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The Long Emergency

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by James Howard Kunstler -- Grove/Atlantic Monthly Press, New York, NY. 2005 (hardcover)

 

Author

James Howard Kunstler is the author of eight novels. He has worked as a newspaper reporter and an editor for Rolling Stone, and is a frequent contributor to The New York Times Sunday Magazine. With his classics of social commentary The Geography of Nowhere and Home from Nowhere, Kunstler has established himself as one of the great commentators on American space and place. He lives in upstate New York.

 

Blurb

With The Long Emergency, Kunstler offers a shocking vision of a post-oil future. As a result of artificially cheap fossil-fuel energy, we have developed global models of industry, commerce, food production, and finance over the last 200 years. But the oil age, which peaked in 1970, is at an end. The depletion of nonrenewable fossil fuels is about to radically change life as we know it, and much sooner than we think. The Long Emergency tells us just what to expect after 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. It is bound to become a classic of social science. -- Amazon.com advance product review

 

Why Read It

 How can I have a book on this list that isn’t even available yet? Well, I had decided to put one of Kunstler’s books on the list. Then last month I came across an article in Rolling Stone magazine, excerpted from his new book (which will be available later this month). I have been reading about what happens once we pass the “global peak oil production” point for years. Articles in the Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, and Defense Department publications have described this in remarkably consistent terms, as have books by numerous economists and geophysicists beginning with the late Dr. M. King Hubbert (who first described, in 1949, the concept of “peak oil production.”) But, Kunstler has the ability to write in a way that attracts readers and the attention of policy makers. That’s good, because if Kunstler is right, “global peak oil production” is occurring now – 2005. If he’s right, we will soon see oil at $100 per barrel and gas at $5 gallon. Better order that Prius now. Also, better start lobbying RTD to build your segment of FasTracks rail system first; you’re going to need it. This is the book everyone will be talking about this year.


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