One Long Emergency  

WorldChanging has a new post on peak oil up (yes - I'm sure a few of you have already seen and commented on it) inspired by James Kunstler's "Long Emergency".

I've said before that I don't entirely agree with Kunstler's view of the post peak world, but he should be taken seriously in that the peak is a big problem and can't be mitigated without a lot of concerted effort. Some of the commenters clearly live in some sort of pollyanna fairyland though - even Alex Steffen (who disagrees strongly with Kunstler) has noted that we do need to prepare ourselves - and I don't think he means Bush's "preparation" involving invading oil bearing countries and handing out lots of money to oil companies to drill more holes with (or stuff in their pockets, as the case may be).

I think Kunstler's wrong, dead wrong, but I encourage you to read his remarks anyway, because some bits Kunstler's terriblisma are probably a fair representation of some of the disasters the developed world will face if cheap oil ends and we've done nothing to prepare ourselves. (Other bits are factually wrong, and others still are just plain silly, part of the weird anti-modern apocalypse dance that environmentalists find themselves so prone to these days.)