[OilsNotWell]

An opposition arises!


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James "Clusterfuck" Howard Kunstler, "one of peak oil's bigger showmen," has been busy getting as much press as possible before "The Long Emergency" gets moved over to the 'classic science fiction' bookshelf in a few years. His cartoonish apocalyptica would be just ignorable if it weren't for all the genuinely misanthropic, hateful venom and oblivious self-righteousness with which he delivers his sermons, which make him just about as insufferable as any other fundamentalist nutjob...

I've said too much already, of course - I was well pleased this morning to see, while hiking along the Crumb Trail, that the internet's finest Engineer-Poet has stooped to deliver a pretty decisive smackdown to Kunst:

In the typical gloom-and-doom style loved by certain advocates of "simpler" lifestyles, he predicts "the beginning of a major collapse of suburbia" within the next 10 years, based on the coming volatility of energy (primarily petroleum) prices. Industrial farming will fail, people will have to grow their own food, the middle class will largely vanish, and we'll see a reversal of the flow of labor from farms to cities which has prevailed over the last century and a half. (Presumably this will be accompanied by a die-off forced by the decreased productivity, but this is not expressed in the interview save as a reference to the Black Plague.)


What's curious is that he flatly states "I read next to zero science fiction. And I don't write it." [emphasis added] I would beg to differ, because his interview (and by extension, his book) fits squarely into one of the classic segments of the genre: extension of current trends into the future, with dystopian outcomes.


Kunstler works it as a morality play, ignoring typical human reactions to difficulty. The interviewer sets the tone and implies a falsity with a question: "If technology can't dig us out of this problem, what will?" Here's where Kunstler lapses into fiction: he does not attempt to disabuse the interviewer (and by extention, the reader) of the notion that technology can do nothing (humans will pay for consorting with eeeevil technology!). Technology dug us into this problem just as it was digging us out of the last one (horse manure and its health effects); of course technology can dig us out of this problem too. It's just too small, and the available resources too large, to remain unsolved... once people get serious about it.

One of the most excruciating things about reading Kunstler is his constant decrying of "stupendous complacency of a people convinced that the future is going to be just like the past" when he is so blatantly a shitty, shitty excuse for a futurist himself. Read the rest of the E-P's post for a quick rundown of some of the technologies available *today* that could blunt the catastrophic effects of peak oil that Kunst forsees, as well as some signposts to look for in a more realistic future. In particular, he's probably right about this one, as far as where the biggest problems may lie: "regulatory obstacles are going to dwarf the technical ones." Anyway -

posted Tue, 05-31-05

Chiasm

[MicroHydro]

Of all the authors who have addressed peak oil, Kunstler is the hardest to defend.

Caltech provost and physicist David Goodstein (Out of Gas) explains scientific facts in a measured tone. His book is thin, but it is rock solid. Goldstein's conclusion is as stark as Kunstler's but expressed without the additional Jeremiad.

Kunstler expresses many opinions, some of which are idiosyncratic, based mainly on personal prejudices, and subject to honest debate.

I agree that the next few decades hold a future somewhere intermediate between perfectly wonderful and the end of humanity. So, "Long Emergency" is a good concept. I also agree that if any technological miracles are going to happen, they will be on the other side of the long emergency.

Other than that, I think Kunstler will be proved wrong on many of the details.

[OilsNotWell]

Your analysis is fairly accurate. Thought I might liven the place up a bit...

[savethehumans]

Kunstler's no scientist, he's a writer. And his focus has been on the death throes of suburbia. PO is simply the nail in suburbia's coffin; and suburbia is the lifeblood of this consumeristic nation. I like Kunstler, I have "The Long Emergency" in my personal library. But I'm not going to him if I want the stats and science to back up my PO beliefs!

Kunstler focuses on social collapse; our PO "experts" look at politics, economics, and science. We need input from both types of people; apples AND oranges are healthy for us! Let's not be a house standing against ourselves, OK? The dude who's mocking Kunstler and PO is likely to live to eat his words. It is only a matter of time--and We Who Know don't HAVE any time to waste on people like this! We spread the truth, we prepare for it. Distraction is NOT an option!

Thanks for letting me vent!

[linlithgowoil]

if you want to convince mainstream average people of the seriousness of Peak Oil - tell them never, ever to listen to Kunstler. His hatred of many things shines through in his writing, and this pisses many people off. Imagine going over to a 'mcmansion' owner and telling them that in 5-10 years, they'll be destitute, their house will be worth nothing, they'll be homeless and working as a farmhand. What do you think they'll say?

Best to stick to the detached, unemotional writers who simply talk of the hard facts of oil depletion and its 'possible' consequences.

Personally, Deffeyes is the greatest in this regard. He is also among the most credible. He is a 'oil man'. He loves the oil industry and his whole life and family are part of it. And yet, he predict peak oil at the end of this year - though he does say we will move to other energy sources ultimately and avoid the 'olduvai theory'.

I agree with this. I think we're in for 10-20 years of harship, power shortages, '3 day weeks', economic recession, debt melt down etc. After this, we'll recover. We'll be mainly nuclear powered, with renewables ramping up slowly. Clean burning coal will be a great bridging fuel - allowing us to continue to use fossil fuels for raw materials etc.

Yes, we'll have to downsize a lot of things, but this will come naturally through recession and mass unemployment.

I actually think the coming recession/depression is great news. It's going to wipe the slate clean, burst all the bubbles, erase all the unpayable debts. It will be tough, but in the end its necessary. We're all drowning under a sea of debt and we need rescued.

[Antimatter]

Engineer-Poet at The Ergosphere is a peak oiler too. A good blog if you enjoy lots of back of the envelope number crunching on conservation and alternatives etc.

[RickTaylor]

I agree that at this point I prefer more scientific authors on peak oil to Kunstler. But it was Kunstler's article in the Rolling Stones that woke me up to peak oil, and started me reading about it. Also, while he may have a bit of an axe to grind, I think his analysis of the structures of suburbia and the way we live in the context of peak oil are valuable.

--Rick Taylor