BIKE: Repost: Review of Kunstler's new book

[Dennis Abbott]

Speaking of the "the End Of Suburbia" DVD, where can I buy a copy of
that in town?

On 4/25/05, Roger Baker <rcbaker> wrote:
> This quick review is fresh from the energyresources yahoo groups list.
> 
> Kunstler has such a fresh and irreverent style of delivery that he's
> becoming a new media star on the peak oil topic. He's fun to read
> telling unpleasant truths to a nation of rapidly awakening fossil fuel
> junkies. You can watch him in "The end of Suburbia" video but he was
> just in Rolling Stone and draws large college audiences to his
> speeches. -- Roger
> 
>                  *****************************************
> 
> Well I managed to get my hands on a copy of James Howard Kunstler's
> latest non-fiction book "The Long Emergency - Surviving the
> Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-first Century" and I'm about
> half-way through it.  All of you on this list will be happy to know
> that the "die-off" crowd led by Jay Hanson and the website
> www.dieoff.com gets a mention, as does Matthew Simmons, Walter
> Youngquist, Colin Campbell among others.  The only cornucopian that
> gets mentioned is Julian Simon.  So far there is nothing in the book
> that has not been discussed on this or other related lists.  There
> are a few technical details that to me seem incorrect, like the
> claim that hydrogen's temperature increases when it decompresses, or
> that liquid hydrogen is held in a pressure vessel under great
> pressure, but overall most of the technical details are spot-on as
> far as I can tell.  Kunstler makes the claim that he is somewhere in
> between the cornucopians and the "die-off" crowd in his
> prognostication, but closer to "the die-off crowd" than the
> cornucopians.  He claims there will be a "die-back" not a "die-
> off".  I think that's a distinction without a difference, but he may
> be doing that to position himself as a reasonable voice between two
> extremes.  So far in reading the book, I think he is far closer to
> the "die-off crowd" than he let's on.  Of course he mentions his
> favorite prescription to the problem, namely the reorganization and
> rescaling of American life around traditional towns and cities.  He
> may be right, but I don't think many of my fellow countrymen will
> heed his advice until it is too difficult or too late to do anything
> about it.  I think suburbia and its associated lifestyle of easy
> ubiquitous motoring are so deeply ingrained in the American psyche,
> that we are as likely to give that up as the Greenland Norse were to
> give up cattle centered pastoralism.  It's part of our modern
> identity.  Then again, I may be wrong.  To paraphrase Winston
> Churchill "Americans will do the right thing, but only after
> exhausting all other alternatives".
> 
> Michael Velik
> 
> somewhere in Penn's Woods
> 
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-- 
Dennis Abbott
3501 Shoreline Drive
Apartment 612
Austin, TX 78728