Black gold, Texas tea....

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

Black gold, Texas tea....

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