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Brands's List: Peak Oil and Everything
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Jun 04, 15
"grinding off grains. Rivers carry countless tons of "
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Mar 11, 15
"It may surprise many to learn that Kunstler does harbor hope for the future. It’s just that his notion of hope differs from that of most people. He views hope not as something that can be imparted from one person to another, but as something we all must create for ourselves by earnestly meeting life’s challenges and demonstrating that we can overcome them. Thus, while we may not have any chance of maintaining our current oil-dependent lifestyle, we can still cultivate hope by setting new aspirations in light of the signals reality is sending us and making steady progress toward our new goals. Kunstler says he has faith that his own small-town community in upstate New York—where he’s long been a public intellectual, master storyteller, landscape painter, sometime wood craftsman and all-around colorful personality—will fare well during The Long Emergency. (Incidentally, he has since moved to another town about 15 miles away, which he chose for having similar virtues.)
If you require further proof that Kunstler isn’t a doomer, here’s an excerpt from The Long Emergency that should suffice. It speaks, as movingly now as in 2005, of all the admirable things our species has managed to accomplish during the industrial age, even as it has sown the seeds of its own demise. Writes Kunstler, “[T]he fact that we were here once will not be altered, that once upon a time we peopled this astonishing blue planet, and wondered intelligently at everything about it and the other things who lived here with us on it, and that we celebrated the beauty of it in music and art, architecture, literature, and dance, and that there were times when we approached something godlike in our abilities and aspirations.” How could a speech so brimming with pride in humanity be the work of a doomer?" -
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