(Cont'd) It will change
everything about how we live.
Tue Sep 27, 2005 20:43
64.140.158.161
It will change everything about how we live.
by James Howard Kunstler
http://www.kunstler.com
The automobile will be a diminished presence in our lives, to say the least.
With gasoline in short supply, not to mention tax revenue, our roads will
surely suffer. The interstate highway system is more delicate than the public
realizes. If the "level of service" (as traffic engineers call it) is not
maintained to the highest degree, problems multiply and escalate quickly. The
system does not tolerate partial failure. The interstates are either in
excellent condition, or they quickly fall apart.
America today has a railroad system that the Bulgarians would be ashamed of.
Neither of the two major presidential candidates in 2004 mentioned railroads,
but if we don't refurbish our rail system, then there may be no long-range
travel or transport of goods at all a few decades from now. The commercial
aviation industry, already on its knees financially, is likely to vanish. The
sheer cost of maintaining gigantic airports may not justify the operation of a
much-reduced air-travel fleet. Railroads are far more energy efficient than
cars, trucks or airplanes, and they can be run on anything from wood to
electricity. The rail-bed infrastructure is also far more economical to
maintain than our highway network.
The successful regions in the twenty-first century will be the ones surrounded
by viable farming hinterlands that can reconstitute locally sustainable
economies on an armature of civic cohesion. Small towns and smaller cities have
better prospects than the big cities, which will probably have to contract
substantially. The process will be painful and tumultuous. In many American
cities, such as Cleveland, Detroit and St. Louis, that process is already well
advanced. Others have further to fall. New York and Chicago face extraordinary
difficulties, being oversupplied with gigantic buildings out of scale with the
reality of declining energy supplies. Their former agricultural hinterlands
have long been paved over. They will be encysted in a surrounding fabric of
necrotic suburbia that will only amplify and reinforce the cities' problems.
Still, our cities occupy important sites. Some kind of urban entities will
exist where they are in the future, but probably not the colossi of
twentieth-century industrialism.
Some regions of the country will do better than others in the Long Emergency.
The Southwest will suffer in proportion to the degree that it prospered during
the cheap-oil blowout of the late twentieth century. I predict that Sunbelt
states like Arizona and Nevada will become significantly depopulated, since the
region will be short of water as well as gasoline and natural gas. Imagine
Phoenix without cheap air conditioning.
I'm not optimistic about the Southeast, either, for different reasons. I think
it will be subject to substantial levels of violence as the grievances of the
formerly middle class boil over and collide with the delusions of Pentecostal
Christian extremism. The latent encoded behavior of Southern culture includes
an outsized notion of individualism and the belief that firearms ought to be
used in the defense of it. This is a poor recipe for civic cohesion.
The Mountain States and Great Plains will face an array of problems, from poor
farming potential to water shortages to population loss. The Pacific Northwest,
New England and the Upper Midwest have somewhat better prospects. I regard them
as less likely to fall into lawlessness, anarchy or despotism and more likely
to salvage the bits and pieces of our best social traditions and keep them in
operation at some level.
These are daunting and even dreadful prospects. The Long Emergency is going to
be a tremendous trauma for the human race. We will not believe that this is
happening to us, that 200 years of modernity can be brought to its knees by a
world-wide power shortage. The survivors will have to cultivate a religion of
hope -- that is, a deep and comprehensive belief that humanity is worth
carrying on. If there is any positive side to stark changes coming our way, it
may be in the benefits of close communal relations, of having to really work
intimately (and physically) with our neighbors, to be part of an enterprise
that really matters and to be fully engaged in meaningful social enactments
instead of being merely entertained to avoid boredom. Years from now, when we
hear singing at all, we will hear ourselves, and we will sing with our whole
hearts.
The Long Emergency:
Surviving the Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-first Century
http://www.kunstler.com
Peak Oil Sites
Energy Bulletin highly recommend daily digest of energy news.
http://www.energybulletin.net/news.php
Matt Savinar's Life After The Oil Crash --
http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/BreakingNews.html
======================
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 20, 2001
CONTACT: Mike Bodine (518) 656-3578
DOJ and the U.S. Congress Officially Commit to Send IRS Tax and Legal
Experts to Appear on Capitol Hill. Public Hearing to be Conducted by Rep.
Roscoe Bartlett and Rep. Henry Hyde to Answer Citizens' Challenges of IRS
Jurisdiction and Illegal Enforcement of U.S. Tax Law.
Washington D.C. -- We The People Foundation For Constitutional Education,
Inc. announce that the Department of Justice and the U.S. Congress have
committed, in writing, to appear with IRS representatives in a recorded,
public meeting to officially answer to charges challenging the legal
jurisdiction of the IRS and the enforcement of U.S. income tax laws against
U.S. citizens.
http://www.apfn.net/Doc-100_bankruptcy7.htm
by James Howard Kunstler
http://www.kunstler.com
The automobile will be a diminished presence in our lives, to say the least.
With gasoline in short supply, not to mention tax revenue, our roads will
surely suffer. The interstate highway system is more delicate than the public
realizes. If the "level of service" (as traffic engineers call it) is not
maintained to the highest degree, problems multiply and escalate quickly. The
system does not tolerate partial failure. The interstates are either in
excellent condition, or they quickly fall apart.
America today has a railroad system that the Bulgarians would be ashamed of.
Neither of the two major presidential candidates in 2004 mentioned railroads,
but if we don't refurbish our rail system, then there may be no long-range
travel or transport of goods at all a few decades from now. The commercial
aviation industry, already on its knees financially, is likely to vanish. The
sheer cost of maintaining gigantic airports may not justify the operation of a
much-reduced air-travel fleet. Railroads are far more energy efficient than
cars, trucks or airplanes, and they can be run on anything from wood to
electricity. The rail-bed infrastructure is also far more economical to
maintain than our highway network.
The successful regions in the twenty-first century will be the ones surrounded
by viable farming hinterlands that can reconstitute locally sustainable
economies on an armature of civic cohesion. Small towns and smaller cities have
better prospects than the big cities, which will probably have to contract
substantially. The process will be painful and tumultuous. In many American
cities, such as Cleveland, Detroit and St. Louis, that process is already well
advanced. Others have further to fall. New York and Chicago face extraordinary
difficulties, being oversupplied with gigantic buildings out of scale with the
reality of declining energy supplies. Their former agricultural hinterlands
have long been paved over. They will be encysted in a surrounding fabric of
necrotic suburbia that will only amplify and reinforce the cities' problems.
Still, our cities occupy important sites. Some kind of urban entities will
exist where they are in the future, but probably not the colossi of
twentieth-century industrialism.
Some regions of the country will do better than others in the Long Emergency.
The Southwest will suffer in proportion to the degree that it prospered during
the cheap-oil blowout of the late twentieth century. I predict that Sunbelt
states like Arizona and Nevada will become significantly depopulated, since the
region will be short of water as well as gasoline and natural gas. Imagine
Phoenix without cheap air conditioning.
I'm not optimistic about the Southeast, either, for different reasons. I think
it will be subject to substantial levels of violence as the grievances of the
formerly middle class boil over and collide with the delusions of Pentecostal
Christian extremism. The latent encoded behavior of Southern culture includes
an outsized notion of individualism and the belief that firearms ought to be
used in the defense of it. This is a poor recipe for civic cohesion.
The Mountain States and Great Plains will face an array of problems, from poor
farming potential to water shortages to population loss. The Pacific Northwest,
New England and the Upper Midwest have somewhat better prospects. I regard them
as less likely to fall into lawlessness, anarchy or despotism and more likely
to salvage the bits and pieces of our best social traditions and keep them in
operation at some level.
These are daunting and even dreadful prospects. The Long Emergency is going to
be a tremendous trauma for the human race. We will not believe that this is
happening to us, that 200 years of modernity can be brought to its knees by a
world-wide power shortage. The survivors will have to cultivate a religion of
hope -- that is, a deep and comprehensive belief that humanity is worth
carrying on. If there is any positive side to stark changes coming our way, it
may be in the benefits of close communal relations, of having to really work
intimately (and physically) with our neighbors, to be part of an enterprise
that really matters and to be fully engaged in meaningful social enactments
instead of being merely entertained to avoid boredom. Years from now, when we
hear singing at all, we will hear ourselves, and we will sing with our whole
hearts.
The Long Emergency:
Surviving the Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-first Century
http://www.kunstler.com
Peak Oil Sites
Energy Bulletin highly recommend daily digest of energy news.
http://www.energybulletin.net/news.php
Matt Savinar's Life After The Oil Crash --
http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/BreakingNews.html
======================
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 20, 2001
CONTACT: Mike Bodine (518) 656-3578
DOJ and the U.S. Congress Officially Commit to Send IRS Tax and Legal
Experts to Appear on Capitol Hill. Public Hearing to be Conducted by Rep.
Roscoe Bartlett and Rep. Henry Hyde to Answer Citizens' Challenges of IRS
Jurisdiction and Illegal Enforcement of U.S. Tax Law.
Washington D.C. -- We The People Foundation For Constitutional Education,
Inc. announce that the Department of Justice and the U.S. Congress have
committed, in writing, to appear with IRS representatives in a recorded,
public meeting to officially answer to charges challenging the legal
jurisdiction of the IRS and the enforcement of U.S. income tax laws against
U.S. citizens.
http://www.apfn.net/Doc-100_bankruptcy7.htm
