No Immediate Danger: Volume One of Carbon Ideologies

William T. Vollmann

Penguin, Apr 10, 2018 - Science - 624 pages

“The most honest book about climate change yet.” —The Atlantic

“The Infinite Jest of climate books.” —The Baffler

A timely, eye-opening book about climate change and energy generation that focuses on the consequences of nuclear power production, from award-winning author William T. Vollmann

In his nonfiction, William T. Vollmann has won acclaim as a singular voice tackling some of the most important issues of our age, from poverty to violence to the dark soul of American imperialism as it has played out on the U.S./Mexico border. Now, Vollmann turns to a topic that will define the generations to come--the factors and human actions that have led to global warming. Vollmann begins No Immediate Danger, the first volume of Carbon Ideologies, by examining and quantifying the many causes of climate change, from industrial manufacturing and agricultural practices to fossil fuel extraction, economic demand for electric power, and the justifiable yearning of people all over the world to live in comfort. Turning to nuclear power first, Vollmann then recounts multiple visits that he made at significant personal risk over the course of seven years to the contaminated no-go zones and sad ghost towns of Fukushima, Japan, beginning shortly after the tsunami and reactor meltdowns of 2011. Equipped first only with a dosimeter and then with a scintillation counter, he measured radiation and interviewed tsunami victims, nuclear evacuees, anti-nuclear organizers and pro-nuclear utility workers.

Featuring Vollmann's signature wide learning, sardonic wit, and encyclopedic research, No Immediate Danger, whose title co-opts the reassuring mantra of official Japanese energy experts, builds up a powerful, sobering picture of the ongoing nightmare of Fukushima.

Contents

• About the Primer Section: 17
• Glass facade Sharjah: 21
• PRIMER: 25
• This Bangladeshi woman was harvesting corn and carrying it unassisted: 30
• Sales promotion Dubai United Arab Emirates: 42
• What Was the Work For? continued: 44
• Pastrymaking machine Kyoto: 62
• What Was the Work For? continued: 76
• 1: 80
• Consider It Good Fortune: 96
• Carbon Ideologies Defined: 104
• Ammonium sulfate fertilizer made by a famous petrochemical firm: 114
• Plastic items Phillips Petroleum Company Museum Oklahoma: 124
• Undies made in Thailand and sold in U S A 82 nylon: 130
• Sharjah Corniche view: 136
• View of Las Vegas freeway from my airplane seat: 149
• About Power Plants: 150
• Power and Climate: 158
• About Greenhouse Gases: 170
• Refrigerators transported by dhow for sale Dubai U A E: 175
• About Fuels: 189
• Awaiting fuel combustion in Kazakhstan: 204
• NUCLEAR: 221
• LOWER THAN FOR REAL ESTATE AGENTS: 241
• When the Wind Blows from the South: 257
• A crossroads in Sendai: 268
• Members of the Hotsuki family in temporary housing: 279
• Mrs Ito Yukiko: 285
• View of Kesennuma: 295
• Searching for bodies in Oshima: 298
• Warning signs at the edge of the outer ring: 305
• Oldman in the countryside near Tamura City: 312
• Across the river from the Fuel Hall in Hiroshima: 321
• Harmful Rumors Fukushima: 322
• Black bags at the Northern Iwaki Rubbish Disposal Center: 333
• Nuclear checkpoint on Highway 6 Tomioka: 339
• Temporary housing near Hisanohama north of Iwaki: 346
• Decontamination superior and construction boss at a radioactive waste site: 357
• Snowheaped entrance of abandoned home Kawauchi: 365
• Interior of garment shop Tomioka: 371
• Remains of Japan Rail station Tomioka: 378
• Frisking Mr Endos daughters fishing rod: 384
• Some of the marchers with police escort: 390
• Normalization on the Rocks: 499
• Japan Sees the Light: 513
• Acknowledgments: 601

About the author

William T. Vollmann is the author of ten novels, including Europe Central, which won the National Book Award. He has also written four collections of stories, including The Atlas, which won the PEN Center USA West Award for Fiction, a memoir, and six works of nonfiction, including Rising Up and Rising Down and Imperial, both of which were finalists for the National Book Critics Circle Award. He is the recipient of a Whiting Writers Award and the Strauss Living Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His journalism and fiction have been published in The New Yorker, Harpers, Esquire, Granta, and many other publications.

Bibliographic information

• Title: No Immediate Danger: Volume One of Carbon Ideologies
• Author: William T. Vollmann
• Edition: illustrated, reprint
• Publisher: Penguin, 2018
• ISBN: 0399563504, 9780399563508
• Length: 624 pages
• Subjects: History / Modern / 21st Century; Nature / Environmental Conservation & Protection; Science / Global Warming & Climate Change