Life Without Oil - A Bleak Picture

James Howard Kunstler: Remarks to the Commonwealth Club of California (transcript) | Global Public Media

Those who have not read James Howard Kunstler's book The Long Emergency or similar works may not be privy to the real sense of alarm around oil depletion and its implications for every facet of our lives. Americans, he contends, are "sleepwalking into an era of unprecedented hardship and disorder."

The coming age of energy scarcity will change everything about how we live in this country. It will ignite more desperate contests between nations for the remaining oil and natural gas around the world. It will alter the fundamental terms of industrial economies. It will ramify and amplify many of the problems presented by climate change. It will require us to behave differently. But we are not paying attention.

Read this text of a recent address by Kunstler to the Commonwealth Club of California, then start thinking about how you will adapt your life when the energy crunch hits.

The Worst Case Keeps Getting Worse

Antarctic Melting May be Speeding Up - CommonDreams.org - Breaking news and views from the progressive community.


The worst case scenario for global climate change keeps getting worse. As I write, the entire continent of Antarctica is changing. The Larson B ice shelf has already broken off and dropped into the sea. Scientists are now saying sea level rise may be meters higher than previously thought, which is going to cause major problems for millions of people around the world.

About 100 million people around the world live within a meter of the present-day sea level, CSIRO Marine Research senior principal research scientist Steve Rintoul said. “Those 100 million people will need to go somewhere,” he said.

Worse, every meter of sea level rise causes an inland recession of around 100 meters (300 feet) and more erosion occurs with every storm.

“You can’t just say we’ll just put sea walls,” Hunter said.