Black gold, Texas tea....

[bluegargantua]

Hey,

Right, so I just finished up with The Long Emergency by James H. Kunstler

Here's the basic thrust of the book:

* Oil is a finite resource and someday we'll run out.
* Current supply and demand projections suggest that we have or will very soon (within the next decade) reach "peak", the point at which we've pumped out about half the world's supply and the point at which oil fields will peter out and run dry.
* We've pumped out all the easy-to-reach oil, so the remaining half will be oil that's much harder to reach (offshore) or to process (shale) and consequently, oil will continue to become more expensive and rarer.
* Most alternative sources of energy somehow require oil to be viable (they're made from plastics or require materials to be trucked to a worksite or whatnot) rendering most of them useless.
* Without access to cheap oil, life as we know it will probably collapse. What replaces it will (if we're lucky) look more like the early 18th century rather than the 21st.

Also, the author is pretty sure that:

* The suburbs are the source of all ills in America.
* Entropy is both a thermodynamic law and a more nebulous anthropomorphized force for social decay.
* Radical Mexican groups seeking a return to the Aztec "homeland" will battle Minutement Militia units over control of the American Southwest, until both sides realize that they're fighting over a wasteland that's pretty much unihabitable without oil to pump water and power air conditioners.
* The South will rise up in indignation and then fall back into the degenerate stereotypes we've always cartooned them as.
* Stupid liberal hippies!
* Stupid Christian Conservatives!
* If you don't want to be like The Man, black people, you should at least wear pants that fit. You won't be able to live on hip-hop and bling either.
* New England and traditional Yankee values are the only place to hope for survival...except perhaps for the Pacific Northwest if you can fend off the roving bands of pirates from Asia.

All in all...kind of a mixed bag.

I think his initial premises are good (oil is finite, we'll run out, probably sooner than later, we're ill-prepared for a life without oil), but then he really kinda goes afield. I mean, sure, it's speculative so who really knows, but I think I would've stayed closer to home. If it was me, I might look a bit closer to the near-future and say "what's the impact on everyday activities if oil is $120 a barrel? or if we our only supply of oil for the next three months came strictly from US-generated sources?". That might have a bit more relevance.

I really hate reading stuff like this, mainly because I'm a pessimist so this kind of reading always puts me in a funk. I'm doing the reading, mainly because I'm putting together a Roleplaying Game based around a post-oil world so I want to understand the phenomenon a bit better...and perhaps find some slightly more realistic projections on what might or might not happen. I'm writing the game a.) because I think it's interesting, b.) I want to provide a medium for people to discuss this issue that doesn't come across like an afterschool special and c.) I think some of the best games to come out lately have been those where the author is dealing with their personal bugaboos.

Bleh. Anyway, I think I'm going to try something a bit more positive on the next go around.

later
Tom

Comments

[peaseblossom.livejournal.com]

I have that book in the queue. From the review it did seem a little alarmist, but still an interesting antidote to everyone who's pretending there's no problem with our oil supply whatsoever.

[bluegargantua]

Do you want to borrow my copy?

Tom

[peaseblossom.livejournal.com]

No thanks! I've got it out from the library.

[mikecap.livejournal.com]

I think the one thing that most people don't realize is that oil is what fuels the massification/mallification of the country right now.

If we can't transport materials cheaply (cheap gasoline for trucks), cheap fast food and cheap Wal-Mart goods become things of the past. If we can't create plastics/petrochemical products, we cant store and ship food easily. All mass produced products become more expensive as plastic gets expensive.

Energy though - we won't have problems with energy production. We'll build nuclear power plants and solar arrays and wind farms and have oceanic thermal exchange to produce electricity. People won't be able to travel unless they use all electric or hydrogen cars though... no more hybrid shit. Hybrid cars are like the methadone of oil addiction - better to get off the shit entirely. The real question is: how do you power an airplane without jet fuel? If planes won't be able to fly anymore, that'll really be the end of rapid globalization.

[bluegargantua]

Kunstler's argument is that most alternative sources (nuclear and solar) require massive amounts of energy and petrochemical resources to build in the first place. (although he admits that nuclear is going to be a key component in the transition phase)

But yeah, you've basically encapsulated his argument.

Air travel may still be quite possible. Zeppelins, for example, might see a big comback. You could switch down to prop-driven planes rather than jets (although these might still be incredibly expensive to flit around in).

later
Tom

[redfishie.livejournal.com]

the problem with all of the alternate energy supplies is that there is waste from them. even solar cells, the making of which makes a nice bit of pollution.

course, in many ways oil is the messiest and the worst.

[mikecap.livejournal.com]

Oceanic thermal exchange is a wicked cool way to produce electricity, and it's not really that hard to do - it's just geographically limited, because you need to be able to sink a pipe 3000 feet down into the ocean close to the continental shelf. So places where submarines and shipyards are, basically.

[shiffer.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure about the end of globalization. Air travel is used mainly by people, while goods are still transported almost exclusively by sea. So yes, air travel's going to take a hit and it's going to take longer for people to get around, but with instant global communications I think that's going to be less of a problem.

Also - Zeppelins.

[mikecap.livejournal.com]

Ships will have to go nuclear, but that's not insurmountable.

But - cultural exchange is part of globalization, too. If people can't travel to other places easily, they can't experience other cultures. People can ship stuff all over the place, music, movies, whatever, but if peoply can't move yourself great distances, they won't be able to experience exotic locales and learn from other people directly.

[shiffer.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I see your point.

[dirkcjelli.livejournal.com]

On the other hand, ideas move rather freely.

re: aircraft

[etherial.livejournal.com]

Aircraft could run on Hydrogen, which is also much safer than Jet Fuel, but the infrastructure is all Jet Fuel.

[mikecap.livejournal.com]

P.S. when are you coming to visit or when can we play Live again? I need more chaos theory practice before we do that again though.

[drwex]

Bruce Sterling did an amusing dissection of the book via remote control (through Viridian commentary on an NYTimes review): http://www.viridiandesign.org/2005/07/viridian-note-00449-mad-max-scenario.html

I don't think it'll make you feel any better, necessarily, but it's fun to read sarcastic humor now and then.

[bluegargantua]

Yeah, I'm on that list too.

I asked if he wasn't worried about massive die back because, without petrochemcial assistance, modern farming would collapse.

His basic response was that if climate change made growing conditions impossible for farming, then it didn't matter if it was a factory farm or locall-based organic agriculture, we were still screwed.

I don't think he really addressed the issue very well.

later
Tom

[drwex]

Agreed, Sterling can be way too flip when he hasn't thought something through. But his point is still valid - worrying about peak oil is sort of pointless if you believe that climate change (caused mostly by burning all of that first half of the oil) is going to pose a much bigger threat much sooner. It's in the same class as worrying about nearby supernova or asteroid collision events. If we somehow survive to the point where climate change isn't a bigger threat to agriculture then we will have modified our agriculture system to the point where it's no longer such a petrochemical suck. Kunstler's point seems to be that we can't continue in our current course without hitting a collapse point; Sterling's point is the same except he sees the collapse happening much much sooner and for different reasons.