Kunstler On The Post-Oil Future

Grist Magazine interviews doomsaying author James Howard Kunstler about his new book, 'The Long Emergency'.

1 minute read

May 26, 2005, 5:00 AM PDT

By Chris Steins @planetizen


The author of the new book The Long Emergency: Surviving the Converging Catastrophes of the 21st Century, recently excerpted in Rolling Stone, Kunstler is an emphatic petro-pessimist who argues that civilization is about to enter a sustained period of economic, social, and environmental decrepitude triggered by the end of the cheap-oil era. He summarily rejects the possibility that renewable energy could forestall disaster, and predicts that spiking fossil-fuel prices will precipitate the collapse of the airline industry, the electricity grid, highway infrastructure, agribusiness, big-box retail stores, and suburbia itself. The majority of Americans, he says, will likely suffer bouts of violent upheaval and be forced to return to agrarian, small-town lifestyles. Understandably, his prognostications have raised some eyebrows.

Thanks to Grist Magazine

Wednesday, May 25, 2005 in Grist Magazine

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