So, I just (finally) finished The Long Emergency by James Howard Kunstler. Let me start this off by saying that I have a big interest in reading about civilization and ecology and politics and industrialization and sustainability (and other related, converging topics). Much of the non-fiction that I read falls into a category focusing on the rise (and future fall?) of our now-globalized, industrialized civilization. Authors like Daniel Quinn, Thom Hartmann, and Derrick Jensen all fall into this genre of writing.
So. Onto the book. The Long Emergency deals with the issue of peak oil and the global energy crisis, especially the not-too-distant energy problems the US will soon encounter. As you may or may not know (or may or may not fully accept), the US (and the rest of industrialized civilization) is totally dependent on cheap energy, especially in the form of oil (and its byproducts). Again, as you may or may not know, oil is a finite, nonrenewable resource. That means the end to supplies is coming at some point. As Kunstler (and many other authors, scientists, etc.) claims, the end of cheap oil is near.
There’s this little theory called peak oil that claims that oil production increases until it reaches a maximum plateau (or peak), after which production will terminally decline, never to increase again. Now, this oil peak poses many problems. Once production decreases, supplies decrease, and prices skyrocket. Can you imagine paying $5, $10, or $15 per gallon of gas? We may not be so far off.
Many scientists claim that we are at that peak, or are very quickly approaching it. (The global oil peak, that is; the US surpassed its peak back in 1972, for example). This poses serious problems for the world at large.
Everything we do depends on oil. Everything. It’s not just transportation, it’s manufacturing, food production, each and every facet of everyday modern life. Without oil, we cannot drive to the food store to pick up our groceries. Without oil, there would be no groceries shipped from across the globe to our store shelves. Without oil, industrial agriculture, with its dependence on petroleum-derived fertilizers and petro-powered farm machinery would cease to exist.
What about alternatives to oil? Unfortunately, there is no alternative source of energy that can replace the sheer power of oil. Many of the “alternatives” frequently touted in the media would never make it themselves without oil. Many alternatives require huge inputs of energy to produce, like ethanol, and even solar and wind power. (Just think: solar panel manufacturing requires the energy of oil.)
Without getting too far into this peak oil stuff (there’s plenty out there on the subject), I will just say that The Long Emergency does a fine job painting a very realistic picture of the US, post-oil. And Kunstler does a good job detailing how the US will deal with sudden energy starvation, and in particular, his in-depth look at how each region of the US will fare without cheap energy is especially enlightening. (The US southwest could never be inhabited without the energy of huge inputs of oil, for example.)
We are facing a bumpy future, and this book does a commendable job of detailing all of the different factors involved in how we came to be so dependent on oil, and how we might (or might not) make it without cheap energy in the days of peak oil and beyond.
