James Howard Kunstler: Let's be grownups about energy crisis solutions

James Howard Kunstler  —  5/29/2008 5:27 am

Everywhere I go these days, talking about the global energy predicament on the lecture circuit or at conferences, I hear an increasingly shrill cry for "solutions." This is another symptom of the delusional thinking that grips the nation.

I detect in this strident plea the desperate wish to keep our "Happy Motoring" utopia running by means other than oil. But the truth is that no combination of solar, wind and nuclear power, ethanol, biodiesel, tar sands and used french-fry oil will allow us to power Wal-Mart, Disney World and the interstate highway system in the future. We have to make other arrangements.

The public, and especially the mainstream media, misunderstands the "peak oil" story. It's not about running out of oil. It's about the instabilities that will shake the systems of daily life as the global demand for oil exceeds the global supply. These systems can be listed concisely:

• The way we produce food
• The way we conduct commerce and trade
• The way we travel
• The way we occupy the land
• The way we acquire and spend capital

And there are others: governance, health care, education and more.

As the world passes the all-time oil production high and watches as the price of a barrel of oil busts another record, these systems will run into trouble. Instability in one sector will bleed into another. Shocks to the oil markets will hurt trucking, which will slow commerce and food distribution, manufacturing and the tourist industry. Problems in finance will squeeze any enterprise that requires capital, including oil exploration and production, as well as government spending. These systems are all interrelated.

The worst part of our quandary is the American public's narrow focus on keeping our cars running at any cost. Even the environmental community is hung up on this. The Rocky Mountain Institute has been pushing for the development of a "Hypercar" for years -- inadvertently promoting the idea that we really don't need to change.

Years ago, U.S. negotiators at a U.N. environmental conference told their interlocutors that the American lifestyle is "not up for negotiation." This stance is, unfortunately, related to two pernicious beliefs in the U.S.: the idea that when you wish upon a star, your dreams come true, and the idea that one can get something for nothing. This is what underlies our inability to respond intelligently to the energy crisis.

These beliefs also explain why the presidential campaign is devoid of meaningful discussion about our predicament. The idea that we can become "energy independent" and maintain our current lifestyle is absurd. So is the gas-tax holiday. The pie-in-the-sky plan to turn grain into fuel came to grief, too, when we saw its disruptive effect on grain prices and the food shortages around the world.

So what are intelligent responses? First, we'll have to dramatically reorganize the everyday activities of American life. We'll have to grow our food closer to home, in a manner that will require more human attention. In fact, agriculture needs to return to the center of economic life. We'll have to restore local economic networks -- the very networks that the big-box stores systematically destroyed -- made of fine-grained layers of wholesalers, middlemen and retailers.

We'll also have to occupy the landscape differently, in traditional towns, villages and small cities. Our giant metroplexes are not going to make it, and the successful places will be ones that encourage local farming.

Fixing the U.S. passenger railroad system is probably the one project we could undertake right away that would have the greatest impact on the country's oil consumption. The fact that we're not talking about it -- especially in the presidential campaign -- shows how confused we are.

We don't have time to be crybabies about this. The talk on the presidential campaign trail about "hope" has its purpose. But we must understand that hope is not something applied externally. Real hope resides within us. We generate it -- by proving that we are competent, earnest individuals who can discern between wishing and doing, who don't figure on getting something for nothing and who can be honest about the way the universe really works.

James Howard Kunstler is the author, most recently, of "World Made by Hand," a novel about America's post-oil future. This column first appeared in The Washington Post.

James Howard Kunstler  —  5/29/2008 5:27 am