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26 May 2005
Thu, 26 May 2005 00:43:00 GMTThe Long Emergency
James Howard Kunstler
Our world as it stands these days is on it’s way down, just as the production of the oil it’s leveraged begins to tank. The way the world reorganizes itself will be spectacularly different – more local, more sustainable, and yes harder – resembling somewhat the world of earlier epochs.
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14 May 2005
Sat, 14 May 2005 09:29:52 GMT Salon.com News | After the oil is gonevia Kjell Olsen2565 days agoInterview with James Howard Kunstler, on his new book The Long Emergency. I have it sitting next to me, and I can’t wait to read it.
Now he foresees the end of the entire artifice of American life, from the suburbs to the interstate highway to Wal-Mart and the global supply chain that supports it.
We have now become a people who believe that wishing for things makes them happen. Unfortunately, the world just doesn’t work that way. The truth is that no combination of alternative fuels or so-called renewables will allow us to run the U.S.A.—or even a substantial fraction of it—the way that we’re running it now.
Remember: These immensely hypertrophic organisms like Wal-Mart are products of the special economic growth of the late 20th century, namely an unusually long period of relative world peace and extraordinarily cheap energy. If you remove those two elements, all large-scale enterprises—corporate farming, big-box shopping, big government, professional sports—are going to be in trouble.
[salon:] You write that even the educated minority in the U.S. is clueless about its role in geopolitical problems, like the family in your neighborhood that had a sign in their yard that said, “War Is Not the Answer,” and two SUVs in the garage.
[JHK:] Or all my politically progressive friends who drove their SUVs to the peace rallies of 2003....
[salon:] Why do you skewer Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute, who promotes the idea of a futuristic hypercar, which would get 100 miles per gallon?
[JHK:] I regard Lovins hypercar venture as a stupid distraction, if for no other reason that it tends to promote the idea that we can continue being a car-dependent society. Clearly we can’t, no matter how good the gas mileage is. I wrote three other books about the fiasco of suburbia before I even got a bug up my ass about the energy issues.The huge suburban metroplexes like New York and Chicago are not going to function very well. They’re products of the oil age. They are oversupplied with skyscrapers and mega-structures that have poor prospects in a society with scarce energy. We will see a painful contraction in these places.
One thing that I’m predicting is that there will be a vigorous and futile defense of suburbia and all its entitlements, no matter what reality is telling us to do. And this will translate into a lot of political mischief. You can quote me: Americans will vote for cornpone Nazis before they will give up their entitlements to a McHouse and a McCar.
If we had to actually reform the way that we live, or let go of some of it, the losses would be politically untenable. No politician, whether it is the gallant John Kerry or George W. Bush, will go near the issue. They know that if the suburban-sprawl economy is challenged there isn’t a whole lot left behind it.
People have to ask themselves about where they’re living, whether that place has a viable future. If I was living in the Atlanta suburbs, I would give serious consideration to relocating, ditto Las Vegas or Tucson. If I was a young person, I would rethink my expectations to make public relations my career, or indeed have a corporate future at all. If I was a local politician, I would think very seriously about stopping the sprawl-approval system in my town. And I would turn my attention to local self-sufficiency. The bottom line is this: All these things point to the fact that we’re going to have to live a lot more locally and profoundly in the years ahead.
Americans are suffering so much from being in unrewarding environments that it has made us very cynical. I think that American suburbia has become a powerful generator of anxiety and depression. If we happen to let it go, we won’t miss it that much. Very few people are going to feel nostalgic about the parking lot between the Chuck E. Cheeses and the Kmart.
Ok, and just a note – is all you have to do to get past salon.com’s login/registration click on the [print this article] link?
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