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Politics : Rat's Nest - Chronicles of Collapse -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Wharf Rat who wrote (665)	6/27/2005 9:32:30 PM
From: Wharf Rat	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 24206

Satirist drives home critique of SUV culture Americans' love of and dependence on gas-guzzlers points to a looming crisis, the author says By Paul Grondahl The New York Times SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - On a bookshelf in his living room, above a row of books by his favorite author, Tom McGuane, Jim Kunstler has placed a sticker that reads: ''Me & My SUV. Consuming your future to feed my ego.'' In the back yard of his house on the city's north side sits Kunstler's Trek 720 mountain bike. He fills its battered green panniers with groceries, books and other provisions purchased on frequent rides around town. Out front, a four-cylinder '92 Toyota pickup with 90,000 miles is parked. These details are things a reader might want to know about Kunstler. His latest book, The Long Emergency, heaps upon gas-guzzling, SUV-owning suburbanites the same caustic criticism as his earlier jeremiads against the junk landscapes of American sprawl. This time, Kunstler, a satirist and comic novelist, isn't kidding. The tone of his new book is urgent, as the subtitle suggests: ''Surviving the End of the Oil Age, Climate Change, and Other Converging Catastrophes of the 21st Century.'' The book has been among the Top 100 best-sellers on Amazon.com and quickly went into a third printing. ''I'm not trying to be a Boy Scout about this,'' Kunstler said, as he sipped herbal tea in his back yard and stroked the ears of his dachshund, Sammy, curled up on his lap. ''But we are sleepwalking into a bleak future.'' Anyone who has winced lately at filling up a gas tank at $2.30 a gallon has felt the rising distress that Kunstler describes. He writes that the United States passed its peak oil production of 11 million barrels a day in 1970 and production has dropped steadily since. Yet U.S. oil consumption continues to rise and is now at about 20 million barrels a day. A similar scenario is fast approaching for global oil production, which may already have peaked, or will soon, depending on which geologist you consult. Kunstler wrote The Long Emergency as a bike-riding resident of a compact, walkable city with a thriving Main Street marked by local merchants and homegrown products. It's hard to call him hypocritical. ''I feel like I've made choices and taken pains to lead a purposeful life,'' he said. ''I refuse to spend my life in a car, commuting 50 miles from the suburbs to work.'' As a result, Kunstler, 56, the author of nine novels and four books of nonfiction, said he never earned more than $10,000 a year writing books until he hit his mid-40s. He's built a reputation over the past decade for his linked books The Geography of Nowhere, Home From Nowhere and The City in Mind. He's a speaker on the national circuit and is a Saratoga gadfly who draws attention with Web site rants. These themes culminate in The Long Emergency, which has been germinating for more than 30 years - ever since he reported on the 1973 OPEC oil embargo as a reporter for the now-defunct Albany (N.Y.) Knickerbocker News. ''I didn't know much about the geopolitics of oil at that time, but that was clearly a preview of coming attractions,'' said Kunstler, who left daily journalism in the mid-1970s for Rolling Stone magazine and made the leap to full-time book writing in 1979. Ignorance is no antidote to the looming crisis. ''Many Americans think the Earth has a creamy nougat center of oil,'' he said. ''In fact, the U.S. has about 28 billion barrels of conventional crude left. We use about 7 billion barrels a year. The conclusions ought to be fairly disturbing.'' Kunstler argues that the energy crisis will force Americans to abandon suburban and exurban car culture and return to small, traditional Main Street towns and villages. Kunstler portends radically downsized food production, transportation systems, school districts and retail commerce. ''I'm comfortable about facing my own future because I've been preparing for what lies ahead,'' said Kunstler. Kunstler knows censure awaits his book. Publishers Weekly said: ''Kunstler's critique of contemporary society is caustic and scintillating as usual, but his prognostications strain credibility.'' The author replied: ''My book is stimulating a very emotional response. America has poured all its post-war wealth into the easy motoring way of life. And it pains them to think about having to let go of that.'' sltrib.com