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The Long Emergency: Surviving the End of Oil, Climate Change, and Other Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century | 
| Creator: James Howard Kunstler
Publisher: Grove Press
Category: Book
List Price: $14.00
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Rating:  219 reviews
Sales Rank: 9869
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 336
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 6 x 0.9
ISBN: 0802142494
Dewey Decimal Number: 363
EAN: 9780802142498
ASIN: 0802142494
Publication Date: March 2, 2006
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Product Description
James Howard Kunstler's The Long Emergency was an underground hit, going into nine printings of the hardcover edition. His shocking vision for our post-oil future caught the attention of environmentalists and business leaders and was the subject of much debate, stimulating discussion about our dependence on fossil fuels. Now in paperback, with a new afterword, The Long Emergency is set to reach an even larger audience.
The last two hundred years have seen the greatest explosion of progress and wealth in the history of mankind, much of it based on the exploitation of cheap, nonrenewable fossil-fuel energy. But the oil age is at an end. Life as we know it is about to change radically, and much sooner than we think. The Long Emergency tells us just what to expect after we pass the point of global peak oil production and the honeymoon of affordable energy is over, preparing us for economic, political, and social changes of an unimaginable scale. Riveting and authoritative, The Long Emergency is a devastating indictment that brings new urgency and accessibility to the critical issues that will shape our future, and that we can no longer afford to ignore.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 214 more reviews...
 The decline of the oil age December 21, 2008
Kunstler begins with the premise that we, i.e. the US and the world are running out of oil. Who can question that premise besides those with vested financial interests in keeping it a secret? If one accepts his premise that oil is a diminishing commodity, the only salient question remaining is, what happens as a decline becomes obvious in the global market?
In my opinion, Kunstler does an exceptional job of sketching a post-oil world. The only criticism I have of his portrait is that it is probably not bleak enough. We are a world of 6-7 billion people who are sustained by an affordable and available source of energy. When that source is no longer affordable and/or available, I fear that his view of a changing society does not begin to describe the ensuing chaos and disorder.
The author is making a classic Malthusian & Darwinian argument of vital resource depletion and the impact it will have on human population. The only conclusion one can draw is that the outcome will not be pleasant. Hundreds of millions, perhaps billions, of people will starve or die until an equilibrium is regained. Kunstler might appear to those free market optimists as simply a left-wing political nut job, extremist, but he raises crucially important questions for all mankind that cannot be brushed aside with platitudes and the hope of future technology.
Ultimately I hope that he is wrong in one key area: human ingenuity and resourcefulness will keep the modern, industrial world intact. Necessity is the mother of invention and one can only hope that someone or something will appear on the horizon before it is too late. If not, we are indeed in for a long, dark emergency.
In closing, I hope that President Obama has read this book.
An important, but flawed book. December 18, 2008
The author does an excellent job of connecting the dots to show why the modern world is the way it is with respect to energy, oil politics, and suburban development. I won't go over the good points of the book as this has already been done in previous reviews, but will instead go over a couple of other issues that need to be addressed.
When the author dismisses some alternate energy idea as unworkable as usually presented to the public, he makes no attempt to see how it could be made to work on a different scale, or in a different environment. This is just being intellectually lazy.
The other fault I take issue with is his nearly non-stop misanthropic rant against those who have made poor decisions or fail to see the TRUTH as clearly as he does. When he discusses the South and Southerners, he takes it up a notch and reaches a fine, spittle-flecked invective. If the bigotry is not obvious, replace the word "cracker" with a pejorative for some other ethnic group and it should be clear.
While this is a useful book, it is a tedious read.
A great scarey book December 12, 2008
The book had the most detailed discription of it's condition I have ever received from a used book seller. It was exactly as discribed and in excellent condition. The book contains all the information that I was looking for and is something every one living in the United States should read.
 Doomsday comedy November 17, 2008
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
I don't know what's scarier; the doomsday scenarios laid out in this book that totally ignore and/or dismiss the human ability to overcome problems, or that this was assigned reading at my University. In the first five pages of the book, the author basically admits he is a member of the "die-off" crowd; the crowd that believes we are rapidly running out of oil and that civilization will self-destruct in our lifetime. He thinks that vast portions of the population will die off because the oil-free Earth cannot support them, that the United States will break up into regional territories, that we will be forced to revert back to 19th century pre-industrialized ways, (with maybe a few exceptions in medical knowledge retained) and that the suburbs will be abandoned and become the new slums, unfit for human habitation. He mocks those who believe that humanity will find another source (or sources) of transportation power. He is definitely skewing the argument in his favor, sometimes completely ignoring developments, such as advancing hybrid technology, and rapidly developing plug-in cars such as the Volt that GM is working on. You can't really blame him, though. Alarmism is the way to sell books. Would this book sell worth a darn if it were titled "The Temporary, Passing Emergency?" No. But, it's not all doom-and-gloom rubbish. I agree with him when he says that we need to get over our stupid fear of the nuclear boogeyman and start ramping up nuclear power again. The French get most of their power from nuclear; why aren't we? Has anyone in the United States EVER died from a nuclear power plant accident? (No!)
Anyway, I think I'll keep this book instead of selling it back to the bookstore at the end of the term. That way in 20 years when my kids come home teary-eyed from college, convinced that we only have a few years of civilization left, I can pull out this bad boy and show them this type of alarmist propaganda is nothing new.
Depressing, but interesting November 3, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
This book gives a lot of interesting historical and current information, but is a little too "doom and gloom" and repeats thoughts a little too much and also is too emotional for a nonfiction book. However, hopefully enough people will take notice of the message and start doing things differently.
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