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The
Long Emergency, by James Howard Kunstler.
The latest by the most outspoken
critic of suburbia is subtitled "Surviving the converging
catastrophes of the twenty-first century", though first
and foremost it is about the Peak Oil Crisis, aka the end
of cheap oil. Kunstler analyzes the actions of the U.S.
government and its people in the last hundred years within
the framework of having access to cheap oil. This phenomenon
- the extraction, refinement, and synthesis of oil as an
efficient energy source has distanced people from urban
cores, helped create a population boom well beyond the planet's
carrying capacity, and enabled people to live longer, among
many things.
Most importantly, the cheap oil era
has made most of the world dependent upon a finite material
and who have abandoned traditional ways in favor of technological
progress. Kunstler sees no way to avoid the impending crisis,
no alternative magic fuels to replace gasoline to run our
cars, or natural gas to heat our homes, or uranium to generate
electricity. To him, the solution is not replacement (hydrogen
for gas, solar cells for natural gas) but relocation (to
smaller, denser settlements with localized resources), rebuilding
(our economic foundation), basically reverting to a pre-oil
condition without the accumulated knowledge that's been
lost in the last hundred years.
If we were to extend R. Buckminster
Fuller's idea that human being are an experiment on spaceship
earth, Kunstler would admit defeat. It's a scary idea that
the end of cheap fossil fuels is looming, and reading Kunstler's
book is like having that thrown in your face over and over
again, for 300 pages. It's not a happy read. Those familiar
with the author's dislike of not only suburbia but contemporary
architecture may wonder if he yearns for a simpler time,
devoid of not only Modernism's problems but also its beauty.
Regardless, Kunstler does illuminate the reader to the fact
that something must be done, preferably sooner than later.
. . or . . 
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