Smaller Faster solutions to our problems. From the vacuum tube, mass-produced fertilizer, and the printing press to mobile phones, nanotech, and advanced drill rigs, Bryce breezily demonstrates how cutting-edge companies and breakthrough technologies have created a world in which people are living longer, freer, healthier, lives than at any time in human history. In an entertaining narrative enhanced with sharp graphics and numerous photographs, he shows that the push toward Smaller Faster Lighter Denser Cheaper is happening in multiple sectors. He profiles innovative individuals and companies, from well-known ones like Ford and Intel to upstarts like Aquion Energy and Khan Academy. And he zeroes in on the energy industry, separating fact from sentiment. Wind and biofuels may be the political darlings of the moment, but Bryce proves that the future belongs to the high-power-density sources that can provide the enormous quantities of energy the world demands. Smaller Faster Lighter Denser Cheaper demonstrates that the tools we need to save the planet aren't to be found in the technologies or lifestyles of the past. Nor must we sacrifice prosperity and human progress to ensure our survival. The catastrophists have been wrong since the days of Thomas Malthus. It's time to ignore the fearmongers. It's time to embrace the innovators and businesses all over the world who are making things Smaller Faster Lighter Denser Cheaper because, well, that's what we humans do.

Canada's most famous contributions to the Allied victory in World War II include Dieppe, the campaign in Italy, the bombing missions over Germany, and D-Day. Much less known are Canada's financial contributions to the war effort. In this sequel to his groundbreaking Maturing in Hard Times, legendary public servant Robert B. Bryce offers a first-hand account of the wartime activities of the Department of Finance during his formative years as its deputy minister from 1939-47.

Power tripping 101 -- Happy talk -- Watt's the big deal? (Power tripping 102) -- Wood to coal to oil : the slow pace of energy transitions -- Coal hard facts -- If oil didn't exist, we'd have to invent it -- Twenty-seven Saudi Arabias per day -- Myth : wind and solar are "green" -- Myth : wind power reduces CO[subscript]2 emissions -- Myth : Denmark provides an energy model for the United States -- Myth : T. Boone Pickens has a plan (or a clue) -- Myth : wind power reduces the need for natural gas -- Myth : going "green" will reduce imports of strategic commodities and create "green" jobs -- Myth : the United States lags in energy efficiency -- Myth : the United States can cut CO[subscript]2 emissions by 80 percent by 2050, and carbon capture and sequestration can help achieve that goal -- Myth : taxing carbon dioxide will work -- Myth : oil is dirty -- Myth : cellulosic ethanol can scale up and cut U.S. oil imports -- Myth : electric cars are the next big thing -- Myth : we can replace coal with wood -- Why N2N? and why now? (the megatrends favoring natural gas and nuclear) -- A very short history of American natural gas and regulatory stupidity -- It's a gas, gas, gas : welcome to the "gas factory" -- America's secret google -- Gas pains -- Nuclear goes beyond green -- A smashing idea for nuclear waste -- Future nukes -- Rethinking "green" and a few other suggestions -- Toward cheap, abundant energy

In November 2009, former vice president Al Gore appeared on the Late Show with David Letterman, and declared that unless the people of the world take drastic action to curb global carbon dioxide emissions, it could be "the end of civilization as we know it." Over the past decade or so, Gore has been at the forefront of a campaign aimed at reducing global carbon dioxide emissions. His book, An Inconvenient Truth, along with a documentary of the same title, were part of a tidal wave of books, magazine articles, and studies which claimed that the world faces a risk of catastrophic climate change because of increasing levels of greenhouse gases in the earth's atmosphere. The United Nations has weighed into the discussion with numerous reports about the issue. And in December, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change will meet in Durban, South Africa to hold yet another climate meeting. That meeting follows similar climate confabs that have been held in Rio, Kyoto, Copenhagen, and Cancun. While the statements being put forward by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change which said in 2007 that "warming of the climate system is unequivocal" along with claims that carbon dioxide emissions are the chief culprit, may prove to be correct, we must also maintain the possibility that these claims are wrong. Either way, a strong opinion about the claims matters very little because no matter how much the US may want to lead efforts to reduce carbon emissions, it cannot, and will not, be able to substantially slow the increasing use of coal, oil, and natural gas. This paper will discuss two inter-related factors that are seldom discussed by politicians and pundits: the slow pace of energy transitions and the enormous scale of our energy use. By discussing those two factors, I will show why the countries of the world will not be able to agree on any plans to impose carbon limits or carbon taxes.

Focusing on the causes and extent of the Depression of the 1930s and its impact on a wide range of governmental policies, Bryce describes the department's increasing involvement in the formation and conduct of economic policies. The department was involved in events ranging from the collapse of the gold standard in 1931, to the possible default of the governments of the western provinces, to the introduction of federal unemployment and housing policies, to the founding of the Bank of Canada. Bryce presents a fascinating portrait of the early Department of Finance and the informality of the policy process in what was obviously a smaller, simpler Ottawa. From the vantage point of his years of experience within the department, he offers insightful analyses of the central economic issues of this century.

"Canada's Department of Finance during World War II was surprisingly small - a tightly knit coterie of only a few hundred civil servants who managed the country's finances through the dark years of the war and the difficult period of reconstruction that followed. At the centre of this group was an inner circle - a handful of men - whom the deputy minister, Clifford Clark, relied on to shape public policy. This inner circle included Clark, W.A. Mackintosh, A.F.W. Plumptre, a young Mitchell Sharpe, and a young graduate of Cambridge and student of John Maynard Keynes, Robert Bryce, who came to the department in the late 1930s and quickly became a confidant of the deputy minister. During this period little public policy passed through Ottawa that did not bear the stamp of these men." "Reconstructed from archival sources and memory, Canada and the Cost of World War II is Bryce's definitive work on the department during these crucial years as well as an intimate portrait of the civil servants whose war for their country was waged with ledger sheets."--Jacket