"The Long Emergency"

(Conspiracy Nation, 3/29/05) -- Good news for the doom-and-gloom crowd: The latest issue of Rolling Stone magazine includes an article so depressing it makes Michael Ruppert seem like Pollyanna. In "The End Of Oil," James Howard Kunstler, author of a forthcoming book (The Long Emergency, due out May 15th), declares that this year, 2005, we are entering an energy emergency which will widen our eyes, break our backs, reduce us to serfdom, and impoverish our days. (See Rolling Stone, issue 971, April 7, 2005)

Before getting to "the good stuff," sure to cheer the hearts of pessimists everywhere, let it be inserted that a more balanced view of the situation can be found in Paul Roberts' recent book, also titled The End Of Oil (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2004. ISBN: 0-618-56211-7). Yes, we are entering a transition period. Yes, such transitions can be difficult. But change is not all bad. There are a lot of creative people and a lot more having tremendous creative potential. Look for the unexpected, along with the unrealized, to add silver linings to the cloud.

DEPRESSED PERSONS AND THOSE ON PROZAC: READ NO FURTHER

Kunstler provides a beware notice at the start of his essay. He quotes Carl Jung: "People cannot stand too much reality." Only the brave-hearted ones will be able to stomach what he has to say.

Well, you just didn't "get it," did you? You were all supposed to fall into line after Sept. 11, 2001 (9/11), but you didn't. Instead you asked even more questions. Or in other words, "Even after the terrorist attacks of 9/11," writes Kunstler, "America is still sleepwalking into the future. I call this coming time the Long Emergency."

So okay Mr. Smarty Pants with the too many questions, we're just going to have to raise the fear level with Peak Oil nightmares. And you "cornucopians" with your claiming "abiotic" oil will naturally replenish the oil fields, your creamy nougat center hopes shall be crushed!

Welcome to 2005, Mr. Dissenter. Welcome to Peak Oil, which arrives now. "We don't have to run out of oil to start having severe problems." Oh no, not at all. "We only have to slip over the all-time production peak and begin a slide down the arc of steady depletion."

"This is going to be a permanent crisis." (Did somebody say, "Martial Law?") The liquified natural gas? Phooey! The hydrogen economy? Hogwash! "Biomass" schemes? Horsefeathers!

We will be making "other arrangements," Mr. Cannot-Be-Satisfied. The following measures ("predictions") shall be enacted:

The suburbs shall fail. They are filled with yuppie dweebs driving SUVs and wasting energy in their McMansions;
Mobility shall decrease greatly. Airlines shall fail. Long-range commerce shall desist;
Large-scale agriculture shall fail. We shall be serfs, working tiny sections of land to grow food;
The automobiles shall diminish and the roads shall suffer;
The big cities shall erupt in tumult for, surrounded by the necrotic suburbs, there is no farmland there;
With little water, gas, and air-conditioning, the Southwest shall suffer;
In the Southeast, the ruined middle class shall lock horns with the Pentecostal Christians;
"The Long Emergency is going to be a tremendous trauma for the human race."

So says James Howard Kunstler in the April 7th issue of Rolling Stone magazine. Is it an excess of bile, one of the "humors" associated in old physiology with irascibility and melancholy, which influences his outlook? Or is it too much phlegm which causes Conspiracy Nation to be less pessimistic?

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