AMERICA
10 Ways to Prepare for
By James Howard Kunstler
I
N THE PUBLIC ARENA, ESSAYISTS OFTEN
are criticized for not offering solu-
tions to our looming energy crisis.
Here are some suggestions for those
tired of the hand-wringing and ready
to do something useful.
1
Expand your view beyond simply
fi nding fuels other than gasoline
to power vehicles. The obsession with
keeping cars running at all costs could
prove fatal, especially because so many
self-proclaimed “greens” and political
“progressives” are hung up on this
monomaniacal theme. Cars are not part
of the solution, no matter what fuel they
use. They are at the heart of the problem.
Trying to salvage the entire Happy Motoring
system by shifting from gasoline to other
fuels will only make things worse. Think
beyond the car.
2
We have to produce food differently.
The Monsanto/Cargill model of
industrial agribusiness is headed toward its
Waterloo. As oil and gas deplete, we will be
left with sterile soil and farming organized
at an unworkable scale. Many lives will
depend on our ability to solve this problem.
Farming soon will return closer to the center
of American economic life. It will have to
be done more locally, at a smaller and fi ner
scale, and it will require more human labor.
3
We have to redistribute the
population. Virtually every place in
our nation organized around automobile
dependency is going to fail. Quite a few
places (Phoenix, Las Vegas, Miami) can
support only a fraction of their residents.
We’ll have to return to traditional human
DOWNSIZING Villages and towns will have to replace our urban sprawl.
ecologies at a smaller scale: villages, towns,
and cities (along with a productive rural
landscape). Our small towns are waiting this will require the revival of skills and Start with railroads, and let’s make sure
to be reinhabited. Our cities will have to methods long forsaken. we electrify them so they will run on things
contract. other than fossil fuels. We also have to
The stuff we build in the decades ahead
4
We have to move things and people prepare our society to use water much more
ORBIS
will have to be made of regional materials differently. Get used to it. Don’t waste to move people and things. This will require
found in nature — as opposed to modular, society’s remaining resources trying to rebuilding infrastructures for our harbors
C
OM/C
snap-together, manufactured components prop up car and truck dependency. Water and for our inland river and canal systems,
— at a more modest scale. Like farming, and rail are vastly more energy effi cient. including the towns associated with them. ©IMAGES.
28 NEWSMAX / DECEMBER 2008
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