Book review: ‘The Long Emergency”

AUSTRALIA – There is a long tradition of books presenting an apocalyptic future, but most have turned out to be a little pessimistic, to say the least. Until now, that is. Suddenly, with global warming accepted as scientific fact and Peak Oil a commonly discussed subject, the future does appear somewhat tricky.

James Howard Kunstler’s book, published in 2005, is titled The Long Emergency and subtitled Surviving the Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century. The book does discuss global warming, declining fresh water supplies and other environmental problems, but overall Kunstler’s main concern is the imminent end of cheap oil.

Kunstler makes a compelling case, relying mainly on the Hubbert’s curves analysis, that Peak Oil (that is, when half the available oil is used up) is imminent, and that afterwards global civilisation faces enormous problems, regardless of whatever else happens. He points out that the issue is economically cheap oil, not a shortage as such, and that once the production peak is reached prices will skyrocket as demand outstrips supply.

He argues cogently that the very basis of modern society, initially developed in the US and now globalising rapidly, has been very cheap oil – a one-off boon that enabled extraordinary growth in population and wealth. Cheap oil has been behind plentiful food, urbanisation and just about everything else modernity takes for granted. But in a century and a half we used up energy deposited over many millions of years. He argues that the often touted alternative oil sources, such as shale, although representing vast quantities of oil, are simply uneconomic to develop.

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