The Long Emergency: Surviving the End of Oil, Climate Change, and Other Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century by James Howard Kunstler

Sep 23, 2007 Bruce Sanders rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: anyone striving to avoid being struthious

The Long Emergency / by James Kunstler -- If Thomas Friedman’s The World is Flat is the ultimate argument for the reality and virtues of globalization then James Kunstler’s The Long Emergency provides the decisive counter-argument--as the world runs out of fossil fuels globalization is doomed. The main thrusts of Kunstler’s argument are as follows: oil and gas production have peaked and will soon begin to fall, our civilization is deeply dependent on that production, alternative energy sources c...more The Long Emergency / by James Kunstler -- If Thomas Friedman’s The World is Flat is the ultimate argument for the reality and virtues of globalization then James Kunstler’s The Long Emergency provides the decisive counter-argument--as the world runs out of fossil fuels globalization is doomed. The main thrusts of Kunstler’s argument are as follows: oil and gas production have peaked and will soon begin to fall, our civilization is deeply dependent on that production, alternative energy sources cannot fully substitute for the shortfall, the oil age has allowed our world to become unsustainably overpopulated, and climate change and other types of environmental destruction will complicate the transition back to an appropriately populated sustainable world.

The book does an especially good job of explaining how deeply dependent the world economy is on oil and natural gas. For example, with regards to agriculture Kunstler writes, “To put it simply, Americans have been eating oil and natural gas for the past century, at an ever-accelerating pace.” He goes on to explain that to produce one calorie of grain American agriculture expends 16 calories of energy; to produce one calorie of meat we expend seventy calories of energy. Further, most of our pesticides and fertilizers are fossil fuel based and there are no obvious alternative substitutes. With regards to suburbia he explains how it is best understood as the “greatest misallocation of resources in the history of the world” and how without cheap fossil fuels suburbs are completely unsustainable.

The weakest part of the book is his look at alternative energy sources. For some reason he ignores wave surge generation of electricity, but feels compelled to discuss ZPE energy generation (an unlikely scheme to produce energy from dark matter). Nevertheless, he does a good job of explaining why coal is not an adequate alternative to petroleum, why hydrogen is a pipe dream, and how wind, solar, and nuclear energy are dependent on the fossil fuel industry. Kunstler is probably too pessimistic with regards to alternative energy production. Nevertheless, to use an example from Friedman’s book; you can be sure that ordering a computer from Dell over the internet, having it assembled from parts manufactured all over the world in Malaysia, flying the PC to Tennessee, and then a week later having it delivered to your doorstep via Fedex is not a scenario that will likely be possible in 20 years. The energy costs will be prohibitive. The other thing you can be sure of is that the transition from 6.5 billion people to more like 2 billion people in a relatively short time is going to be a very nasty business.

Finally, there is another book to be considered with regards to Kunstler’s thesis, Ray Kurzweil’s The Age of Spiritual Machines. Kurzweil’s book argues for a transition to the singularity by the mid-21st century. The singularity can be defined as the point in time when artificial intelligences become thousands of times more intelligent than humans and in effect begin to run the world (many humans in fact will “download” their consciousnesses into the intelligent grid). At that point in time all understanding of how a posthuman dominated world will proceed becomes impossible. The question then becomes which view of the future will occur, Friedman’s vision of economic growth and globalization forever, Kunstler’s savage transition to a smaller population immersed in autonomous local economies, or Kurzweil’s posthuman future? Friedman’s position may hold in the short run, but in the medium term it becomes pollyannish. Kunstler’s future is pessimistic but plausible and may already have begun, Kurzweil’s position is optimistic but possible in the medium term but unless we literally destroy ourselves almost certain in the longer term. Regardless, humanity is in for a wild ride for the next thirty years.
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Sep 16, 2010 Alex Telander rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: books-read-in-2005

THE LONG EMERGENCY: SURVIVING THE CONVERGING CATASTROPHES OF THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY BY JAMES HOWARD KUNSTLER: The Long Emergency is an eye-catching book with hits bright alarm-yellow cover and black and red title. It's a book about the future of the world, what's going to happen when we run out of oil, and what to do when this "Long Emergency" begins. The first part of the book goes into depth about when oil was discovered, how it was first used, when and how it was converted into the many pro...more THE LONG EMERGENCY: SURVIVING THE CONVERGING CATASTROPHES OF THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY BY JAMES HOWARD KUNSTLER: The Long Emergency is an eye-catching book with hits bright alarm-yellow cover and black and red title. It's a book about the future of the world, what's going to happen when we run out of oil, and what to do when this "Long Emergency" begins. The first part of the book goes into depth about when oil was discovered, how it was first used, when and how it was converted into the many products that use oil today. The reader learns what are the events that led up to the discovery of oil in the Middle East and the reason it is in its horrible state today.

After this enlightening history lesson, Kunstler goes on to explain that there is a specific oil production peak that will be reached, when half of the available oil would've been used up, and the other half -- which is harder to get -- will drive up gas and oil prices. According to a number of sources in the footnotes, this peak will be reached some time between the year 2000 and 2008. Kunstler says that they way we will be able to tell is through the oscillation of oil prices rising greatly, then dropping a little, then raising more, but only going down a little each time. Over the past year, this is exactly what has happened, and I'm pretty sure we're never going to see gas go below $2 again.

Kunstler goes on to point out that the supposed alternative forms of energy we're working on will be nowhere near to replacing the oil industry once we dispense with it. This is mainly due to the recent Republican Presidents, starting with Reagan who stopped most funding to alternative energy means and essentially killed the drive for it. Along with Bush Senior and our current idiot, they are all part of a white male arrogant group that believe we will never run out of oil, and it is merely a case of finding it in the earth, albeit by digging deeper and further (re: Alaska!); couple with this is these men's beliefs that the Rapture will arrive tomorrow and they'll be ascending to Heaven, leaving all their problems behind them. Though Clinton is also to blame for looking towards the future and working on prepare the civilized world for the inevitable.

Kunstler predicts all out pandemonium and chaos, worst felt in the United States, of course, where suburbia is in full force. When all the material goods and services we've taken for granted for so long collapse, and our society crashes around us, the Long Emergency will being. This is what Kunstler says. Though he provides little advice and assurance in how one can survive this event. Plus there's the fact that this nonfiction work doesn't have an index or bibliography at the end. I know all nonfiction works don't need this, but when it's a book predicting everything going to hell in my lifetime, I would at least like a list for further readings, or maybe some websites.

It will at least be interesting the see in the coming decades what will begin happening, and I know for now what I most want to get is a hybrid, because gas prices aren't going down ever again.

If you liked this review, and would like to read more, go to BookBanter.(less)

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Feb 15, 2011 Emily rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: history, non-fiction

Basically this book chronicles our short-sighted dependency on oil and the catastrophic un-doing of our nation that is sure to ensue if that symbiotic relationship doesn't end sometime in the near future. This is a book that makes you think--(although there were a few chapters I skipped over because I had already read books of similar content), long after you finish the book.
My mother has been on my case for years to read this book; and I'm glad I finally did--(usually her recommendations don't...more

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May 11, 2008 cath rated it 2 of 5 stars

okay, so like -- there is a lot of good stuff in this book, stuff we all need to pay attention to. and kunstler is an entertaining writer. but then at the end of the book when he's writing about what might actually happen in the long emergency, he gets all essentialist on our asses and it sucks. like: people in the south will react like this, because of their inherent nature. people in the west will do this because it's in their blood or something. and so on. wtf. that all kinda ruined it for me...more

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Jul 30, 2008 Wendy C rated it 2 of 5 stars

A humanity hating rant about the end of the world as we know it. Kunstler maintains that oil is running out (I'll give him that), and that the result of these declining oil supplies will be nothing short of wiping out most of the human race and starting over from scratch. He is very alarmist in predictions that he can't possibly have any basis for; por ejemplo, he predicts upcoming epidemics in which world leaders inoculate "the chosen ones" while letting everyone else die because the earth cann...more A humanity hating rant about the end of the world as we know it. Kunstler maintains that oil is running out (I'll give him that), and that the result of these declining oil supplies will be nothing short of wiping out most of the human race and starting over from scratch. He is very alarmist in predictions that he can't possibly have any basis for; por ejemplo, he predicts upcoming epidemics in which world leaders inoculate "the chosen ones" while letting everyone else die because the earth cannot sustain our fossil fuel-obtained population levels. He also predicts Asian pirates plundering the coast of California. The only safe region during the so-called Long Emergency will be where he happens to live, in the original 13 colonies (he lives in upstate New York, to be precise). Lucky him.

According to Kunstler, anyone who is researching alternative fuels for cars is wasting their time and a fool because he doesn't think that cars are our future. He'd rather see walkable communities than people getting around in vodka-powered vehicles.

It's too bad that an important message such as this is being delivered by a borderline quack. Kunstler has some valid points, but his logic is colored by his hatred for middle America and modernism in general. I get the feeling he'd be happier in 19-century Paris. But he's stuck here in the land of ugly architecture, 12-lane freeways in the desert, and Starbucks on every corner, and goddammit, he's not going to take it anymore. He actually said the following about Los Angeles on his website (kunstler.com) on June 12, 2005:

"Despite their lame attempts to rebuild a few pieces of the 2000-mile-long streetcar system that they gleefully destroyed in the 1950s, life here is all about cars and it will never not be about cars -- until the reality of our oil predicament falls on the hapless public like a hammer of God and the people of California die for their fucking cars in their fucking cars and over their fucking cars."

What does he do all day as he giddily fantasizes about all of us dying in our cars? Whittle? Pluck his home-made banjo? I'd really like to know.

It's true that our world has been built around a cheap commodity that will run out in our lifetime, and we don't know what's going to happen as fossil fuels become more scarce. We are all in denial, mostly because we can't imagine a world without cheap gas and all the luxuries that that provides.

Our lifestyles will probably drastically change. I won't be buying an SUV or moving to New Mexico anytime soon, but I'm also not going to live the next 20 years preparing for the collapse of life as we know it. (less)

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Aug 01, 2008 Kathryn rated it 4 of 5 stars

Kunstler is like that super-intelligent, yet vitriolic friend whose opinions you totally jibe with but find yourself apologizing to others after he's totally ripped them a new one at the cocktail party you hosted last saturday night.

Yeah, he's kind of bitter. But then again, he's so right. His take on 20th century suburbia and the erosion of American culture is spot on.

And here? Well, he might be right. And if he is, we are all SO SCREWED (well at least everybody in the U.S. outside of Saratoga...more

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Feb 09, 2007 Scott rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: singularity

This booked sucked. It's basically the antithesis of Ray Kurzweil's The Singularity is Near, so instead of converging miracles of science, it’s the converging catastrophes of man. I originally read this in an attempt to balance out my views, but I overshot the mark. The whole book knocks down straw men of the emerging technologies that will solve our energy and environmental problems, and then goes on to preach about the inevitable disasters with fallacious arguments and no scientific data. It d...more

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Jul 06, 2007 Jonathan rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: theskyisfalling

Kunstler's writing can be shrill, and sometimes he comes off as a bit of a jackass. But he has a sharp wit, and in this book he articulately makes the case for why we face a confluence of several crises in the coming years. This was the first doomsday peak oil book I read, and it made a big impression on me. If you are new to the subject, The Party's Over is a much better introduction. Sometimes Kunstler's predictions seem far-fetched (pirates? seriously?), and his arguments are less carefully b...more

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Mar 22, 2009 Zach rated it 5 of 5 stars

Kunstler's central thesis in this very alarming book (see the title) is that peak oil will destroy civilization as we know it. If you don't know what peak oil is, google it and find out. If you believe it's a conspiracy of the left wing media, you're an idiot. Unfriend me. For reference, peak oil is in all likelihood happening right this very instant, maybe starting as early as 2003, but Kunstler emphasizes that it's impossible to be certain on the issue until we're sliding down the other side o...more Kunstler's central thesis in this very alarming book (see the title) is that peak oil will destroy civilization as we know it. If you don't know what peak oil is, google it and find out. If you believe it's a conspiracy of the left wing media, you're an idiot. Unfriend me. For reference, peak oil is in all likelihood happening right this very instant, maybe starting as early as 2003, but Kunstler emphasizes that it's impossible to be certain on the issue until we're sliding down the other side of Hubble's production curve.

Kunstler argues quite convincingly that the end of cheap fossil fuels, specifically natural gas and petroleum, will be enough by itself to make impossible industrial life as we know it, which has been characterized from the very beginning by abundant, cheap energy. These arguments are very straightforward and clearly reasoned, and hard to counter. On top of this basic premise, he spends over half the book pontificating about other "converging catastrophes" mentioned in the title that have nothing to do with the end of fossil fuels, but which we have the bad luck of having to deal with concurrently. These tangential chapters are interesting to read, but they're obvious asides that don't really contribute much to his final chapter, "living in the long emergency."

His most interesting analysis is on a topic he's already written several other books on: suburbia. He repeatedly refers to the suburbs as "the single largest misallocation of resources in the history of humankind," and backs up this bit of polemic with hard environmental and economic facts and not-so-hard spiritual and aesthetic arguments. He also spends a fascinating chapter exploring the nature of capitalism as we practice it around the world today (neoliberalism, globalism) and how it both relies on and accelerates the oil crisis we now live in -- also including a brief history of the sprawl-based US economy of the seventies onward and a prophetic prediction of the housing bubble and the fallout on wall street (the book was published in 2004, when everyone in the mainstream media was still encouraging zero-down mortgages and leaders of finance would publically berate anyone who dared imply the bubble wasn't a permanent feature of our economy).

The only point of Kunstler's with which I really took issue, and therefore my last, clinging thread of hope for the future of our society as we know it, is his treatment of solar power, which he dimisses as impractical. Out of Gas: The End of the Age Of Oil, which I read in 2005 or so, indicates that even with 2003 solar cell technology, a solar installation the size of New Mexico (situated somewhere about as sunny) would generate enough electricity to meet all of our 2003 energy use, including fossil fuels. New Mexico is a big area, obviously, but covering it with solar panels is within our current technological means if led by the federal government in a massive project akin to the Apollo mission or the Manhattan project. It's doable. I'm wondering if Kunstler just didn't do his homework on this issue, as the math (energy from the sun striking the earth's surface) is unambiguous on this point. His main beef seems to be with inadequate battery technology, since transportation is the aspect of our energy use most cripplingly reliant on fossil fuels. He repeatedly emphasizes the "diminishing returns" of technology to pull us out of a crisis of this nature, but advances in battery technology in recent years shows the opposite trend: exponential progress in capacity and price, as with computer power. Particularly, so-called super-capacitors made of carbon nanotubules are already feasible in a labaratory setting, and if a means to mass-manufacture them is discovered we have a defacto replacement for batteries that will have much greater capacity than LiIon or lead acid technology, last an almost unlimited number of charges, and charge (or discharge) in a matter of seconds. Or maybe what Kunstler's driving at is that in the decline of oil availability, our ability as a society to produce these new technologies and embark on grand solar power projects will quickly erode.

Consider this a must read if you want to understand the events of the next two decades in a context outside the identity-politics scapegoating with which it will be covered by our media.(less)

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Apr 18, 2013 Francis Gahren rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: nonfiction

From Barnes & Noble

According to this fervent jeremiad, the best has already been. Frequent New York Times contributor James Howard Kunstler maintains that the Age of Oil is steadily dripping to a close, exposing the world to perils that we are ill prepared to counter. The Long Emergency dismisses scenarios of emergent alternative energy sources and ticks off a list of harrowing impending disasters. A riveting, controversial wake-up call.

Publisher’s Review

James Howard Kunstler's The Long Eme...more From Barnes & Noble

According to this fervent jeremiad, the best has already been. Frequent New York Times contributor James Howard Kunstler maintains that the Age of Oil is steadily dripping to a close, exposing the world to perils that we are ill prepared to counter. The Long Emergency dismisses scenarios of emergent alternative energy sources and ticks off a list of harrowing impending disasters. A riveting, controversial wake-up call.

Publisher’s Review

James Howard Kunstler's The Long Emergency was an underground hit, going into nine printings of the hardcover edition. His shocking vision for our post-oil future caught the attention of environmentalists and business leaders and was the subject of much debate, stimulating discussion about our dependence on fossil fuels. Now in paperback, with a new afterword, The Long Emergency is set to reach an even larger audience.

The last two hundred years have seen the greatest explosion of progress and wealth in the history of mankind, much of it based on the exploitation of cheap, nonrenewable fossil-fuel energy. But the oil age is at an end. Life as we know it is about to change radically, and much sooner than we think. The Long Emergency tells us just what to expect after we pass the point of global peak oil production and the honeymoon of affordable energy is over, preparing us for economic, political, and social changes of an unimaginable scale. Riveting and authoritative, The Long Emergency is a devastating indictment that brings new urgency and accessibility to the critical issues that will shape our future, and that we can no longer afford to ignore.

Publishers Weekly

The indictment of suburbia and the car culture that the author presented in The Geography of Nowhere turns apocalyptic in this vigorous, if overwrought, jeremiad. Kunstler notes signs that global oil production has peaked and will soon dwindle, and argues in an eye-opening, although not entirely convincing, analysis that alternative energy sources cannot fill the gap, especially in transportation. The result will be a Dark Age in which "the center does not hold" and "all bets are off about civilization's future." Absent cheap oil, auto-dependent suburbs and big cities will collapse, along with industry and mechanized agriculture; serfdom and horse-drawn carts will stage a comeback; hunger will cause massive "die-back"; otherwise "impotent" governments will engineer "designer viruses" to cull the surplus population; and Asian pirates will plunder California. Kunstler takes a grim satisfaction in this prospect, which promises to settle his many grudges against modernity. A "dazed and crippled America," he hopes, will regroup around walkable, human-scale towns; organic local economies of small farmers and tradesmen will replace an alienating corporate globalism; strong bonds of social solidarity will be reforged; and our heedless, childish culture of consumerism will be forced to grow up. Kunstler's critique of contemporary society is caustic and scintillating as usual, but his prognostications strain credibility. (May) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Move over, Malthus. According to suburbia-hater Kunstler (Home from Nowhere, 1996, etc.), the world's going to hell in a handbasket - and in about 15 minutes, too. Aiming at the broadest side of the barn, Kunstler asserts that we're living in "a much darker time than 1938, the eve of World War Two." Why so? Well, for one, because the world's population is vastly overextended - never mind that Julian Simon and Paul Ehrlich hashed that argument out a generation ago, with Malthusian arguments taking a beating in the bargain. All right, because there's a super-plague about to descend on the world, or maybe AIDS in mutated form, or a designer virus unleashed to rid a given polity of its surplus population, the elites having been inoculated beforehand. ("If this sounds too fantastic," Kunstler helpfully adds, "imagine how outlandish the liquidation of European Jewry might have seemed to civilized Berliners in 1913. Yet it happened." No bites? All right, it's because we're about to run out of oil, and there's nothing to replace oil. Now we're getting somewhere - except, oil economists such as Kenneth Deffeyes (Beyond Oil, p. 31) have remarked, the peak in world oil production is probably happening right now, and it will take some time to bleed the pump dry, by which point alternative technologies may have been employed to carry at least some of the load. That presupposes a shared view that the oil-based economy is on the way to profound change and that we're all in big trouble; but we're a delusional bunch, Kunstler avows, content to ugly up and pollute our world so long as we are able "to quickly escape the vicinity in cars luxuriously appointed with the finest digital stereo sound, air conditioning, and cup holders for iced beverages." Aha. It's the fault of the ice-chewers in this age of global warming. But look at the bright side, Kunstler urges: At least when the air conditioners fail, the mega-churches will have to close down, a death blow to Republican civilization. Rant-filled and overwrought: a crying-wolf approach to real but largely addressable issues, long on jeremiads but absent of remedies.

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Sep 09, 2012 jonah grace rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction

The ‘Long Emergency,’ according to Kuntsler, is the outcome of the convergence of three issues: (1) peak oil, environmental change, and (3) economic crisis. In his book, he argues that dependence on crude oil leads to both environmental catastrophe and the collapse of the global economy and this “economic & political disorder [is] on a scale that no one has ever seen before.” Not only is it imminent but arguably, currently ongoing. Human activities, particularly industrial & technologica...more

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Aug 05, 2011 Becky rated it 4 of 5 stars

Okay, so you have to read this. Yes, you, person who is reading (or skimming or glancing at) my review. It is mandatory. However you will want to schedule regular hugs from solicitous people who buy you ice cream. I made the poor choice of reading this book while my boyfriend was several states away and could not provide these comforts.

Anyway, I am going to review this book before I read any of the other comments, so as to capture the experience of a relatively educated person who has a tenuous...more Okay, so you have to read this. Yes, you, person who is reading (or skimming or glancing at) my review. It is mandatory. However you will want to schedule regular hugs from solicitous people who buy you ice cream. I made the poor choice of reading this book while my boyfriend was several states away and could not provide these comforts.

Anyway, I am going to review this book before I read any of the other comments, so as to capture the experience of a relatively educated person who has a tenuous grasp on politics, economics, agriculture, and the physical sciences, and knows even less about manufacturing and energy production.

Throughout most of this book I was impressed at how credible and well-spoken the author is. His central argument - that there is simply no energy source on earth equal to oil - is compelling. As of now I feel at least moderately convinced that the singularity is not coming to save us and we are just going to have to limp along on coal, nuclear, water, solar, and wind, abandoning the aspects of our society that can't be supported by these fuels (i.e., most of them). I am more sanguine than the author in our ability, at least in the developed world, to get these technologies organized and ready to go before oil becomes an untenable fuel, but even if we do manage to built a post-oil world, it will not just be Suburbia 2.0.

I have no idea if his predictions of further war over diminishing oil, land ownership becoming feudalism, the possible collapse of American government, etc. etc. are likely - I think these things are very difficult to foresee and depend on how things unfold. I do think that Kunstler is irrationally down on technology. As long as we have electricity, it's at least conceivable that we can have the Internet, assuming that the infrastructure could be maintained or altered for our post-oil world. A global Internet in a local world would be quite a powerful force for good.

In the last chapter he lost me a little with his discussion of the fate of the U.S. His blase and sweeping characterizations of different regions of the United States were questionable (the South is characterized only by the Sunbelt, but the North isn't characterized by the Northeast megalopolis? What?) As a Northerner who has lived in the South, I completely sympathize with Southerners who were deeply offended by his portrait of the South. Yes, there are a lot of fundamentalists down here, but they do not all go to megachurches and long for violent theocracy. I really do believe that in the majority of cases, the only difference between cranky Sunbelt Southerners and cranky East Coast Northerners in a post-oil world is that the Southerners are more likely to own rifles. There is too much variety to make sweeping statements about regional psychology and destiny.

And goodness, the section on race. I do not believe that Kunstler intended to be offensive, just provocative, but his summary of the future of race relations was bizarrely victim-blaming and had the not-so-underlying message of, "You wacky people of color with your postmodern ideas of white privilege and your violent hip-hop, there will be no time for that nonsense in the Long Emergency." Blaming America's racial tensions on Malcolm X and Jay-Z is just... absurd, and while I can imagine a post-oil world being a place of strong social norms and no room for cultural difference or questioning of authority, this would be a bad thing. Kunstler acknowledges it would be a bad thing when discussing social class, but fails to make the connection to race. If he was going to attempt to address this topic in two pages, he should have done it in a much different way.

Those heartfelt criticisms aside, I think this is a compelling book that does an excellent job describing how we got to this point in history, what kind of world we live in now, and where we might end up. His sum-up of American and global history since industrialization is really fascinating, and his prediction of the sub-prime mortgage crisis (yes, he totally called it in 2005) infuriating.

Anyway, I hope the oil crisis won't be as bad as Kunstler predicts, because I will probably spend a good portion of my life living through it. However, I do look forward to cackling if big-box retail falls to pieces (a future poignant since most of the money here in beautiful Northwest Arkansas is sadly Walmart and J.B. Hunt money). And I admire his assertion that the universe is not a teleological object, that we are not necessarily on a trajectory for bigger and better things, but that we are simply going where we are going in this messy, chaotic, circling universe.(less)

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Aug 03, 2011 Michael rated it 4 of 5 stars

This certainly isn't the feel good book of the year. It also isn't a survival manual. What Kunstler writes about is why the way we operate is doomed, how it will change, and how (in his opinion) we can deal with said change. It is MY opinion that Kunstler's is a view predicated on the perceived "correctness" of his own choices, and that's where his argument falls apart.

He's far too willing to throw babies out with bathwater and everyone else under the bus. Kustler sees no alternative to his own...more

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Jul 15, 2011 Kurt rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Republicans, Cornucopians

Shelves: economics, environment, non-fiction, politics, civilization

This is not an optimistic book. But I don't view it as a pessimistic book either. It is simply a realistic explanation of where things stand and where, in all likelihood, we are headed.

Dramatic change is coming to the world, but especially to the people of the United States who remain steadfast in their denial that this modern, fossil-fuel dependent, suburban lifestyle is inherently unsustainable. Peak oil, which we are currently at (or perhaps slightly past), will be the main culprit for this...more

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Dec 31, 2010 James rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: culture-and-politics, economics, employment, environment-and-earth-sciences, history, management-and-business, reference, general-science-math-technology

A companion volume to The Long Descent; in some ways Kunstler is more apocalyptic than Greer, and I think the most balanced view lies between them. Whereas Greer is probably a bit too sanguine about how fossil fuel depletion will affect humanity, and doesn't pay much attention to other problems that will combine with it to make both worse, Kunstler fails to adequately reflect the truth that the consequences of these programs will spread their impact over time. I also didn't care for Kunstler's s...more

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Aug 16, 2010 Leonard rated it 4 of 5 stars

Important book about the current changes taking place in the world and upcoming crises that are beginning to occur. I didn't read all of this, but here are a few quotes from what I read:

"If it happens that the human race doesn't make it, than the fact that we were here once will not be altered, that once upon a time we peopled this astonishing blue planet, and wondered intelligently at everything about it and the other things who lived here with us on it, and that we celebrated the beauty of it...more Important book about the current changes taking place in the world and upcoming crises that are beginning to occur. I didn't read all of this, but here are a few quotes from what I read:

"If it happens that the human race doesn't make it, than the fact that we were here once will not be altered, that once upon a time we peopled this astonishing blue planet, and wondered intelligently at everything about it and the other things who lived here with us on it, and that we celebrated the beauty of it in music and art, architecture, literature, and dance, and that there were times when we approached something godlike in our abilities and aspirations. We emerged out of depthless mystery, and back into mystery we returned, and in the end the mystery is all there is" (Page 21).

"One president in recent times, Jimmy Carter, told the truth to the American public. He told us that our continued hyperdependence on oil was a deadly trap and that we would have to change the way we live in America. He was ridiculed and voted out of office for it" (Page 29).

"President Reagan was a cornucopian who believed that the oil supply was virtually limitless" (Page 54).

"A corporation, essentially, is a pile of money to which a number of persons have sold their moral allegiance" (Wendell Berry, Page 186).

"What 'conservative' actually means anymore may be subject to debate, but for the sake of this argument let's say it includes the following attitudes: (1) That the United States is an exceptional nation whose citizens enjoy special dispensations from a Christian god for their good works in being a beacon of liberty for the rest of the world; (2) that being an American is characterized by rugged individualism that tends to exalt the family, clan, or tribe while it discounts the common good of the community and even the rights of others not of the family, clan, or tribe; and (3) that firearms should be liberally distributed among the populace with the expectation that they will be used to defend individual liberty. Anyone can see that against a background of grave economic distress, attitudes like these could lead to a great deal of delusional thinking, dangerous politics, and possible mayhem (Page 285).

Very worthwhile reading.(less)

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Aug 13, 2010 Jay rated it 4 of 5 stars

“The Long Emergency”

by James Howard Kunstler

Book Review by Jay Gilbertson
Now how’s that for a down right peculiar title? It got your attention though, didn’t it? This book is actually an important guide to life after what is called ‘Peak Oil’ and, if you can reflect on the information beyond the author’s sometimes rather cranky moments, you’ll come away with some truly useful analysis.

Kunstler was one of the first to bring the idea of ‘Peak Oil’ to the public’s attention with this book, which w...more “The Long Emergency”

by James Howard Kunstler

Book Review by Jay Gilbertson
Now how’s that for a down right peculiar title? It got your attention though, didn’t it? This book is actually an important guide to life after what is called ‘Peak Oil’ and, if you can reflect on the information beyond the author’s sometimes rather cranky moments, you’ll come away with some truly useful analysis.

Kunstler was one of the first to bring the idea of ‘Peak Oil’ to the public’s attention with this book, which was written in 2006. The concept is simple, oil production is now at its peak and worldwide demand is soaring, fuelled by the growth of India and China. Yes, there is more oil in the ground, but it is going to be much harder and much more costly to extract. The days of easy energy are over and we can look forward to more wild swings in gas prices as they seesaw ever higher over the next few decades. It’s a scientific fact and honestly, can any of us be that surprised?

He also takes issue with the ingrained American belief that our technology will save us, carefully making the case that alternative fuels do not have the energy return of oil and ultimately depend on oil to build the equipment for their production. The author also traces how environmental issues and the economy will converge to create this “Long Emergency.”

Kunstler has penned a wake up call, a banging on the hood—pull your head out of the sand—get with the program, kind of book that lays it all bare. Isn’t it time? Actually, that’s one of his main points: we’re nearly out of time. Nearly. Now I don’t want to scare you away from even taking this book down and cracking the ol’ binding for a look because I feel this stuff is really important. Kunstler isn’t foretelling an end to the world, but he is hinting (heavily and with italics) about big changes coming our way with regard to cheap goods from Wal-Mart, lawyer-foyer homes with a zillion wings and driving all over the state in search of the best Chinese Buffet.

Many of us in this beautiful country have chosen to be here and would love to see our hometowns once again flourish. The re-localization of villages and small towns all across America is what “The Long Emergency” suggests as a possible strategy to survive the coming crisis. We need to makes plans for a different kind of future now.

Kunstler makes it clear that the solution to our mad addiction to oil, is a road that isn’t going to be easy to exit from. The first thing he suggests is simple conservation. Next is the importance of community and with that the need to grow and store and preserve as much of our own food as possible—for starters. From there Kunstler asserts that the way through the Long Emergency is using the strength of our communities to find ways to meet the needs of all, re-learning to co-exist on a much smaller, local, more sustainable scale—and yes—we can do this.

It all seems to boil down to an awareness of what our future might look like without oil. To know your neighbors, the community and stay connected—we’re all in this together and isn’t that The Long—Solution?
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Jan 09, 2013 Anthony rated it 4 of 5 stars

After letting it simmer for a few weeks I think these are the basic irks that converge into JHK's doomed imagined 21st century future:

-Mismanaged resources.

-Misappropriated space.

-Abuse of energy and fossil fuels.

-Irresponsible use of money that results in major net losses for the economy.

-Plans for the future skewed by fantastical ideas in technology.

-Loss of community and its replacement with (energy-backed) novelty and convenience. (Like the attachment to auto-vehicles)

-And: too much ineffici...more

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Jul 07, 2009 Peter Faur rated it 4 of 5 stars

Kunstler's analysis of our dependence on oil is sobering. He paints a bleak picture of what is likely to happen once cheap oil disappears, and his prediction is that we'll be in that predicament - permanently - sooner than most people realize. We got a taste of things to come during the summer of 2008. Kunstler warns that technology almost certainly won't be able to ride in on a white horse to save the day. The problem will be too devastating and widespread for technology to save us.

Cities like...more

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Jun 21, 2010 Stewart rated it 5 of 5 stars

I usually hate the term "must-read" when applied to books, but in the case of this book the adjective applies. Anyone who expects to live for another 20 or more years should see and reflect on what is probably going to be our future.
James Howard Kunstler's 307-page gives Americans (and others in the world) a glimpse of the future that is full of scarcity, hardship, and probably strife. It's a future that seems all but inevitable given the growing depletion of fossil fuels (coal and petroleum)...more

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Mar 07, 2010 Carol rated it 4 of 5 stars

I am so surprised to say that I really liked this book and was even more surprised when I realized I read it in only 5 days. I thought it would be one of those read a chapter,read another book,read a chapter, etc...! It reminded me of freakonomics in that he has taken huge amounts of data and history and tried to condense it into what he believes are the challenges we will be facing during this century as oil becomes more scarce,expensive and harder to obtain(and covers all the current replaceme...more I am so surprised to say that I really liked this book and was even more surprised when I realized I read it in only 5 days. I thought it would be one of those read a chapter,read another book,read a chapter, etc...! It reminded me of freakonomics in that he has taken huge amounts of data and history and tried to condense it into what he believes are the challenges we will be facing during this century as oil becomes more scarce,expensive and harder to obtain(and covers all the current replacements for oil and why he thinks none of them would completely replace fossil fuels), as we face climate changes due to the historical cyclic changes of the earth(whether or not we have made it worse or not is definately up for debate-this subject goes along with Al Gore's documentary An Inconvenient Truth), and as disease becomes harder to control due to antibiotic resistance and harsher virus'(H1N1?). I gained a whole new insight on the war in Iraq and why we are there(yes,of course,it's about the oil), they have oil and ours is running out and we needed a 'police station' in the midst of all the chaos of the middle East to insure our share of the oil. I love history and enjoyed the chapter on geopolitics and the global oil peak. The entire book was chock full of the history of the last hundred years and how we got to where we are now - it was just amazing. As to how far off the collapse of our lives as we know them will be, I have a feeling it won't be as soon as he is predicting, but maybe it isn't that far off, very likely it could be within the lifetime of our children or our grandchildren. My brother is a geologist who works for a Texas oil company and travels to Yeman every 6 weeks to work on oil wells there and he believes there is oil in the world for another 100 years but that it is going to get a lot more expensive to get to it. So hopefully we will be allowed a slow weaning from it to a different lifestyle. That said, I really was not weighed down with the hopelessness of the future as the author does have a great faith in the strength of the human race to adapt and persevere over adversity, he is just warning that without fossel fuels the lives of our children will not be easier but harder and requiring a lot more effort than we have ever had to expend.(less)

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May 31, 2009 Lee rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: environment

I finished this book at 3AM on a Saturday night. I finished it in three days, completely in urgency, reading not compelled by beauty as might typically be the case when I read so rabidly, but by a sense of need. Like most books about peak oil/global warming/water shortage/global upheaval, this one was deeply troubling. It is, after all, something of an end-times scenario, but written competently through to the logical conclusions of our short-sighted accoutrements of modern civilization. Writing...more I finished this book at 3AM on a Saturday night. I finished it in three days, completely in urgency, reading not compelled by beauty as might typically be the case when I read so rabidly, but by a sense of need. Like most books about peak oil/global warming/water shortage/global upheaval, this one was deeply troubling. It is, after all, something of an end-times scenario, but written competently through to the logical conclusions of our short-sighted accoutrements of modern civilization. Writing in 2005, Kunstler accurately predicts the current housing crisis, and describes our recent and coming struggles with oil with precision.

Kunstler is often decried as a doomsday nay-sayer--known for his previous books criticizing suburban sprawl and the impossibility of sustaining it, it might seem almost fair to say that Kunstler is blinded by his own bias in imagining a future where they become entirely obsolete and American society is forced to re-structure along every spoke of the wheel. But in reading "The Long Emergency" I was struck most often by the lack of screed-itude, the lack of extremism, and overrall how appropriately reasoned Kunstler seems to be. (Nevermind that Kunstler addresses the criticism that his predictions represent what he 'wants' to happen head-on: they are so bleak, only a true misanthrope could relish their coming to fruition.) Kunstler is far from a perfect messenger, though. His descriptions of what might happen in America regionally and in terms of racial strife will make any progressive squirm (his predictions betray a bit of a cocooned existence away from actual Latin-Americans and African Americans, and his characterization of the Southern states are pretty appalling even to the most self-deprecating Southerner--he calls us 'Crackers' for one...)

The book is not all prediction, of course--in fact, I'd say the bulk of it is spent in going over relevant recent history. Kunstler is obviously well-read, and there's a lot to be learned here, but this book loses a LOT of value in not having a bibliography, and very few footnotes to boot--Kunstler should have cited his information much more thoroughly.(less)

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Oct 04, 2011 D Books rated it 3 of 5 stars

Apocalyptic fans will love this non-fiction read, unless of course you are strictly only into fictional writing that must have some amount of gore. This book is about the possible outcomes of living without oil and not having enough renewable energy sources to replace it. There were times when I was just slightly bored with certain sections of this book, but overall it was a good read. Now, do I agree with everything the author wrote? No. Do I like his style of constant negativity throughout the...more

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Apr 16, 2013 Ian rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: environment

Even if one does not really believe in TEOTWAWKI, the author tries his best to write convincingly of its approaching reality. With the peak oil notion as its core, Kunstler supports his view by discounting various alternative energy options as unfeasible at replacing the one-off endowment that crude oil represents for humanity, throwing in the deleterious effects of climate change, epidemic diseases and such other calamities that will coincide with the main thrust of oil depletion. His very form...more

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Jan 17, 2009 Barry rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction

A compelling look at the profound challenges the United States faces in dealing with the effects of Peak Oil, Climate Change, and a number of other developing problems. At times a little too drama-queen-pessimistic in tone for my liking, but then the issues Kunstler draws attention to are big and scary, especially the longer we persist in ignoring and denying them (Much of the analysis applies to all rich nations, not just the U.S., in as much as their economies & societies share similar fea...more

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Mar 26, 2013 Idfaciamus added it

A wonderful book on the coming apocalypse. The theme of the book is the fast approaching end of the hydro-carbon age and the wrenching transition into...whatever comes next. The end of the hydrocarbon age will mean the end of the industrial revolution and the end of our technology as we know it. Th author, James Kunstler, also makes it plain that there will probably be no "new" tech that will save us. He tells us too that our greed and short-sightedness will assure that we will not be prepared....more

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Jan 22, 2012 Andy Gibb rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: essential

Breathlessly written by James Howard Kunstler, and with the very long subtitle of Surviving the [End of Oil, Climate Change, and Other] Converging Catastrophes of the 21st Century. My edition had a shorter one by excising the bracketed words but they are key to the book with half of it being about oil (and its curtain-raiser, coal).

Both have correlated with our rocketing world population and have defined the carrying capacity of Planet Earth. Before the Industrial Revolution our numbers struggle...more Breathlessly written by James Howard Kunstler, and with the very long subtitle of Surviving the [End of Oil, Climate Change, and Other] Converging Catastrophes of the 21st Century. My edition had a shorter one by excising the bracketed words but they are key to the book with half of it being about oil (and its curtain-raiser, coal).

Both have correlated with our rocketing world population and have defined the carrying capacity of Planet Earth. Before the Industrial Revolution our numbers struggled up to 1 billion and managed to exploit most corners of the world. Now oil allows 7 billion. And when the oil runs out... Will nuclear, hydrogen, solar, wind or hydro cut it? They're relatively so inefficient and user-unfriendly that it seems not.

We believe that technology will deliver. Kunstler doesn't mention biofuel but that may postdate 2004. It doesn't change his assertion that oil also fuels technology so it'd better find an alternative before it runs out. Well before; like now, and that doesn't seem to be happening.

Next up is climate change (not global warming!) Here's a nugget: twice in the last 20,000 years the planet has warmed by double-digit degrees (Fahrenheit, I assume) in about a decade. So you can throw away your smooth temperature projections. It can go crazy!

Oh, we've had scares about the future before. I grew up with the Cold War and nuclear winter but it was only ever one threat at a time. Now the question seems to be more the order in which the many will come. End of oil; end of gas; rising sea; depleted water; exhausted soil (which in any case requires gas to fertilise it for the yields we expect); disease (exacerbated by rising temperatures). And that's not all...

The Running on Fumes chapter is an economic history and pretty much above my head. But I recognise a few terms, enough to think that Kunstler was somehow predicting the banking and real estate crisis that knocked the bottom out of my shares not long back. If so, I'm impressed and the more ready to believe his other projections.

The final chapter is a guess of how, principally, the US may cope post-oil. It sounds rather nice, for the 6 billion who won't die of course. But they'll largely be Johnny Foreigners so who cares about them? The other proviso is that society doesn't degenerate into anarchy or war - rather a big ask given our reputation.

An eye-opener for me then and I thought I was au fait with most thinking about the future. This book does continue the sustainable retreat theme, which looks like the only rational, and hopeful, course of action. We won't like it but we'll like the alternative worse.(less)

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Aug 22, 2012 Craig Werner rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: political-economy

Polemical but if you get past the frequently annoying rhetoric, Kunstler's convincing. We're in denial about the depletion of petroleum-based cheap energy, and the bill's about to come due. The fact that this is unspeakable in the current American political environment is more than slightly depressing. I read this shortly after Michael Spence's The Next Convergence, which is the poster book for the sort of denial Kunstler rails against. What I want is a cogent discussion between the two points o...more

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Sep 09, 2011 Roland Bruno rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: essay, peak-oil, non-fiction

Books are powerful things. They can change you in ways that will affect you throughout your life. I can point to several books that have had a profound effect upon my belief systems and my interests. Tolkien was one such author. The Bible certainly made an impact upon me too. This book is another that has changed my outlook in ways that will certainly resonate for its remainder.

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May 06, 2010 David rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: energy

The thing that makes The Long Emergency so alarming is that its central idea is hard to deny. The worldwide rate of oil production will soon enough begin to drop; this will make oil expensive; and this will make business as usual impossible. Transportation and agriculture are just two of the systems that depend thoroughly on oil for their functioning, and to date none of the energy alternatives we have envisioned is well-placed to step into the gap. Readers will find plenty to take issue with, i...more

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