Book Review

Living in the Long Emergency

By Jon N. Hall


If Americans are concerned about energy prices and shortages, not to mention the end of civilization as we know it, then they might want to read James Howard Kunstler’s 2020 essay collection Living in the Long Emergency. In “Hey, What Happened to Peak Oil?” and “The Alt-Energy Freak Show” and “Money, Oil, and Their By-Products” (chapters 1, 2, and 13), Kunstler gives us his take on fossil fuels and their supposed replacements: renewables, i.e. wind and solar. He also analyzes the financial industry’s role in energy. Here’s a bit:

The shale oil “miracle,” therefore, was a very impressive financial and technological stunt. In practical terms, it provided a means to pull forward from the future the last dregs of recoverable oil, so the US could live large for a few years longer. As independent oil analyst Arthur Berman put it: “Shale is a retirement party for the oil industry.”

 Kunstler contends that shale oil, which has recently accounted for more than half of our petroleum production and which made America “energy independent,” is not a viable business under “normal” interest rates. (By the way, the U.S. hasn’t had normal interest rates for more than twenty years.)

I’ve not yet gotten into e-books, but I noticed when using the “Look inside” feature in the above link that the hyperlinks in the footnotes are clickable, making it easy to access an author’s sources. Also, buying an e-book doesn’t require burning fossil fuels in the Amazon Prime delivery van, (nor when harvesting trees for paper). Plus, at $9.99 the Kindle e-book costs less. Other e-book formats are available from the publisher, BenBella Books, at the same price.

I highly recommend Kunstler’s book. Part Three features some excellent essays that aren’t about energy, including compelling ones on Jacobin wokeism and America’s decaying culture. Kunstler’s Personal Coda is also great stuff.

What got me to read Mr. Kunstler’s book were his recent appearances on Doug Casey’s Take and on Keiser Report where he explained the economics of shale oil mining and fracking. Then I started noticing his regular articles at LewRockwell (archive), which in time got me over to Jim’s website. There I did a search on “peak oil” and got a bunch of podcasts on the subject.

My introduction to James Kunstler may have been the 2011 History Channel documentary “Prophets of Doom.” It featured several fellows who each had a different idea about what might bring about mankind’s undoing, our doom. I’ve embedded the video below and set it to start at 37:40 and to end 13½ minutes later at the 51:07-point. The aforementioned Casey and Keiser appearances are also below, and they’re also excellent, but much more wide-ranging.

Jim Kunstler’s is a voice more Americans need to hear.


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Jon N. Hall of ULTRACON OPINION is a programmer from Kansas City.

 


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