The Long Emergency by James Howard Kunstler, is one in a long history of important thinking that has forecast the impending doom of life as we know it. The most storied recent example was Paul Ehrlich's 1968 book, The Population Bomb. The impending doom that Ehrlich forecast has not happened. Some would call this a "self-correcting prophesy." They hold that, by calling attention to the problem in a frightening way, Ehrlich and his followers have caused people to act to correct the problem.
On the other hand, the Libertarian Cato Institute (Defusing the Population Bomb by Stephen Moore, 1999) has been telling people that 'The "energy crisis" now is such a distant memory that these days oil is virtually the cheapest, not the most expensive, liquid on Earth. In sum, the population bomb propagandists have all the intellectual credibility of the Flat Earth Society.'
Personally, I have lived in the Southwest and California long enough to understand the fact that water is ultimately a limitation on what we can do. As one old saying holds: "Whiskey is for drinking, water is for fighting!" The relatively recent experiences in the Klamath Basin of Oregon pitted farmers against environmental activists and the tourism industry over the use of water. At issue is the Endangered Species Act and its economic effect during a period of comparative drought. Some would consider the individual farmer to be covered by that act. Still, I hear people say that the problem of water in the West is simply one of distribution.
Note: The single largest use of electricity in the State of California is to pump water.
Throughout all of this, the general public is only interested for the length of time that any one event makes the 5 o'Clock News, to be supplanted by the next gross-out story of finding a finger in the Chili at Wendy's. If you get past that and really talk to people, there is a lack of willingness to sacrifice any of the life style that we are told is our :God Given American Right." Maybe the worst thing the Martha Stewart did was to invent the Life Style Magazine / TV Show.
They general public also seems to have a built in faith in the ability of man to find technological solutions to every problem. So far, that faith has not been misplaced. The real shock will come when we realize that there are problems for which technology offers no solution. In the business world, it has long been held that there are NO technical solutions for management problems.
I, for one, do not believe that there is the immediacy which Kunstler wants you to believe in. There are even some who would suggest that the Earth itelf is in some manner "manufacturing" new petroleum while we sleep. This polyannish faith is more frightening than the prospect of running out of oil.
Note: The country of Iceland, with zero petroleum reserves has set of goal of zero petroleum imports other than aviation fuel. They have abundant thermal energy sources to make possible the eventual migration to a hydrogen fuel cell transportation system.
Consider the mythology of the future: Is it Mad Max (Kunstler's view?) or Star Wars? Underlying all of the science fiction is one view or the other, and the Start Wars, Star Trek, Buck Rogers, I Robot views of the future include a presupposition (faith) in abundant energy and technological success. Perhaps that faith is unwarranted, but the mythology of the future is far stronger than Kunstler's arguments.
Posted by Wes at March 28, 2005 07:58 AM