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Junkie
Location: In the land of ice and snow.
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Probably one last ignoble stab to retain position by force. Maybe some charismatic politico can harvest our collective nationalist insecurity and lead us into world war three.
This article appeared in a local weekly paper. It doesn't paint a very optimistic picture of the future. Enjoy your suv while you can.
http://pulsetc.com/article.php?sid=1853
Quote:
James Howard Kunstler on The Long Emergency
by Brian Kaller
James Howard Kunstler is AmericaÆs version of an Old Testament prophet, a stinging social critic who warns of dark days ahead if we do not change the way we live. The former journalist emerged as a trenchant observer of modern life with his 1994 book ôThe Geography of Nowhere,ö which traces the past and future of suburban sprawl. He followed this up with 1998Æs ôHome from Nowhere,ö which offered solutions to the problem of sprawl, and 2002Æs ôThe City in Mind: Notes on the Urban Condition,ö a broad look at what makes cities thrive or decay.
His latest book, ôThe Long Emergency: Surviving the Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century,ö describes what may happen when the flood of cheap oil, which has sustained our society for a hundred years, begins to peter outùas experts predict it will in the coming decade.
The end of oil will mean more than the loss of gasoline, which would be devastating enough in a suburban society built entirely around the automobile. It will also mean the end to the plastics of which so many of our surroundings are made, and a shortage of the food we now grow with oil-based fertilizer.
Articles about the end of oil are now trickling into the mainstream, but Kunstler, more than anyone, considers the geopolitical ripples that an oil shortage would create. What happens if the last oil is owned by the brutal dictatorships of the Middle East? How will China, with 20 percent of the worldÆs population and skyrocketing oil needs, react when others have the oil they need? How will rural America, with its recent resurgence of violent and apocalyptic beliefs, react to a crisis? Schools, corporations, citiesùnothing, he believes, will stay the same in the Long Emergency to come.
Pulse of the Twin Cities interviewed Kunstler last week.
PULSE: How did you come to focus on peak oil?
á
KUNSTLER: It was a natural outgrowth of my investigations into the fiasco of suburbia.áAlso, as a young newspaper reporter 30-odd years ago, I was very impressed by the effects of the 1973 OPEC oil embargo. I was convinced it was a ôpreview of coming attractions,ö and indeed it wasùin the sense that the embargo occurred precisely because U.S. production had peaked and pricing power had shifted from America to OPEC.á
These things were barely understood even by the experts back then, but theyáresolved over the decades, and by the mid-1990s it was pretty clear that we were approaching a similar global production peak, and that it would change everything.áWe are now heading into the event.
á
PULSE: Why has this issue been so universally ignored?á
KUNSTLER: à The American public has been poorly prepared for this period I call The Long Emergency, when we will be compelled to change the way we live and do things.áThe dirty secret of the U.S. economy for a couple of decades now is that it is mostly driven by the creation of suburban sprawl and all its accessories and furnishingsùthe subdivisions, the highway strips, the big box stores, the fried food shacks, et cetera.áSubtract that, and the financial/real estate activity associated with it, and there isnÆt a whole lot left in the economy besides open-heart surgery.á
Our political and business leaders canÆt come to grips with the unhappy reality of this.áThey canÆt militate against the very car-dependency and oil addiction that our so-called economy depends on.áIÆll go further to state that I donÆt even regard George W. Bush and other establishment figures as necessarily ôevil,ö but they have been very misguided, and the final result will be a pretty sobering period of hardship for the United States.
á
PULSE: You strongly criticize the American suburbs, which you say cannot continue once oil becomes precious. But I wonder if the suburbanites might not be in a good positionùclose enough to neighbors for mutual support, but with room to grow their own food.
KUNSTLER: Suburbia represents the greatest misallocation of resources in the history of the world.áIt is theoretically true that suburbanites might grow some vegetables on what are now their lawns, but they are not going to raise beef cattle or winter wheat on them.áAnyway, the liabilities of suburbia are so extreme otherwise that I think it will fail as a human habitat.áIts failure will entail the evaporation of trillions of dollars in hallucinated wealth, as well as a lot of social disorder and political mischief.
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PULSE: I was surprised at how much of our food is grown with oil. How will that change affect us?
KUNSTLER: WeÆre eating oil.áThereÆs no question that weÆre going to have to grow more food locally with more human labor, and probably with working animals, too.áBut there are a lot of questions about how that will reorganize itself.áFor instance, the subdivision practices of the past 50 years have been very destructive to the rural landscapeùto our ability to reorganize land back into farms.á
Also, we canÆt predict what the social relations will be between the greater number of people who will have to work in agriculture when oil and gas are scarcer and the people who own the land. In other times and places, this has been a recipe for unrest and even revolution.
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PULSE: As oil begins to get expensive, whatÆs to stop people from turning to sustainable architecture, recycling and clean energy? WeÆve done it before, and the transition wouldnÆt have to happen overnight.
KUNSTLER: ThatÆs laughable.áWe have no à idea what sustainable architecture even is. WeÆre going to be a far less affluent nation anyway.áItÆs not like weÆre going to replace 27 million McHouses with an equal number of new ôsustainableö ones. Plus, thereÆs a lot of wishful thinking about ôrenewables.ö They will not make up for what we are using now or even a substantial fraction of it.áA lot of people are going to freeze, be too hot, and go hungry.
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PULSE: Some people have dismissed the idea of an energy crunch, saying that we will come up with something like fusion. On the other hand, IÆm not sure I want to see what a fusion-powered chainsaw can do. If we could continue our lifestyle through some other means, do you think we should? What would be your ideal scenario?
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KUNSTLER: WeÆre not going to continue our lifestyle by other means.áForget it.áNo combination of alternative fuels will allow us to run the interstate highway system, Walt Disney World and Archer Daniels Midland.áWeÆre going to have to downscale, rescale and resize all our activities, and live more locally, whether we like it or not.á
We have acquired two very pernicious habits of thinking in recent decades.áOne I call the ôJiminy Cricket syndrome,ö the idea that when you wish upon a star your dreams come true.áThatÆs what the Spielberg movies and Nike commercials tell us.áGuess what: itÆs a childish delusion. The second mental obstruction weÆve taken on is the ôLas Vegas-ization of the American Mind,ö namely the idea that itÆs possible to get something for nothing.áThis one-two combo of delusions defeats all honest and earnest efforts to really do something about the predicament we face.
PULSE: I know evangelicals who live in the countryside but donÆt have an environmental perspective, and environmentalists with lots of theoretical knowledge but who live in city apartments. I canÆt help but think of what they could do if they learned from each other. What groups do you think are best prepared for the Long Emergency, and what alliances could we see in the coming years?á
KUNSTLER: Look, my friends are political ôprogressivesö who drive their SUVs to the peace rallies.áI think the entire U.S. public is poorly prepared.áThe Amish alone have a head start on where we are headed, but their way also includes a lot of religious baggage. Frankly, I think the answer is that the Long Emergency will produce a lot of economic losers and we will be living in a very turbulent society.
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PULSE: People I talk to often think in either/or terms, either commuting 40 miles from a McMansion or being Amish. But IÆm sure a lot of people would like to ease into a different world as much as possible. What are some basic things weùmostly city-dwellersùneed to start doing to prepare for the Long Emergency?á
KUNSTLER: What weÆre facing is a sharp discontinuity, not a smooth transition. ThatÆs why I call this period the Long Emergency. People donÆt necessarily get what they want or what they expect.
In my opinion, the big cities are going to become very disorderly placesùanyway many of AmericaÆs big cities are already in an advanced state of contractionùDetroit, St. Louis, Baltimore, Philadelphia à the list is very long.áNew York and Chicago are overburdened with mega-structures and skyscrapers. They will probably not be usable in a scarce energy economy.áThese cities will contract and the process will be painful. Phoenix will dry up and blow away.áIn Las Vegas, the excitementáwill be over. The action is going to shift to the smaller towns and cities, the places proximate to viable agriculture.
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PULSE: Most of the people I know who are interested in the energy crunch are also against the governmentÆs invasion of Iraq ùbut you seem to think that, in purely Machiavellian terms, BushÆs invasion was a smart move. What do you think we should do in the Middle East?
KUNSTLER: I didnÆt say it was a smart move à I said itÆs what we did. Yeah, all my friends were against the Iraq invasion and nothing has stopped them from commuting sixty miles a day or driving Ford Expeditions to the farmersÆ market. I view the Iraq invasion strictly for what it was: a clumsy attempt to stabilize the region of the world where two-thirds of the remaining oil is, and to incidentally modify and influence the behavior of IraqÆs two troublesome neighbors, Iran and Saudi Arabia.á
ThereÆs a lady who lives near me with a sign in her yard that says ôWar is Not The Answerö and two SUVs parked in the driveway.áWhat sanctimonious crap. I want to grab her by the collar and yell, ôGuess what, war is the answer as long as you want to live this way. Get used to it.ö
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PULSE: What are the biggest signs of hope you see right now?
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KUNSTLER: ThereÆs some idea that if you donÆt leave the public with ôhope,ö with the chance of a happy ending, that you have failed in your task as a journalist.áThis is also fallacious. And childish. This is not a Bruce Willis movie, this is America in the 20th century, stuck with the consequences of its behavior.
People will either adapt or perish in the Long Emergency. WeÆve already made a whole lot of bad choices, collectively, including our decision to build a drive-in, easy-motoring utopia.áLetÆs not continue to make bad choices, okay?áLetÆs not mount a stupid and futile campaign to prop up the fading ôentitlementsö of suburbia.áLetÆs prepare to downscale and live locally.áLetÆs rebuild the U.S. passenger railroad systemùthatÆs something we already know how to do, and it is a symptom of our obdurate cluelessness and lack of seriousnessáthat we refuse to do it.
Life is tragic.áHistory doesnÆt care if we fail as a civilization.áOthers have gone before us.áWe have to take responsibility for what we are facing and quit expecting to be rescued by wishes, dreams, and miracles. ||
...see excerpt of Kunstler's latest book, The Long Emergency: Surviving the Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century.
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To paraphrase for the reading disinclined: Oil will soon no longer be a viable solution to our country's energy needs. We are not prepared. We won't be prepared. Say goodbye to driving and plastics. Say hello to turmoil as the new american way of life.
Stevo, i think most of the changes you cited were fought kicking and screaming by capitalists. Capitalism is the religion of the dollar. It requires poverty to function. Capitalism as it is practiced is in no way fair or equitable. If it were you wouldn't see statistics reflecting the fact that children born to those in poverty are much less likely to escape poverty. If it weren't for the inherent inequality of our system none of us would know who george w. bush even is. He was born into a wealthy family, slacked off in the ivy league schools, and failed at every business venture his family hooked him up with. Despite all this he is our president. This is how the system works. Intelligence and effort mean a whole lot less than wealth and connections. That's our capitalism. Our capitalism is the one where ceos make roughly 400 times the wage of their lowest paid worker. How is that equitable?
I think there will come a point when it is time to ask ourselves whether our current economic system is as efficient as it could be in terms of actually providing for the "life, liberty and pursuit of happiness" of the average american citizen. |