Wal Mart

Say what you will about James Howard Kunstler, but I think we need people like him. People that say what needs to be said, and sometimes abrasively. As we have seen throughout history, the educated people that say blunt and controversial statements often get the most media attention. Mr. Kunstler can certainly fit into this category. He is an “expert” on the devastating effects that peak oil and rising oil prices will have on the U.S. and its economy. He basically predicts that this outcome is inevitable if we do not change our oil consumption habits immediately. He is the author of several books, including The Geography of Nowhere and his latest book, The Long Emergency. If you have not read anything by him or heard him speak before, you should start with his bio and website. Be forewarned, he often uses explicit language to make his points.

Mr. Kunstler recently wrote an article on the Suburban Fantasy at TomPaine.com, and I wanted to share a few important excerpts from that article:

It’s actually kind of funny to hear Americans complain these days about the cost of gasoline and how it is affecting their lives. What did they expect after setting up an easy-motoring utopia of suburban metroplexes that make incessant driving inevitable? And how did they fail to register the basic facts of the world oil situation, which have been available to us for decades?

Trouble with oil will spell huge problems with how we grow our food, how we conduct trade, how we move around and how we inhabit the terrain of North America. These systems are going to wobble and eventually fail unless some effort is made to reform their scale and their procedures. For example, Wal-Mart’s profit margins will disappear as higher diesel fuel prices hit its “warehouse-on-wheels.�

Now, in the face of this, you’d think that the national leadership in politics, business and science would prepare the public for substantial necessary changes in the way we do things. What we are seeing across the board, though, is merely a desperate wish to keep the cars running by any conceivable means, at all costs. That is the sole target of our focus. Our leaders don’t get it. We citizens have to make other arrangements. >>Continue Reading This Article>>