Kunstler on the 'Long Emergency'

Grist Magazine talks to James Howard Kunstler about peak oil and the need for smaller-scale communities.

1 minute read

June 1, 2005, 8:00 AM PDT

By Michael Dudley


"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 Michael Dudley

Tuesday, May 31, 2005 in Grist Magazine

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