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Book Reviews
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The Long Emergency: Surviving the Converging
Catastrophes of the 21st Century
by James Howard Kunstler
(Atlantic Monthly Books; 2005; 307 pp; $23)
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You could say I have been living in a personal emergency since February of this year, when I first learned about Peak Oil and began studying the myriad implications. In my efforts to get my brain wrapped around this house of cards, I have immersed myself in reading everything I could find on this topic. The Long Emergency is the latest and is one of my top recommendations for anyone interested in a clear and non-emotional overview of just where we are in history. That chill wind we feel is a new kind of reality that’s found its way through the cozy fibers of our dormancy.
The Long Emergency by James Howard Kunstler (author of The Geography of Nowhere and Home From Nowhere — see the review of the latter, below.) describes the coming era of chaos and de-construction. The nexus of crises begins with the peaking of fossil fuel resources and expands to include climate change, depletion of other critical resources (fresh water, anyone?), population over-shoot, habitat destruction, an economic system on the brink and, well, politics as usual. Kunstler weaves together the political/psychological/social/economic reactions that will compound the likely de-evolution of civilization.
A good 1/3 of the book is dedicated to the history of fossil fuels and geopolitics that have been shaped by dependence on these finite and remarkable energy sources over the past 150 years. As well as exploring for the reader the shortcomings of the potential alternative energy sources on which we have pinned our future, Kunstler also suggests that the technological achievements of the past decades have led us to believe there will always be a solution waiting in the wings for every crisis. The problems with our dependence on the Islamic states for oil, and the emerging conflict with China and India over these resources are met with our own political ineptitude, apathy and sense of entitlement. The most-likely reaction to the shortfall in oil production will serve to exacerbate our environmental woes as we choose to burn more coal, rev up the nuclear genie, cut down forests, etc. Human population has grown in exponential response to cheap fuel over the past 150 years, and it’s clear that these numbers will not be sustainable. Remember your mother telling you that those enticing vapors from the fuel tank are lethal.
For the non-physicists among us, Kunstler explains how entropy, the second law of Thermodynamics, is at the heart of the environmental and economic disaster of the coming years. Simply put, you can’t disperse millions of years of solar energy, which had been saved in the earth in the form of fossil fuels, back into the atmosphere in a short 150-year period and expect that this would not have severe consequences in a closed system. Likewise, entropy helps explain how the spread of global, free-market capitalism has served to hasten the impending collapse. We’re up against laws and limitations of nature itself, which explains why scientists and engineers “get it” and non-tech types prefer the cool, dark sand of denial. In the end, we find we’ve landed ourselves in a fat cow patty. The hope that Kunstler leaves for us is that we might ultimately find meaning to our lives in our struggle to survive the onslaught — there’s a mushroom there somewhere!
The Long Emergency helped provide me the last straw of deep understanding — maybe the entropy thing did it. I’m committed to some new path, with no clue as to where it will lead.
Cindy Dixin lives in Paso Robles with her husband and child seeking ways to educate people about peak oil. She can be reached at cindy.dixon@remax.net.
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