[.ca] Long Emergency (ISBN 1843544547)

Keep your head down as you head quickly for the exit:
Many reviewers state how this book scared them. I could not read this book in a single sitting, but I had to put it down for a bit of time to digest what I had just read, and settle that nervous feeling in my belly. But I am not feeling 'scared' now, but informed. Made aware. It's not the sky about to fall that is causing me to panic, but, what I need to start to do to prepare before the sky falls that's making me search for answers. And there's the problem. There are answers. Alternatives. But commiting to these alternatives on a grand scale will take great effort, great commissions, and will also be additional draws on the remaining energy reserves, changing the energy and economic systems of North America will take a generation, and there are warning signs of oil and natural gas reserves today. I keep hearing politicans offering to turn to nuclear energy as an answer, but further research shows that from the moment the decision is made to go nuclear until the first watt of electricity is produced is 10 years AND is an energy (oil) intensive constuction process. (Let alone we still don't know what to do with the spent fuel rods.) As of this review writing, US Pres. Bush would finish his term and whoever his replacement is would have run out his (or her) 8 year term before one watt of power is produced by the next nuclear plant to be built. BUT, no final decision to actually build one gas been made yet. It IS an answer, but it's not an answer today (this very day!) and it may not be an answer soon enough. And there is trouble brewing. The largest oilfield in the world, The Ghawar in Saudi Arabia, seems to be sputtering. There hasn't been enough oil discovered in the last 30 years to make up for the loss of this oil field. Salt water is being pumped into the field to push up the oil, so that the remaining oil can be pumped out, but reports say that what is coming out of the pumps is 90% salt water. The oil extraction of oil from the tarsands in Alberta,Canada continues to be ramped up, but the amount oil produced doesn't change, because of the energy intensive natureof turning oilsands into gas for your SUV. First, it is mined, then it has to be cleaned, and then the high-sulfer oil has to be refined. For every 3 barrels of oil finally produced 2 of them are used up in the processes. And it's not just gas for your car. Everything plastic is an oil product. Without the fertilizers and insecticides that are oil and natural gas byproducts, North America agricultural production would fall 75%. And the beef and pork and chicken are fed from the same pool of agricultural product. AND people want to stop using the crops for food and start using them to make biofuel which still needs oil as a base. And oil byproducts are necessary for pharmaceutical production. So? Is it hopeless? For the masses, yes, it might just be. I wrote 'keep your head down...' The solutions that are available can be undertaken and completed at the individual, and even better, at the local level. I started reading thinking if this is true how do I find cover now before the sky falls, but finished with the awareness that solutions will work best with the village undertaking them. There are answers, but it is sad to say that the first ones to the exit will have the best opportunities to be hurt the least. Make the changes now, buy and install the alternative systems now before everyone, when millions may all try to do it at once, and when energy shortages dramatically increase the costs of production, and transport, or will simply make those systems unavailable. One thing though, the author tells about having a solar generation system at a camp, and that the power was unreliable and the storage batteries, darned expensive, only lasted a few years needing replacement. Basically having to be replaced before paying for themselves. I did a little research and found some individuals who actually have modern solar systems in place (one who generates all thier own power), and current batteries are guaranteed for 30 years, and with proper maintence, should last even longer. The maintence of them is checking and maintaining the distilled water levels in the batteries every few months. And in 30 years who knows what the world will be like... other than alot older.

Predicting the future is impossible...:
I was disturbed after reading this book as well, but after taking some time to digest its points, I can appreciate Kunstler's attempt to tie many points together. There are many assumptions and predictions in the book that are VERY questionable -- he is trying to predict the future, after all, which we all know is an exercise in futility. I do come away from the book with a sense of awe in how unbearably dependent our modern civilization is on the 'laws' of cheap energy, globalism, and unfettered financial and population growth. I think Kunstler is simply trying to wake people up from their slumber by envisioning the most horrific outcomes of the End of Oil Age, and I wouldn't rule them out as a possibility. If we become so mired down in resource wars, tied in with the stresses of global warming and carrying overcapacities, and if Peak Oil is in fact occurring at the present time, it is entirely possible we may overlook the huge amounts of energy that will be required to move us to the new energy system that will be required when oil runs out. I can truly appreciate Kunstler's models of positive and negative entropy. He approaches many of his arguments in the book very logically. Kunstler wants us to realize that we shouldn't base our futures on the hope and faith that some currently unknown energy source will come along to save us. We have to make preparations today by altering the way we live to become more modest and smart in our energy usage. Permanent growth and consumption in the modern capitalist sense will be the societal model that finally does us in unless we wake up to realize that we can't continue on this way indefinitely. Unfortunately, he does not factor human ingenuity and adaptiveness into the equation at all. The big question everyone is asking though is "when is Peak Oil going to happen"? No one knows with any certainty, and no one will know until it has passed. That point is going to make a big difference on how the future of our civilization will play out.

could not finish it:
While the thought of how bad things would be if oil ran out tomorrow, I do believe there will be a gentler slope for use to slide down. I could not finish this book. I read myself to tears, I found myself skipping pages, and then jumping to the next chapter only to want to put it down again. Some of the info is great, but I couldn't get through it. Give "power down" a try instead.

good but weakness on emerging markets:
Important topic and good discussion on the future oil needs, but very weak on the surging economies like China and India. For this, I recommend a nice book by a Chinese journalist George Zhibin Gu: China's Global Reach: Markets, Multinationals, and Globalization, which offers sweeping views on the changing Chinese business and politics.

A sobering read, but does it empower?:
I'm about halfway through reading The Long Emergency by James Howard Kunstler. I have been reading it voraciously (for me that is, being a slow reader), but now I'm not too sure what to make of it. Kunstler is a pessimist and an alarmist. Most of what he has to say is doubtless true, but he seems a little too confident in his doomsday scenarios. Unlike Jared Diamond (Collapse) or Thomas Homer-Dixon (The Upside of Down) he is a writer first and a scholar second. The measured tones of these other two writers carry more weight for me. The Long Emergency is very well written and extremely engaging, but compared to the other books just mentioned there is a certain something missing by way of passion, the will to do good, and compassion. It just seems a little resigned and detached. The world desperately needs the wake-up call, but that information is more valuable couched in terms more of hope and less of despair. Kunstler seeks to alarm, but not very much to empower. Maybe his despair comes out of his American context and his long meditations on the dysfunctionalty of American suburbia. I've also been reading Joanna Macy's Coming Back To Life. In it she has no illusions about the collapse of what she calls the "Industrial Growth Society," but she writes from the standpoint of a spiritual/social activist. She says the greatest danger of all is apatheia, "the inability or refusal to experience pain," a deadening of mind and heart. Reading Kunstler makes me think that apatheia is as much a danger for those awake to Peak Everything and the impending Great Collapse as for those still in denial. Thomas Berry said that an addict has to experience two things to turn around. The first is the terror of the situation - "hitting rock bottom" - the prospect of loosing everything. The second is a vision of hope, for example meeting an AA person who has been sober for years, is reasonably successful and happy and can say: "I was once where you are now. You can get to where I am. You can do it." The best communications sound the alarm about the impending global catastrophe, while at the same time sharing a vision that motivates: the Great Turning, A New Earth Rising, the Ecozoic Era. One thing is certain. You cannot address these issues without engaging in your own personal struggles around hope and despair.