isen.blog

Jim Kunstler holds forth a sage and scary scenario:

Both candidates seem to be telling the public that if only we take care of this terror thing, then everybody from sea to shining sea can just kick back and enjoy the scenery on cruise control. The truth, I think, is that within the President's next term, whoever he is, the American dream of a drive-in utopia complete with Nascar and round-the-clock tabloid entertainment is going to seize up in its own engine block. The American public will explode in violence and grievance when that happens because they will not be properly prepared. They will have had no leadership.

What the public certainly doesn't understand about the world energy situation is that we don't have to run out of oil and gas for life to turn upside down in this country. All you have to do is squeeze the supply and tweak the price and all the systems and sub-systems we depend on will de-stabilize -- and nature is going to do that, not politics. The world's demand for oil and gas is exceeding the world's supply at the critical point when global production passes its all-time peak. All-time as in forever.

The public has been induced to believe that they'll be rescued by hybrid cars and wind power. But the only thing that will really rescue the nation from a long period of chaos and destitution is a comprehensive re-organization of the way we live. We're going to have to give up suburbia, WalMart, and industrial agriculture. We will have to live locally in a way that does not require us to drive cars all the time. We have to grow more of our own food closer to home. We have to prepare for useful vocations.