Kunstler's book, "The Long Emergency," is depressing hell out of me

[callous taoboy]

Seriously. Forget about every single current hot-button issue. Kunstler lays out the case for future environmental, economic, social concerns in such a clear manner that I find myself less motivated to keep reading. Is anyone else reading it (or have you already read it) and, if so, what are your impressions?

[SmokingJacket]

1. I haven't read that one yet, but I've read his other books.

He's been predicting doom for at least a decade now. I mean, he's probably right. And I basically agree with him, especially with his ideas about town planning.

But lately he's been getting a kind of hysterical tone in his writing -- I stop by his blog occasionally -- and I don't think I want to buy "The Long Emergency." I feel well-informed enough; I'm looking for escapism, these days.

[brokensymmetry]

2. I have read it....

actually, it's optimistic in its way.

Do we really want more globalization, more vast corporations with zero accountability, more alienation from everyone or everything? Do we really want to spend our lives not having a clue who our neighbors are? (Could you, the reader, write down the first and last name, and the job title, of the 8 people who live next to you? Most can't.)

So, if energy gets a lot more pricey - as I strongly believe it will - we'll have less imported junk, less food that's been transported 3,000 miles, less road travel. We'll get a community, friends next door, and good food harvested hours previously.

Yes, there will be some problems, even some very big problems. But does anyone really even like the way things are now?

[callous taoboy]

4. Good points-

And no I don't know my neighbors and that is one point that has always distressed me. The fact that, back before mass entertainment, poeple used to sit on the front porch in the evening and chat with folks passing by on their evening walks makes me pine for that kind of community.

One evening a car plowed into a telephone pole down the road, knocking out all power to several neighborhoods. The result: I've never seen so many nieghbors out-of-doors chatting, kids running around playing. It was downright eerie.

[lutherj]

3. I haven't read Kunstler's book, but I've read 2 by Richard Heinberg

and part of another one by Paul Roberts, all on the same subject. I found them pretty disturbing. Actually, I read more than half of each of these books, but had to put each one down because it was too depressing. I found myself losing sleep at night, worrying about the future of my kids (I have a 5 and an 8 year old). However, after more reflection I find I am not so concerned about the worst case scenarios these authors put forward. I have no doubt that our lifestyles will change dramatically, and that we will suffer through a long term recession, or worse. But any serious recession will reduce the demand for oil, which will slow down the depletion rate. In the meantime alternative energies will have a time to catch up. As Heinberg says, there may be a positive side to all this. Such as the reinvigoration of our culture and communities, and a transition to a more eco-friendly and sustainable future.

[callous taoboy]

5. Kunstler posits that alternative energy sources are all

going to have to have an oil-based economy as part of their foundations / infrastructures. I used to be pretty sure we'd figure our way out of this mess, but, as I said, Kunstler has a different opinion. Granted, I haven't finished the book and I believe he gets into what may be the positive side to the scenario he paints.

[lutherj]

8. Yeah I know, Heinberg goes through each alternative and points

out the problems. I guess my feeling is that oil will still be around for a long time, but how we use it will change. Like I said, our lifestyles will change dramatically. I think the transition will look something like the wartime economy during WWII.

Bill McKibben published an article in Harpers about half a year ago where he describes the transition made in Cuba after the fall of the Soviet Union. Cuba was suddenly left without the Soviet subsidies, and all oil imports stopped. They went through a couple years of hard times, and then the people started planting organic gardens everywhere in the cities, and using traditional, pre-industrial farming techniques on their farms. They quickly made up for the loss in their diet. I'd recommend the article if you can find it.

[phantom power]

6. A lot depends on how fast oil becomes expensive/unavailable.

I agree with his basic observations that our economy is organized almost entirely around super-cheap oil. How we adapt to the loss of that oil strikes me as harder to predict. If the post-peak "tail" is gentle enough, it could in theory allow time for a less painful adaptation. If post-peak supply tails off more rapidly, the shock to the world economy could be very bleak indeed. I worry that the current practice of maintaining oil production rates by "forcing" methods will cause the eventual decline to come very rapidly. If that happens, Kunstler's gloomy scenario is more likely.

Current events, over the last year, certainly map well onto the beginning of peak oil. Increasing frequency of supply disruptions, oil geopolitics becoming unstable, rising prices, etc.

I think it's possible that we'll be clobbered by climate catastrophe, even before the worst of peak oil sets in. We'll use a lot less oil. Because so many of us will be dead, you see.

[callous taoboy]

7. Clobbered by climate catastrophe, the emergence of super-bugs,

the loss of electric power as more of our dams silt up, rivers run dry. Kunstler has it all.

[phantom power]

9. I think it's going to be a bad century, generically speaking.

It's entertaining to argue about the particulars, but the big picture is "several bad things happening, more or less at the same time"

[Odin2005]

10. I find him too pessimistic and preachy.

We are going to be in deep shit for a while, but it's not going to be the end of industrial civilization, most of Suburbia is doomed, though; we will have enough biofuel to keep us from sliding into the Doomer senario, but not nearly enough for car culture too survive. The doomers who think we don't have enough time underestimate how fast we can do things like expanding the rail system with New Deal-type policies (a depression will lead to a 1932-like Democratic takeover, I'm sure of it).

[Strelnikov_]

12. Whats A Doomer? n/t

[phantom power]

13. me!

[Odin2005]

14. A person who thinks peak oil will cause civilization to collapse.

[Strelnikov_]

15. Collapse Of Civilization Is A Plausible Scenario

So is an orderly Powerdown.

The final path will probably be somewhere down the middle.

Prudent risk management needs to consider all scenarios.

In addition, there is little in Kunstler's (or Heinberg's, for that matter) writing that indicates the 'collapse of civilization' will be due to peak oil. Peak oil is simply a catalyst, that when combined with the current leadership vacuum and cascading economic and environmental discontinuities, could very well result in a collapse.

To think that collapse is not a possibility seems to me to be, well, fairly myopic.

[depakid]

19. Actually- it's more than that

"Peakers," if you will, recognize that industrial society (as we know it) can never continue on the scale and with all of the inefficiencies (physical and otherwise) that we are accustomed to in today's society. The more realistic among them recognize the problems of population, economic and ecosystem overshoot. Society will change- and "downsize" dramatically sometime before the end of the century. "Collapse" is therefore a relative term.

Doomers see overshoot resulting in a major "dieoff" akin to traditional population biology models. Some of them also posit (in various forms) an "Oldavai Theory," which (recognizes?) that fossil fuels were a one time endowment of stored up high density, low entropy solar energy. Once it's used up, an industrial society like the one we currrently take for granted- can never again arise.

A considerably more pessimistic outlook.

[depakid]

18. I'm not necessarily a "doomer,"

but the more I've learned about the issues, the more I grasp the gravity of the economic situation and the enormity of the scale involved. Cal Tech physicist David Goldstein soberly raises the "rate of conversion" problem, which combined with some of the other overshoot problems (top soil depletion, fossil water depletion- or fresh water degradation, climate change, wholesale destruction of fisheries and other ecological services, etc.) - do not portend a rosy set of scenarios over the next several decades.

When you look at the assumptions in the DOE's Hirsh report, you realize that we lack the lead time to get even modest fossil fuel replacements on line, especially if the early toppers are right. A large part of that is economics. Once the market finally gets wind of what's occurring, there's likely to be a series of widespread panics or at the very least major and rather chaotic "adjustments." What effect it will have on the monetary system is anyone's guess. The world doesn't have the stability of Bretton Woods anymore- and news travels fast on the financial "neural net." Who knows what fiat currencies are really "worth."

As far as a Democratic takeover- I agree that there will be a major political shift- but I doubt very seriously that the Dems will benefit. They're not viewed all that much better than the suicidal (apocalyptic?) Republicans- and for good reason. Like Kunstler, I don't see either party surviving the inevitable fallout. The Greens may fare better, but as sleepwalking Americans wake up and discover- to their dismay- that their "non-negotiable lifestyle" is, in irrefutable fact- unsustainable, there's going to be a lot of angry, illogical people. All bets are off when that starts happening- which it will, somewhere down the line.

The only thing I'm certain of is that society will become much less complex in the absence of an entirely new energy subsidy. If you study past collapses- whether complete or "oscillating," -that invariably results in a breakdown of highly centralized hierarchies. Whether in our case that simply means less of a federal government- or whether it ultimately breaks down entirely into state & local- or perhaps more likely- bio-regional organizations- only time will tell.

ps: I ain't buying into Kunstler's speculations about Asian pirates raiding the Pacific Northwest- LOL- though it might make for an interesting screenplay... However, his speculations about the Southwest and the Bible Belt I find very plausible- even probable.

[megatherium]

11. He's too pessimistic. Liquid petroleum will soon be in short supply

but already "non-conventional" petroleum is coming on line (Albertan tar sands). There's a lot of coal and oil shale in North America. The environmental effects will be unpleasant (global warming and strip mining). But the middle class is not going to be reduced to working the fields. And if we had leaders who had foresight and who were not corrupt, we might choose a sensible mix of renewable energy sources plus nuclear to wean ourselves off of fossil fuels, in a way that avoids the worst of global warming.

[kestrel91316]

16. I read a whole bunch of PO books last year and got so

scared and depressed I had to QUIT.

Between peak oil and global climate change and impending nuclear war and the fascist takeover of America, we have really screwed the pooch.

Party's over.

[bananas]

17. "How I stopped worrying and learned to love..."

Full title: "Dr. Strangelove, or How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Bomb".

Cheer up, we've been through worse, we can deal with peak oil and climate change.
The real threat is an asteroid collision.

[trekbiker]

20. I read "The Long Emergency", somewhat depressing but

I dont really buy into his doom scenario. For one thing he discounts technology too severely. I think I remember he mentions that the amount of nuclear fuel is only about 30 years worth. Thats not accurate. more like 300 years worth. Like it or not, nuclear power will be developed extensively, if not by the USA, then by dozens of other countries. Also, wind and solar will be increasingly added into the energy mix. Oil isnt going away, just the cheap easy to get forms of it. My own feeling based upon what I've read is that oil production will soon top out and then slowly taper off, the rate of this taper being dictated by economics. Coal gasification, tar sands, stripper wells, etc will keep oil production stable for quite awhile, but at high prices. I really believe we will still be producing and using oil a hundred years from now. But it will be priced like gold. Meanwhile, breakthrus in nano-solar, battery storage, PHEV vehicles, home energy efficiency, etc., will drastically reduce average energy consumption per person, maybe even as soon as 20 years from now. Will the majority of us do this voluntarily? Hell no. We will be dragged into a new way of life, kicking and screaming about the increasing costs of energy.

[Odin2005]

21. Yeah, we have plenty of Uranium.

The Doomer contingent at the peakoil.com forum think we only have only 30 years left of uranium, which is bullshit. They are so convinced the world is coming to an end that they have created this twisted circular logic that lets them ignore anyone who is not a doomer as in denial, they are nuts.

[phantom power]

22. It's not exactly about potential, it's about deployment.

We could run the world on nuclear reactors, but only if we actually build them :-)

[Odin2005]

23. This is assuming it's still business as usual after the depression hits.

It won't be business as usual when the depression kicks the Repukes and Repuke-lites out of power, Look at all the public works that were done during the Great Depression.

[phantom power]

24. I've occasionally wondered if something like that would happen.

Some 21st century analog of the CCC, rural electrification, TVA, etc. I suppose it could. We could even do something like that now, although it's completely unthinkable in the current political climate. Shame that we'll probably all have to live thru the Second Great Depression, before such an idea could be taken seriously.