We Want Solutions!

May 28, 2007
     Wherever the environmentally-informed gather these days (i.e., the clusterfuck-aware), a nervous impatience often mounts, and ends up expressing itself as an outcry for "solutions." For example, at the Telluride Mountain Film Festival, where I happened to be this past weekend, along with a couple of hundred other people who spewed airplane exhaust across the stratosphere to get there. This year's twin themes were the Castor-and-Pollux of Clusterfuck Nation, Global Warming and Peak Oil.

     Many frightening documentary films and Powerpoint talks were served up in the opening symposium (including ones by Dennis Dimick, the editor of National Geographic, Daniel Nocera of MIT, and yours truly) and, as the morning wore on, the audience grew visibly impatient, until one speaker dropped the word "solutions," and the audience gave out a big whoop of approbation.

     It only made me more nervous, because this longing for "solutions," strikes me as a free-floating wish for magical rescue remedies, for techno-fixes that will allow us to make a hassle-free switch from fossil hydrocarbon power to something less likely to destroy the Earth's ecosystems (and human civilization with it). And I think such a wish is, in itself, at the root of our problem -- certainly at the bottom of our incapacity to think clearly about these things.

     I said so, of course, which seemed to piss off a substantial number of my fellow festival attendees.

     My position on this can be easily misunderstood. I don't want civilization to collapse (I like Mozart and access to root canal). I don't want Homo sapiens to go extinct, or the planet to parboil. I certainly don't believe in doing nothing in the face of this emergency. But I also don't believe we are going to make any hassle-free switch in the way we run things -- or that we should want to. Would the USA be a better place if we could run Wal-Mart and Las Vegas on wind power? I don't think so. Would the public benefit from another hundred years of suburban living -- and an economy based largely on creating ever more of it? All the Prozac in the universe would not avail to offset the diminishing returns of that bullshit.

     In my travels, I have noticed a disturbing theme among the educated minority of eco-advocates: they are every bit as dedicated to the status quo (in their own way) as the NASCAR morons and shopping mall developers. The eco-advocates want cars, too, and all the prerogatives (like free parking and country living) that go with them, just like the WalMart shoppers. If this were not so, then why do the eco-advocates cream in their jeans whenever somebody presents a snazzy new vehicle that runs on a fuel other than gasoline? Indeed, why are some of the eco-friendly pouring all their efforts into the invention of such things instead of into walkable communities and the reform of our stupid land-use laws?

     I encountered this ethos most strikingly a few years back at Middlebury College in Vermont, where angry biodiesel advocates assailed my lack of enthusiasm for their particular "solution" -- which seemed geared mainly to allow them to continue to drive their dad's old cast-off SUVs to the snowboarding venues of that progressive little state. But the wish to keep running all our cars permeates what little public discussion there is of the global warming / energy crisis issues at all levels. Even the elder statesmen of the eco-movement talk it up incessantly. The first great victory will come when they shut up about it and put their minds to other tasks.

     The eco-advocate community is still hooked into the Faustian bargain of technology with little consciousness of its diminishing returns, and to some extent have made themselves unwitting tools of the truly clueless and wicked who run business and politics in our land. With this particular group in Telluride, which was composed heavily of Boomer eco-adventurers (mountain climbers, trekkers, kayakers), the infatuation with ever-cooler adventuring techno-gear extended naturally, it seemed, to their uncritical view of magical techno-fixes aimed at "solving" the climate / oil mess.

     And the setting of the festival -- the Rocky Mountain ski resort town of Telluride -- itself induced some eerie moments of reflex nausea as one contemplated the many 10,000 square-foot peeled-log dream palaces built by Hollywood producers, who derive their fortunes by selling violent masturbation fantasies to fourteen-year-olds. One couldn't fail to notice that three-quarters of the storefronts along the little main street were occupied by real estate sales offices.

     But I don't want to be doubly or triply misunderstood as appearing to twang on the kind people who invited me there, or to evade the obvious fact that I went (by airplane and shuttle van). I thought it was worth going to carry this one little message: let's stop talking about making better cars and start talking about occupying the landscape differently -- which we're going to have to do anyway.

Comments

[bud4wiser]

JK says: ""All the Prozac in the universe would not avail to offset the diminishing returns of that bullshit.""

That's good writing JK, very thoughtful piece. Who knows, soon the motion picture academy may acknowledge that the movie-industry isn't exactly GOOD for the environment. Feb, 2009, TSHTF.

[just a thought]

Jim's right. A new fuel or a newly designed car isn't going to save the status quo. The status quo is going to have to change.

Most people are in denial that we won't be able to keep traveling the way we've been accustomed to.

If Jim's message is too bitter a pill, I suggest reading Bill McKibben's new book, "Deep Economy." He's a gentler Jim, and he does offer solutions, though they might not be ones the Telluride folks would want to hear.

http://www.billmckibben.com/

[SubKommander Dred]

Charlottesville, Virginia
Memorial Day, 2007

Sir;
When I look about what was previously the beautiful Central Virginia Piedmont, now dotted with the blight of strip malls and soon to be McMansion Bushvilles of an impending economic collapse, I can't but mumble to myself;
"Clusterfuck Nation yesterday, Clusterfuck Nation today, Clusterfuck Nation Forever!"

Your most humble servant,
Subkommander Dred

[Abrey]

Dear Jim: Very interesting post this week. A slightly off-topic response: I have just purchased your first two books (Geography of Nowhere, Home from Nowhere) along with Jane Jacob's classic 'The Death and Life of Great American Cities'. Memorial Day weekend is a respite from the workweek and as good a time as any to get started on my reading. I figure before I cry for 'solutions' I might as well understand how we got here, as well as understanding the path you yourself took to get here as well.

[Dave]

The reluctance of the Telluride group to get down to the dirty work of politics is rooted in the sense of class perogitives these people have been encultured in for their whole lives. To make the changes JHK describes will be needed and demanded means a severe interruption into their personal lives and getting involved with the dirty and grimy work of grass root politics with its populations of imbeciles, neer do wells , outright crooks and your basic sold out whores to the development growth complex. I have been in the trenches periodically for many years and and have attended many a local public council meeting, zoning planning board, state hearings as well as having attempted to work with local enviros where possible. My observation is these two groups are from two very different planets. They speak different languages and the divide is fatal.
When they are forced to come together as things deteriorate perhaps then they will begin to de velop a common understanding but in the mean time magical thinking will rule the Telluride types because the prospect of engaging the unclean masses that occupy themselves with day to day political life is too damn unpleasant in comparison to a fine day in the outdoors.

[canuck]

Unfortunately for Jim, but fortunately for the suburbanites, there isn't going to be an energy crisis of biblical proportion any time soon. Certainly not within Kunstler's lifetime.

Here's why. The oil is getting expensive but alternatives really are getting cheaper. Wind and solar power are now roughly 2x the cost of coal based electricity. Can the west handle another doubling of energy prices? Well, it's gonna hurt, some lower middle class people may even lose their homes as a result but there is not going to be a mass catastrophe beacause of it.

Battery electric vehicles are getting better every year despite Kunstler's assertions to the contrary. Tesla motors has a usable electric car now, new battery chemistries are being eveloped (e.g. AltairNano, A123Systems and EEstor) and will become cost competitive in several years.

Now, oil will still be drilled and refined, lots of cars will still run on fossil fuels but there is absolutely zero chance of a massive collapse that the doomsayers portray.

Now, that's not to say that the United States will not find itself in a major recession due to its own financial irresponsibility but that has nothing to do with any sort of energy crisis but everything to do with bad economic policies and borrowing too much money.

[Brian Fleck]

I just spend a week in Havana.

It's a great place to see what life without fossil fuels is like.

It is hard living, for so many reasons (not the topic of this comment). The point is: go there if you want to see a technojazz-free powered down society. It's beautifully free of obese people, traffic jams and advertising, but sustenance living has its harsh down sides. Not too many people are voluntarily going to opt for that.

Of course, most Cubans there see our consumption mania and want in on the party. Does this mean fossil fuel cold turkey won't happen until we have that imperative forced down our collective throats? I think so.

[zerotsm]

Dave is forgetting that we don't use oil just as an energy source, but for all sorts of things. Plastics for one, fertilizer for another. We would have to go back to materials used before the age of oil, unfortunately those are getting scarce as well.

[Steve in Denver]

I think Canuck needs to read The Long Emergency because Jim does address the alternative energy sources quite well. As Jim has said before...just cause we like the idea of using other forms of energy it doesn't mean they are viable on a grand scale.

[Peggy O'Connor]

Thank you for saying this. We moved a half block away from my son's family so that no one would have to board an airplane in order to pretend to have an extended family. We get to actually grandparent now. We gave up our car and now walk or bicycle everywhere, buy vegetables from the Farmer's Market (by bike). We went from suburb to urban. We know our neighbors. My doctor comments just how great it is to see such excellent blood profiles for an old lady. There are huge benefits to leaving the "happy motoring" lifestyle. Maybe people just don't realize this. Maybe people who have made the leap should be more vocal. I don't miss having a car at all. I thought I would, but I really don't, and I would never go back to that. On the rare occasion that we do actually need to drive a car somewhere, we belong to Flexcar, and so we just check out a car for a few hours. Maybe once every 6 weeks.

[george]

Very interesting post and timely as well. Laid-off factory workers in Windsor, Ontario held a demonstration on Sunday, led by local union leaders, to protest the outsourcing of high-paying manufacturing jobs to third-world countries. Nobody in attendance bothered to point out that even if all these "outsourced" jobs could be repatriated, most, if not all, would end up disappearing in the near future. Not one word was mentioned about the peak oil, climate change or the need to build environmentally sustainable communities. Instead, demonstrators were treated to the spectacle of motormouth labor leaders getting up behind the podium, one after another. to denounce the government for selling out the working class for the benefit of television.

[Jerry Johnson]

Great essay Jim. There are a lot of ecogrifters too! A field ripe for a great tale.

[paul]

If this were not so, then why do the eco-advocates cream in their jeans whenever somebody presents a snazzy new vehicle that runs on a fuel other than gasoline? Indeed, why are some of the eco-friendly pouring all their efforts into the invention of such things instead of into walkable communities and the reform of our stupid land-use laws?

Because they see the first part of your complaint -- solutions that fit into the way we live now -- as a transitional step to the way we used to live and perhaps will again. Not all of us are writers without kids and their attendant school functions, athletic endeavors, etc. It's all very well to post these weekly jeremiads but if you admit the changes that need to be made are deeply systemic and therefor difficult, why sneer at people who are taking steps, no matter how small (in your jaundiced view) they may be?

[D. McDonald]

I have been reading about biodiesel from algae lateley and I'm cautiously optimistic about it. All of the stuff we really need to survive (tractors, trucks, busses, and locomotives) can run on it, but most cars won't, and by the time most people decide they "need" a diesel car, they won't be able to afford one.

Electric cars won't come to the rescue. even aside from the electric grid issues, battery technology will never be able to compete with two pieces of sheet metal stamped together that you can refill with energy dense liquid fuel in three minutes. And sure, electric cars are suitable for probably 90% of mundane driving, but they will be expensive driving appliances that strip away the pretensions of freedom we associate with cars and expose them for the financial black holes that they really are.

[Sean]

If you want to see delusional thinking, you ought to check out the Wired blog for cars (blog.wired.com/cars). Over there, any number of techo-fixes is going to solve our problems without any change in our lifestyles. They love fuel cells-- it's simply a matter of working out a few technical details of the cars themselves then we'll be ready for the "hydrogen economy" like Jeremy Rifkin suggested. I asked from where we expected to get all of the necessary energy to create hydrogen, and one idiot went on to explain to me how "easy" it is to make hydrogen (just electricity and water.) Considering that our electrical grid is already straining to meet demand, it is doubtful we'll be able to power our fleet of cars and trucks on hydrogen anytime in the future.

Ultimately, as with any of the alternatives, the "solutions" simply don't scale. There will be hydrogen-powered cars, but we won't be using them as we are right now.

The fuel cell proponent (from the Wired blog) also mentioned that Americans will turn to mass transit when we "pry their cold, dead fingers from their steering wheels." If that represents the thinking of the typical American, then we are truly fucked.

[Weaseldog]

Canuck, that was a great summary of 35 years of failed promises.

Every severely addicted gambler knows his luck may turn with the next throw of the dice, or turn of the wheel. They understand that 35 years of doesn't prove that they won't be a millionaire tomorrow.

The addicted gambler will always prefer another spin of the wheel over admitting that he'll always vbe a loser.

One more spin will do it!

[ryan]

"history may not repeat itself, but it does rhyme"...

The U.S.Automanufacturing Oligarchs have gotten slammed the same way they got slammed 35 years ago. This makes me think of not just a rhyme but a symmetrical pattern, like a bow-tie.

world Wars I and II.
Japan's side of World War II was trying to appropriate the east Half of Asia the way Britain/Americans had earlier appropriated the Continental United States.

Today Japan and China and India compete with each other somewhat like the European nations competed with each other in the 19th century: Trying to capture markets and resources. Technology and political theory and the lessons of history have made it possible for them to do this more quickly without worrying about claiming Political Hedgemoney along the way.

When a world war III rolls around it will probably be Japan, China, Korea, and a block of Southeast Asian states going at it with each other. Will Japan be our Britain this time around?

[asoka]

Jim, I enjoyed this piece. And don't worry about those who carp on your using an airplane. I, for one, believe your message was well worth delivering.

You are going against a very strong current, admittedly, but both the Colorado ski-set and the NASCAR-hypnotized masses very much need to hear the message you are transmitting.

[Ken]

Canuck,

I wish that I could share your optimism, but I don't consider the $98,000 Tesla Motors electric car to be a usable vehicle.

It might be a plaything for the Hollywood set, but with a battery based on standard Li Ion laptop battery technology - its going to be about as reliable as, well, a laptop battery.

Battery replacement cost - conservatively estimated at $25,000, and a claimed life of 100,000 miles looks like that you are going to be paying 25 cents a mile for your battery replacement.

And if you drive it in California, it's most likely to derive its power from dwindling natural gas reserves rather than wind or solar.

OK, the Tesla got Governor Arnie's "thumbs up", I guess that makes it about as planet saving as a hybrid Hummer.

JHK is right in stating that these are not solutions to the real problem, but carefully crafted business opportunities designed to cash in on wealthy eco-advocates.

As a doctor might prescribe them an eco-Prozac to lift their mood a little, it doesen't even attempt address the root-cause of the illness.

The real problem is the way in which the land has been carved up into non-sustainable suburban clusterfucks, now rapidly approaching their shelf-life, and no snazzy Li Ion laptop battery powered executive-toy sports car is going to fix that.

I for one will not be creaming my jeans when the Tesla makes its commercial debut next year.

[Nudge]

Sweet verbiage, Jim. :) You're spot-on accurate about how techno-fixes will not solve the problem .. they're simply part of the problem itself.

That being said, some of the techno-fixes might occasionally offer a competitive advantage to them who can buy into such. These best ones are probably the simplest ones, such as moving to someplace where it's not necessary to own a car just to get to work or anywhere else essential. Every day I curse GM for not making small cars capable of getting 60mpg or above .. instead, they're filling the roads and parking lots with clown-sized SUVs which burn through a lot more fuel in less time.

Actual experiment has already revealed that even when high-mpg cars are available, US citizens in overwhelming numbers opt to buy giant gas-guzzlers.

[canuck]

To respond to all those who claim that 1) batteries are too expensive, just look at their cost/capacity curves over the last few decades. It won't take more than another 5 years, especially when the Chinese start producing them in massive quantities the way only Chinese can battery prices will hit rock bottom. Electric cars in the 40-50K range are around the corner and in a couple of years it will be in the 30-40K range. Not dirt cheap yet but already competitive with gasoline vehicles, particularly when you factor in the fuel and maintenance cost of an internal combustion drivetrain.

The same holds for solar and wind power. Solar panels in the sixties used to cost approximately 50x of what they cost now per watt of generated electricity. They are still more than coal power but we're right on the cusp of having coal competitive solar energy.

Someone said that we're staring at 35 years of failed promises. You have to be blind not to notice the progress that technology (including green power technology) made in the last few decades. The cost of everything made from silicon has plummeted while their efficiency grew exponentially. I'm talking specifically of solar panels and obviously microelectronics (not an insignificant component of an efficient power management system). OK, so progress with battery chemistries has been slower but we've seen the same gradual yet exponential increase in the average battery capacity and a corresponding drop in cost.

I get the sense that many on this forum (Jim Kunstler included) HOPE for a grand catastrophe and an end to the suburban sprawl. This clouds your perspective and turns your prophecies into wishful thinking.

finally, I did read "The Long Emergency" and remain very skeptical of Jim's prognostications. He's been saying this stuff for a number of decades except back then he predicted the collapse to be triggered by... Y2K.

[dipstick]

canuck: "Wind and solar power are now roughly 2x the cost of coal based electricity."

Taking everything in your comments to be true, there are still some questions. To what extent are the current costs of wind, solar and coal tied to the current costs of crude oil? It takes energy to gather and transport the materials used in the construction of wind and solar-powered energy systems, and to distribute the finished product. Currently, if I'm not mistaken, most of this energy comes from crude oil. I'll take your word about the development of new batteries, but will these new battery chemistries scale up to mass production, and at what cost to the environment? AltairNano, A123Systems and EEstor sound marvelous (In fact, they sound like magical incantations), but considering total production costs and environmental impact, will such technologies keep millions of car commuters rolling on our freeways at current levels of traffic? And where will the energy come from to recharge these new batteries? Coal? Will such technologies keep the suburban Big Box stores viable, with their shelves full of Chinese products? I'm just asking.

There are "doomsayers" around, and some of them inhabit this blog, but I can't quite categorize Kunstler as a doomsayer for insisting that the suburbs are a misallocation of resources and that our cities must contract in a fuel-scarce era.

And you don't have to be a doomsayer to see irony in the fact that eco-adventurers want to fly their kayaks to distant places so they can paddle around in novel surroundings, or fly down to Costa Rica to look at birds and plants, while impatiently demanding "solutions" to our environmental and energy problems.

[FeFe LeFem]

"The addicted gambler will always prefer another spin of the wheel over admitting that he'll always be a loser."

Sac-le-bleu. Zee kettle calls zee pot "black."

[canuck]

dipstick,
You will notice that I'm not defending the suburban lifestyle. As an immigrant from Europe to Canada, I'm actually quite appalled by the wasteful use of land and energy in North America.

But I still remain skeptical about the looming collapse of suburbia. It was prophesized at least as many times as fusion power and cheap solar power so if we duke it out on failed predictions I'm not sure who's gonna fare worse.

If Kunstler wants to convince people to ditch their wasteful habits and build healthier, more human friendly cities, the way to do it is to talk up the advantages of such a lifestyle instead of dragging out the peak oil boogeyman every time. Not all of us are buying the story.

[Dale]

The truth...as usual...is somewhere in the middle. Those who think that major changes in the way we think and do things are impossible, severely underestimate the power of collective awakening and individual initiative. Consider Peggy O'Connell's example carefully. I am not looking forward to being "car free", and for a great many of us that would produce significant hardship, but as an urban adaptation her's would likely be a significant part of a real and meaningful solution. On the other hand, the vested interests in "business as usual" have done a remarkable job of keeping the Public misinformed and meaningful discussion from really occuring. As Al Gore has pointed out, we have entered a period where reason is being ignored. So... while current trends are often discouraging, I still think those waiting for Energy Armaggedon are as likely to be disappointed as those waiting for the religious variety.