WE'LL AWAKEN AS IF FROM A DREAM

From James Howard Kunstler at Clusterf*** Nation:

"Sometime this summer that ebb tide of events is going to reverse and we'll have more to contend with than just the shrieking wildlife suffocating in orange gunk, and the ruined spawning grounds of the shrimp, and the lost livelihoods of the sportfishing charter guides, and the tarball covered beaches and devalued real estate. We decided to de-complexify the hard way, the way that brings about as much pain and disorder as possible until we discover that the long emergency beats a path straight into a world made by hand."

It never ceases to amaze me that Mr. Kunstler and I always seem to arrive pretty much the same place even though we travel two widely divergent roads. He seems most at home with the apparatchiks of the Democrat party while my natural sensibilities lie with those of the Republicans. But it doesn't really matter because both have paved the same pathway to destruction; reliance on oil and an unsustainably disconnected way of life.

He is an acolyte of Peak Oil and believes the supply of oil is running out while I believe we'll see the affects of Peak Oil, not because the theory is right and we're actually running out of oil but because we don't have the will to exploit the resource. We've wedded ourselves to oil because the oil business held a shotgun to our heads and convinced us it would be in our best interest. Nuclear too dangerous, coal too dirty and natural gas, well, that's just not worth the effort. So now we've blown past all the exits and there's nowhere left to get off the petroleum highway. We'll stick with our bride to the end, in sickness and in health, 'til death do us part.

The blowout in the Gulf is the beginning of the end, not just for oil but for our way of life. The age of abundance is drawing to a close and we'll return to an existence much more in line with all of the human history that preceded the 20th century. All of us alive today have lived in a wonderland, a vacation from reality. Well, the park's about to close and it's time we start our walk home. I hope you took plenty of pictures because your kids and grandkids will want to know all about the time when our houses were cool in summer and warm in winter; when food came in plastic packages instead of from the barn, the field or the woods. When water was clean to drink and all you had to do was turn a valve to get all you wanted. A time when catching a cold or scratching your finger didn't carry the possibility of death along with it.

They'll want to know what it was like to live in a dream.