Americans have a fatal character flaw of desiring others to think they are successful because they drive an expensive gas guzzling automobile and reside in an immense energy intensive McMansion in suburbs 30 miles from civilization. Delusional Americans have convinced themselves that the appearance of success is success. Leasing $50,000 BMWs for decades and borrowing $500,000 to live in a $300,000 house has already pushed millions of egotistical to the edge. Of the 250 million passenger vehicles on the road today, 100 million are SUVs or pickup trucks. The average fuel mileage is 17 mpg. Approximately 70% of Americans drive to work every day, with 85% driving alone. They spend 45 minutes on average commuting to and from work and drive 15 miles to work. The average home size increased from 1,400 sq ft in 1970 to 2,300 sq ft today, despite the fact that the average household size decreased from 3.1 to 2.6. The bigger is better fantasy will be devastating on the downward slope of peak oil.
Pizza Huts, Dairy Queens & 7 Elevens
Now it's a peaceful oasis
you got it, you got it
Now it's all covered with daisies
you got it, you got it
Dairy Queens, and 7-Elevens
you got it, you got it
And as things fell apart
Nobody paid much attention
you got it, you got it
Talking Heads --" Nothing but Flowers
How will Americans survive without the 7,500 Pizza Huts, 5,000 Dairy Queens, and 8,000 7-11s that dot our highways? The average Joe is so busy tweeting, texting, and face-booking on their iPads, Blackberries, and laptops, watching Dancing With the Stars on their 52 inch HDTV bought on credit, or cruising superhighways in their leased Hummers to one of the 1,100 malls or 46,000 shopping centers, that they haven't paid much attention as peak oil crept up on them. The globalization miracle of cheap goods produced in China and shipped across the world by cargo ship and then trucked thousands of miles to your local Wal-Mart is wholly reliant upon cheap oil. Our own military has concluded that:
By 2012, surplus oil production capacity could entirely disappear, and as early as 2015, the shortfall in output could reach nearly 10 MBD. --" Joint Operating Environment Report
When worldwide oil demand slightly exceeded worldwide oil supply in 2008, prices surged to $145 per barrel. A 10 million barrel per day shortfall is unfathomable by the purposefully ignorant masses. The sprawling suburbia that now houses the American population will become not viable when oil prices rise above $200 per barrel. Out-of-town shopping and entertainment malls will be deserted. The prosperity borne from the advent of oil is waning. Jim Kunstler explains the end game in The Long Emergency:
The entropic mess that our economy has become is in the final blow-off of late oil-based industrialism. The destructive practices known as "free market globalism" were engendered by our run-up to and arrival at the world oil production peak. It was the logical climax of the oil "story". It required the breakdown of all previous constraints --" logistical, political, moral, cultural --" to maximize the present at the expense of the future, and to do so for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the many. Even mild to moderate deviations in either price or supply [of oil and gas] will crush our economy and make the logistics of daily life impossible.
The United States is already tottering, as the oligarchy of the Wall Street banking syndicate, global mega-corporations and corrupt political hacks in Washington DC have pillaged the wealth of the country and left a middle class gasping for air. The mood of the country is already darkening as The Fourth Turning gathers steam. The recognition by the masses that peak cheap oil is a fact will contribute greatly to the next stage of this Crisis. Fourth Turning periods always lead to war. American troops are not in the Middle East to spread democracy. They are the forward vanguard in the coming clash over depleting oil resources. We are entering an era of strife, war, chaos and destruction. The facts of who controls oil supply and who needs oil (U.S. --" 25%, China --" 10%) are clear. Kunstler bluntly deals with the facts:
Fossil fuel reserves are not scattered equitably around the world. They tend to be concentrated in places where the native peoples don't like the West in general or America in particular, places physically very remote, places where we realistically can exercise little control (even if we wish to). The decline of fossil fuels is certain to ignite chronic strife between nations contesting the remaining supplies. These resource wars have already begun. There will be more of them. They are very likely to grind on and on for decades. They will only aggravate a situation that, in and of itself, could bring down civilizations. The extent of suffering in our country will certainly depend on how tenaciously we attempt to cling to obsolete habits, customs, and assumptions --" for instance, how fiercely Americans decide to fight to maintain suburban lifestyles that simply cannot be rationalized any longer. --" Jim Kunstler --" The Long Emergency
Mr. Kunstler believes that the U.S. will be forced to downscale, localize and adapt to a new reality. I wholly support his attempt to warn the American people and would urge those who chose to think that preparing for a more agrarian lifestyle that will be forced upon us by circumstances is essential. No technological miracle will save us from our fate. Decades of inaction will have a price. I truly hope that his optimism that hardship will renew the American spirit will reveal itself:
"But I don't doubt that the hardships of the future will draw even the most secular spirits into an emergent spiritual practice of some kind."
As I live in the outer suburbs and commute 30 miles per day into the decrepit decaying city of Philadelphia every day, I'm less optimistic that the transition will be smooth or even possible. Kunstler's view of the suburbs is accurate:
"The state-of-the-art mega suburbs of recent decades have produced horrendous levels of alienation, loneliness, anomie, anxiety, and depression."
Families stay huddled in their McMansions, protected from phantoms by state of the art security systems. Their interaction with the world is through their electronic gadgets. Neighborhoods of cookie cutter 4,000 sq ft mansions appear deserted. Human interaction is rare. Happiness is in short supply. As I sit in miles of traffic every morning during my soul destroying trek to work I observe the thousands of cars, SUVs, and trucks and wonder how this can possibly work when the peak oil tsunami washes over our society in the next few years. Then I reach the bowels of the inner city and my pessimism grows. This concrete jungle is occupied by hundreds of thousands of uneducated, unmotivated, wards of the state. They live a bleak existence in bleak surroundings and depend upon subsistence payments from the depressed suburbanites to keep them alive. How will they survive in a post peak oil world? They won't.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
1
1
1
