Offering frequent news and analysis from the majestic Evergreen State and beyond, The Cascadia Advocate is the Northwest Progressive Institute's unconventional perspective on world, national, and local politics.

Tuesday, May 31, 2005

The Long Emergency - An Intro to the Works of James Howard Kunstler

I found a very intriguing interview of one of America's leading social critics, James Howard Kunstler, in the online environmental magazine Grist.

In the interview, Kunstler offers profound and alarming insights on what he views as the impending collapse of our oil-driven, suburban lifestyle and the postindustrial economy itself.

He argues that because of our monolithic dependence on a now-shrinking global reservoir of fossil fuels, our economy, culture, and lifestyle are not only harmful to the environment but also deeply unsustainable and ultimately self-destructive.

Kunstler argues that the end of cheap oil is already upon us, and that we Americans are in for a rude awakening, a drastic readjustment of lifestyle comparable to the Black Plague of the Middle Ages and the Industrial Revolution of the 19th century.

While some would deride Kunstler as an alarmist doomsayer, his observations are intriguing and insightful nonetheless. Apparently even a dramatic increase in the use of sustainable fuels would do little to forestall the devastation, saying:
"No combination of alternative fuels is going to allow us to run the U.S. the way we're running it or even a substantial fraction of it."
Most disturbing of all, Kunstler notes that:
"They are going to be living in a period of turbulence and political vicissitude. Industrial farming is going to fail by increments and we are going to have to grow more food closer to home. Agriculture is going to become much more central to the American way of life and economy and going to occupy a much larger percentage of jobs. The places that will be successful will be the smaller towns situated near viable agricultural land.

There is going to be this huge new class of people in America who I call the "formerly middle class" and they're going to be really ticked off and bewildered about why they were deprived of their entitlements to the American Dream. The easy motoring lifestyle will be unaffordable for the masses, so the 21st century is going to be much more about staying where you are and much less about being in motion all the time."
Are we really ready to endure such hardships?

Here is a link to the full interview with Grist Magazine.

I highly recommend the works of Mr. Kunstler. In addition to his upcoming book The Long Emergency, he also writes with acerbic wit about urban design and its influence on American culture.

Paramount to his writings is the belief that contemporary suburban design is in large part responsible for the impending catastrophe now looming over us.

Interested in learning more? Consult his other books, The Geography of Nowhere, Home from Nowhere, and The City in Mind, which offer some of the most incisive critiques of modern suburban design ever written. I personally have found him to be an excellent resource for information on planning and environmental policy.

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