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.