Me, Sustainability, James Howard Kunstler, Peak Oil, and Change
Topic:
Other Solar Power Topics Posted:2006-07-18
Printer Friendly: 
You are here, at SolarPower.org, so I imagine I don't need to talk too much about the idea that alternatives to
petroleum are a good thing. It is not news to anybody that oil will run out. One thing that is, perhaps, news,
is the idea of peak oil. This is simply that we will pass a point in time where oil will be less plentiful, and
it is entirely likely that we will have increasingly diminished returns extracting the oil that is left in the earth.
There is evidence that we have passed that point, the peak of oil production. There are huge implications that are
quite disruptive to most everybody. Almost everything we touch is made of oil, or the fact that we are touching it
implies oil. If the downside of the production curve is steep, well, we have a lot of change to go through. There is
speculation that it will be steep, like a bell curve. Everybody, in the entire world, has a huge amount of change
to go through. There is a chance that the structural obstacle of our current oil-based economy will be too difficult
to overcome, and the economic future will be extremely bleak.
For a sensationalistic, crankish look at this issue, see
The End of Suburbia: Oil Depletion and the Collapse of the American Dream.
I just finished watching this movie. One somewhat unique addition to the mix is the focus on suburbia in the U.S. Now,
I personally find the pod homes and large SUVs shuttling the people that live in these pod homes into the city to
get money kind of distasteful. In many, many, moments of weakness I am filled with self-righteous rage when I see
an Excursion or Hummer. The thing is, everybody has their story, their reasons, and I'm less and less likely to
swing my hand across an entire country and condemn their way of life.
When I was nineteen I spent over a year in a 12 by 12 cabin without water or grid electricity. I had a small (5w?) Arco
solar panel on the roof of my cabin and a small motorcycle battery to hold the charge for nighttime use. I would haul
water for my shower and iron my dress shirt and slacks with an iron I heated on a propane stove. I worked as a computer
salesman at the time of CP/M and early IBM PCs. I was inspired by Thoreau at the time, but unlike Thoreau, I didn't have
a benefactor, so I had to work. I rode a moped seven miles into town through the winter. There is one hill where I
had to pedal the last part to assist the 50cc motor. I bought a cheap plastic rain suit, all I could afford, and patched
the rain suit with duct tape. One morning, as I was pedaling up the last part of the hill, a biker drove by and gave me
a high fist salute. (It doesn't matter what you ride, it matters THAT you ride -Unknown Biker.)
I imagine that a 12 by 12 cabin is somewhat sustainable; however, I did get Hepatitis, probably from the outhouse, but
it could have been the water. As far as sustainable living goes, I spent a bit of time in a household with 9 full-time
punk rock residents, and another five or so sleeping on the floor. I happened to be selling computers then as well.
I used to be pretty good about doing mind tricks to go to sleep as a party (sometimes with a band) was going on in the
living room. One time I woke up to go to work while the party was still going, and one of my roommates tossed me a can
of beer to drink in the shower. (It is the polite thing to do: when a party has been going on all night, and a punk
tosses you one of the last cans of beer, you better drink it and enjoy it, it is an honor, perhaps as much of an honor
as getting a fist salute by a biker when you are cresting the hill in an outfit of yellow plastic and duct tape.)
I imagine that living in a shared household with 14 members is somewhat sustainable. I used to live in the Central
District in Seattle. It was in a duplex that was part of a compound the landlady shared with us and those in the other
side of the duplex. Some friends came and visited us and commented on the guy selling crack on the street I lived on.
I was within walking distance of Capital Hill, you know, the place where
the rioters retreated during the trade conference. I was
also within walking distance of gated communities and Kurt and Courtney's old place. Yes. Everybody has their reasons.
The guy selling crack, the rioters, Kurt, Courtney, the folks walled up behind the gates in Madison park, and the police
chasing the rioters with tear gas.
I now live fifteen minutes out of Seattle, and I enjoy my neighborhood. I feel like less of a mark when I walk around.
I can also afford to have a garden, grow vegetables, and have a solar panel on my roof by living outside of the city.
I'm not sure it is exactly the suburbs, because there is local industry, but there certainly are a lot of people that
live here that commute to Seattle, by themselves, in extremely large vehicles.
The End of Suburbia is guilty, I believe, of letting prejudice tint the information. One balancing voice is
Matthew R. Simmons, but he and Simmons & Company International certainly
have an interest that may color the information as well. It is a nice idea that what one finds ugly in the world
will disappear due to change. The problem is that this line of thought is poison. We all need to tackle these issues,
and we will. We all have varied experiences and reasons for how we are living. The key issue is that we will need
to change, all of us, to adapt to a world without oil. One of the ways is to use more solar power.
The star in The End of Suburbia is not the Lone Gunmen types featured
in the film, but rather, the Hunter S. Thompson wannabe: James Howard Kunstler. I secretly love Kunstler. His rants
are appealing. It is an addiction I'm kicking, though. James Howard Kunstler's solution of moving to communities that
resemble Richard Scarry's Busytown does sound kind of pleasant,
but the poison is evident in Kunstler's writings:
The reason for this collective failure of imagination seems pretty obvious: the older generations are hopelessly vested
and invested in the hard "assets" of suburbia, which they feel they cannot walk away from; and the younger generation is
too demoralized by the fear that they will never be vested in any assets (while many seek refuge from thinking at all in
the electronic sensory distractions of video games and Ipods, or else in irony and other forms of manufactured
alienation).
If I was a kid now, I'd find a lot more to rebel against than what we faced in the 1960s: the draft and the insipid
program of Levittown. I'd rebel against a generation of adults selling the future for obscene pay packages. I'd rebel
against everything from the mendacious nonsense of Rem Koolhaas to the profligate stupidity of Nascar. I'd want to eat
Donald Trump for lunch (and set free the wolverine that lives on his head.) I'd utterly reject the false commoditized
reality and set out to discover the world. I'd get busy building a society with a plausible future (and be real
excited about it). See http://kunstler.com/mags_diary17.html
This is not the time to eat Donald Trump for lunch. It is entirely likely we will need his skills to get through the
crisis we face. I have to say that the crack about the wolverine is pretty funny, though. The idea that Kunstler
would be excited about building a new society doesn't ring true to me, either. Kunstler makes his living as a doom
and gloom prophet. Take, for instance, Kunstler's predictions about Y2K.
Even if Kunstler lived in a genuine Busytown, he would be sure to call Lowly Worm a serpent and rail against Miss Honey's
brainwashing of the students. As for his crack about NASCAR. What does Kunstler have against NASCAR?
Here are the demographics of NASCAR fans.
I just tuned in to the NASCAR website and the story of the day was:
Kyle Busch had just enough fuel to hold off a charging Carl Edwards as Denny Hamlin and Elliott Sadler ran out of gas
in the overtime laps to win the Lenox Industrial Tools 300 at New Hampshire and make a significant jump in points.
"I asked Alan on that last pit stop if we were OK on gas if we went extra laps," Busch said. "He said it would be fine,
but all off a sudden they're telling me, 'Save gas! Save gas! Save gas!' I wasn't sure what to think."
Here is the entire story.
What is our problem? We need to save gas. I might add that the exclamation is appropriate. "Save gas! Save gas!
Save gas!" The NASCAR folks are, in a way, like NASA, and only a couple letters off. Their experience with racing
cars on a track has applications beyond the small circle the cars race in. We will need people that can work on
cars for the crisis. We will need people used to squeezing out all of the performance they can from cars. We
will need the millions of over-equipped garages with welding equipment, wrenches, floor jacks, and even two post
lifts to hack on our cars during the transition. These skills can be used in other areas as well. Welding up and
installing windmills in the suburbs truly doesn't seem that far-fetched to me. Let's try not to alienate people if
we can. We will all be needed to get through this.
NASCAR has been involved in fuel economy contests as early as the late fifties. From a 1959 Rambler American sales
brochure:
Traveling from Los Angeles to Miami... 2837 miles over all types of terrain... in stop-and-go city driving, over
desert highways and mountain passes, a Rambler American with overdrive set the all time NASCAR-supervised coast-to-coast
economy record of 35.4 M.P.G. with regular grade gasoline. Rambler American's record-breaking economy can save you
hundreds of dollars each year.
35.4 M.P.G. in a 1959 American made car? NASCAR was involved? No, although I am tempted to groove on Kunstler, I
will resist. For an excellent piece of writing by Kunstler and his thoughts on oil, see
The Long Emergency. I'm not sure
there is much that I disagree with in this piece exactly, but I am wary of the poison in some of his other pieces.
I say, don't eat his apple from the tree of knowledge, for it is poison. Perhaps not, maybe he is offering a way back
to the garden:
All over. All over but the keening for our soon-to-be-lost machine world. We'll have to find new satisfactions
now looking inward and reaching out with our limbs to those around us to discover what they are finding inward
and outward about themselves. We'll certainly find music there, and dancing, and perhaps some fighting, and we
will still have the means to make bases and balls and sticks for hitting them and gloves for catching them and
twilight evenings in the meadow to play in. Amid a great stillness. With the moon rising. From
The Twilight of Mechanized Lumpenleisure
Beautiful, yes. Well, if he wasn't a false prophet, he wouldn't have dissed Trump and NASCAR. Gah!!! We need
Kunstler, too. Regardless of how you take him, we need his writings. Really. We are all needed to get through
this challenge. We have a lot to learn, and a lot of change in store. Let's start now. Let's get it on!!!