World to End Tomorrow; Republicans, Christians Suffer Most

These are heady days for the Apocalypse biz. The latest offering in the “we’re all doomed” genre is The Long Emergency: Surviving the Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century by James Howard Kunstler.
Yikes! Even the title scares me. I thought I was pretty immune to this stuff, but Kunstler takes his end-is-nigh riff to another level. His outlook is so bleak, he makes Thomas Malthus look like Barney the Dinosaur. This is Joe Kaplinsky‘s review:

The picture of the future put forward in The Long Emergency is truly grim. The best-case scenario is a mass die-off followed by a forced move back to the land, complete with associated feudal relations. As the title implies, this is to be an ongoing state rather than a crisis to be overcome – a sentiment that the US critic Susan Sontag described as ‘apocalypse from now on’. How bad will it be? ‘The prospect will be so grim that some individuals and perhaps even groups (as in nations) may develop all the symptoms of suicidal depression.’

By going extinct, Barney’s pals may have gotten off light. But before you go snapping up shares of Soylent Green Ltd. (PEPL), it’s worth remembering that these books often tell us less about the future, and more about the present.

Apparently, those who will suffer most terribly in the long emergency are the US Republican states whose culture is built on violence and fundamentalist Christianity. Neighbourhoods with spacious housing (‘McMansions’) and ‘poor street detailing’, a particular insult to Kunstler, are singled out for destruction. Europeans, by contrast, may pull through in better shape. There is an uncanny alignment between the supposedly objective, inevitable laws of nature and Kunstler’s prejudices. Perhaps the best summary of his views is found in the book’s epigraph: ‘I don’t know if the Gods exist, but they sure act as if they do.’

These Apocalypse books seem to be cyclical. Every few years, we’re about to hit a new calamity; global warming, famine, oil depletion, obesity, global cooling, Barbara Walters. It’s hard to keep it all straight.
The Stalwart points to a NYT article highlighting the fact that sometime this October, the U.S. population will pass the 300 million mark. The article notes that in 1967, when we topped 200 million, David E. Lilienthal, the former chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, said, “a population of at least 300 million by 2000 will, I now believe, threaten the very quality of life of individual Americans.”
I’m not so sure he got that one right. But hey, it’s not the end of world.
A more responsible view is offered by Alfred Crosby. His book, “Children of the Sun: A History of Humanity’s Unappeasable Appetite for Energy,” manages to look at our energy problems without scare-mongering. Peter Pettus reviews the book in the New York Sun:

As “Children of the Sun” begins to address this daunting issue, we are grateful to find ourselves in the company of grown-ups. This is our crunch time, and what we need is rational and realistic discussion instead of hysteria and panic. It is true that the fossil-fuel game is winding down. There may still be a lot of oil and natural gas in the ground; the problem is that the amount of energy expended to procure it is creeping up to the amount of energy gained. What are our other options?
Hydrogen fuel cell technology looks terrific, but the problem here is the energy cost of procuring the hydrogen in the first place. “In order to provide the electricity needed to pry loose enough hydrogen to meet its full requirements, the United States would need 400 gigawatts (400 billion watts) of electricity in addition to what it already generates. “This is a virtual impossibility. “The alternative is to utilize a new and very powerful prime mover that doesn’t pollute,” Mr. Crosby tells us. “It already exists: the nuclear reactor waits at our elbow like a superb butler.”
This may be true, but many people, especially here in the United States, are fearful. After Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, the domestic nuclear power plant was practically finished. Whereas France obtains around 80% of its power from nukes, we get only 20%. “This subject,” Mr. Crosby reminds us, “which arouses fear, anger and panic, requires cool and careful analysis.” This he provides with a calm assessment of both the real dangers of nuclear plants (highly exaggerated), as well as the costs of decommissioning plants and storing wastes. It is increasingly clear that in spite of the drawbacks of fission reactors, they must now be built because no feasible alternative exists.

Posted by on January 14th, 2006 at 6:06 pm


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