Richard Gibson, known to the GreenAnswers community as rigibson, has recently released a book called What Things Are Made Of, which tells the story of America's dependency on natural resources, including oil, in everyday life. We recently interviewed Richard about, not only his new book, but also his experiences on GreenAnswers and beyond. Here are his thoughts:

GreenAnswers: What was the impetus for writing What Things Are Made Of?

Richard Gibson: It was an outgrowth of my self-published "History of the Earth" 365-day calendar. And it was also sort of modeled after the popular book, "The Way Things Work." Since I'm a geologist, it seemed like a good way to connect people to the geology underlying things they use every day. The theme of American import dependency for so many commodities came later, as I learned more about it.

GA: Did you learn anything in your research for the book that you didn't already know?

RG: I really did not know how incredibly dependent on imports the US is for things we tend to take for granted - copper, for example, with an import reliance of 20% to 40% in recent years. As an oil explorationist I was aware of our imports of oil, but the details – and the extent – of US imports of so much more was totally new to me. And I certainly did not know many of the exotic connections, like how the search for good materials for undersea cables led to the discovery that selenium is a photoelectric element, which in turn led to its use in photocopiers. Finding the historical roots behind high-tech materials was a lot of fun. I was certainly naïve about where mineral commodities come from when I started. I could probably have said that diamonds come from South Africa and nickel comes from Canada and Russia, but I could not have guessed their rank as world producers. And I definitely did not know how amazingly important China is, for such a large number of natural resources.

GA: If there was only one message that people took away from your book, what would you want it to be?

RG: Consumption - incredible levels of consumption in all kinds of categories - is a hallmark of American society. It is intimately intertwined with the irregular distribution of resources around the world. It's impossible for the US to "go it alone" – the peak of US oil production occurred 40 years ago and can’t be regained. Domestic discoveries do very little for oil, and they won't do anything for the resources that we don't have. But, as if their supply was infinite, we blithely use those imported resources in cell phones, agriculture, car manufacture, and even mundane things like stainless steel forks and spoons. This can’t go on for much longer.

GA: Are you hoping to impact a change in behavior and/or policy with your book, or is it intended primarily to educate? Or both?

RG: I hope through education to increase awareness. If that increase in awareness of consumption and global import reliance for so many common things results in some level of change in that consumption, that would be great.

GA: How did you like the process of working with a print-on-demand publisher?

RG: It has been excellent. I had a couple major agents interested early on, but they were concerned about the market. This is fundamentally a niche publication - I can say all Americans ought to be interested, but realistically the market for this book is fairly small. I felt that it was perfect for the print-on-demand approach. Also, the book is moderately time-sensitive, so the two years (or more) that traditional publishing would require seemed to me to argue against that route, even assuming I could get an agent and a traditional publisher.

My print-on-demand publisher of choice, booklocker.com, was both cost-effective and a pleasure to work with. Angela Hoy, the point person there, was helpful, supportive, and efficient in all aspects of the pre-production as well as marketing.

GreenAnswers folks will probably also appreciate the fact that print-on-demand is simply the process of printing a book—a single book—only when it is ordered. The technology is being used by many traditional publishers now, too, which means they don't need to print and warehouse thousands of books that may never sell and end up being pulped, or dumped, or recycled.

GA: Do you have a favorite passage from your book that you would like to share with the GreenAnswers community right now?

RG: I’ll quote the start of the concluding chapter, where I get a little cynical:

“PEAK OIL, PEAK COAL, PEAK LITHIUM, PEAK PHOSPHORUS, WHO CARES? We’ll use our own, we’ll invent new technologies, we’ll do what it takes to preserve the primacy of the American Lifestyle. We’ll overcome our dependency on oil imports by switching to electric cars powered by ethanol. We’ll discover something besides Chinese indium to make solar cells and flat-panel displays, and we’ll have multiple wall-sized screens without the insanity of Fahrenheit 451. We’ll “drill baby drill” our own manganese, tantalum, and tungsten. Those who worry about helium running out are just Chicken Littles.

Maybe.”

GA: Would you recommend this book to the casual environmentalist or does the reader need to have a background in earth sciences?

RG: One of my goals in the book (and in my life in general) is to provide basics of earth science to all readers in the context of the everyday things all around them. I don't know if I have succeeded, but I have tried very hard to avoid jargon or when I do use it, to explain it. Chapter 2 is designed as the geological background chapter, but I tried to keep technical stuff to a minimum and to explain it when it appears.

GA: As an active member of the GreenAnswers community, what commonly held understanding or misunderstanding about natural resources has surprised you the most?

RG: It certainly is not exclusive to GreenAnswers, but there sometimes seems to be a tendency toward simple this-or-that solutions to problems that are very complex and have far-reaching but unappreciated ramifications. “Green” solutions like wind power, for example, have trade-offs in wind turbines requiring neodymium that comes mostly from mines in China. Electric cars may impact the need for oil, but they require more electricity generation that can most easily and quickly be scaled up by mining more coal, which most would probably not call a green solution. Then there’s the lithium all those electric batteries will need. Hydropower necessitates building dams with all that entails. Growing corn for ethanol demands fertilizer (and vital phosphorus is a non-renewable material, with a finite and visible end) that ultimately contributes to the Dead Zone in the Gulf of Mexico. The US imports a greater percentage of uranium for nuclear power than it does oil. Some approaches are better (even much better) than others, of course, but in my opinion there’s just no magic green bullet that has no downside when it comes to consumption at present levels.

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What Things Are Made Of is available from BookLocker in print and e-book form.