The Long Emergency: Surviving the End of Oil, Climate Change, and Other Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century - Review

 

The Long Emergency is a book by James Howard Kunstler that will open your eyes. It forces you to look directly at everything most of us seem to choose to ignore.

It is not new. The Long Emergency is a book from 2006, but it is as fresh as it could be and an excellent alert for those who refuse to see what is right in front of their noses. 

Its primary focus is the civilization we built based on cheap oil and how that's ending with the world reservations disappearing quickly. 

Shocking data

Kunstler is not trying to sugarcoat our situation, and some of the data can be very surprising for you - shocking. 

Humans pollute and corrupt the planet. We destroy everything, and unless you work on the field, I assure you, you'll never think that the numbers could be this big.

Why didn’t we act?

Reading this after the COVID pandemic can make you feel some anger. It has been a while since the scientific community expected a pandemic that would destroy everything - not only the health but governments and the economy. 

So, my first thought was: why did no one act? But, you know, looking back and point the mistakes is easier. Predicting is more challenging, mainly because we never want to believe in a bad outcome. Our emotions make everything more complex. 

Yet, this is also proof that we must stop ignoring the warnings about our future and the future of our planet.

Getting small again

The author's conclusion is clear: our world will change - whether we want it or not. We will run out of oil. And there will be a time, even before it is gone forever, when the reserves will be so low that they will only be accessible to a small elite. It's not enough to keep our society the way it is. 

We will live locally again without the globalization and the unity we conquered this last century. War and violence may be a bigger part of our lives. Justice… will probably mean something different.

For Kunstler, things will be worst in the USA because of the suburban lifestyle. Everything is far away, and you depend on your car for the most essential things. From this point of view, we are more prepared in Europe, but it will not be enough to keep our life pattern.

Pessimist or realist?

Isn't the author a bit too pessimist? It's hard to say, but if you analyze the historical happenings and how one thing leads to another… I'm afraid he is not very far from the truth. 

What still shocked me was that when I finished the book in 2022, none of this should be news. Yet there are still people making everything in their power to ignore the catastrophe that's coming for us. 

The Long Emergency is a good book, an important one, and we all should read it carefully and with an open mind.