The Long Emergency. Thanks to Russ for the link, and to Alan Farhi for the lunch conversation about this very article two weeks ago. Kunstler tells a plausible doomsday scenario by asking the simple question: what happens if the world’s petroleum infrastructure ceases to exist? Every excess we know today in America — from Starbucks to air travel to the Internet — depends on the vast electric product of petrol reserves which, by many counts, may continue to follow this trend:
The fundamental shift is not a bubble generated by speculation, but that of a systematic upward shift in the long-term price of oil.
The source? Why, that crazy, left-wing propaganda machine known as…er, Goldman Sachs (via CNN). Wired had a feature last month about China’s growing thirst for oil. I wonder if Kunstler hasn’t hit the nail on the head with this article. If nothing else, he’s certainly riding the wave of media madness over energy prices with his latest book. My only question is: is this really a bad thing?
I mean, sure, the collapse of everything we know and hold dear relative to suburban values and multinational corporations would be a drastic transformation of our culture. And, it breaks my heart to think about the decay of our largest cities (which are unsustainable without huge energy reserves). I’m just wondering if a return to simpler lifestyles would at all be a bad thing.
For more reading: I thought Tom G.’s comments were interesting, Fortune seems to be approaching the subject with a level head, and can we get an XML feed for these numbers? Oh, and Newark, NJ has the cheapest gas prices in the nation these days, though public transportation to my new job is pretty decent.