DANIEL BLUE: MY THOUGHTS ON KUNSTLER’S LECTURE >>>
Some people say five years. Others will tell you we have 100 years. The fact is, there was a finite amount of dinosaurs, and that means that there will be a finite amount of time before we run out of fossil fuels. We have built a lot of dreams on the hope that we can figure out a way around this. It is starting to look like we haven't done a good job.
James Howard Kunstler wants you to wake up to the fact that we are in trouble. Local Life Tacoma and Exit 133 worked together to bring Kunstler to the Theater on the Square last night where he spoke on the energy crisis and the answers he believes will help us ease through the coming transition.
As far as I could gather from the lecture, every system in America depends on a quickly depleting supply of foreign oil. Take Mexico for instance. They are our number three supplier of imported oil. By the year 2010, they won’t have any surplus for us. Yep, gone. DONE. OUT. FINITO. Mexico isn't the only country that will stop sending oil our way. Get it? Oil is not only running out, but also our suppliers holding it close as they want to drive 60 years from now. Think big picture; we didn't and our oil peaked in the ‘70s. Likely, the world's oil recently peaked as well. The term called "Oil Nationalism" sucks when America is so out of favor with most of the world.
Think about it, seriously. The world should be laughing. We have made ourselves strong by depleting our own supply too quickly, and then using our instant might to bully other places into supply us. The places that still have oil aren't stupid, and as they realize that they are running out, they are simply refusing to sell it and keeping it for themselves.
A lot of people seem to think that change will come in the type of fuel we use. Kunstler warns that sometimes we think that Technology equals Energy. This is false.
"No combination of hydro, solar, bio, ethanol, wind, nuclear will allow us to keep Wall-Mart and Disney Land," Kunstler explains.
Even if all of our cornfields were to grow only for bio-fuels, not only
would we have more hungry people on the planet, it would only make up
for 5 percent of the gas we currently use. We have to change, and the
faster we face that change and stop acting like the universe will
change for us so we don't have to, the less turmoil will go down during
the transition.
At first this sounds like doom, but I don't think it is. It's possible
that without cars we would be forced to live a lot simpler, healthier
lives.
"Agriculture will become a lot more integrated into everyday American
life, food will have to be grown locally and on a modest scale," he
says without a hint of sarcasm. Somehow I don't think this fit into a
lot of people's five-year plan. Looking around the room last night I
saw a lot of furrowed brows and darting eyes. It's almost like no one
wanted to hear it.
Kunstler has a few hopeful ideas:
"We need to restore the passenger railroad system,†he says. “There is
no other project that would have more impact on oil consumption. It
requires no new technology, and currently our railroad is something
that the Bulgarians would be ashamed of."
The second half of the lecture was on constructing cities in a manner
that is made for human habitation. He says all the public spaces in
America are devoted to cars. I don't think it's an argument about
parking anymore; it's not about a wider expressway if there is nothing
to drive on it. Kunstler continues, "We are obsessed with how to keep
the cars going, we need to talk about food, habitat and what vocations
to teach our children outside of super fantasy technology…as fossil
fuels deplete, new urbanism will be the only urbanism." Apparently the
suburbs will empty when you can't commute to work for an hour in your
car.
It's funny to me, how hard it is to change. Mankind lived for
centuries without oil, now that we've had this brief highly mobile
period in our history as a species, we don't ever want to go back. We
are addicted, and the delirious-tremens are going to be hell unless we
wean ourselves off before we are forced to go cold turkey.
For more on the particulars of Kunstler's take on Tacoma herself and
some methods for constructing cities that are habitable, tune into TV
Tacoma channel 12, who will be airing the lecture for the next 30 days.
And ride your bike to work.
We're still not quite sure if Terry's Office Tavern is a real and true dive. It certainly looks as though it would be classified as a dive, but it sure doesn't feel like one.
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