Book Review: World Made By Hand by Jim Kunstler
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 03.31.08
First time I ever saw a trailer for a book.
James Howard Kunstler is a controversial character and a bit of a crank, but his writings on Suburbia and then his book on life after oil, the Long Emergency, have all impressed me. (you can read a short article with his views of the future of cities here) I had not read any of his fiction and approached World Made by Hand with some trepidation; one does not expect to have a good time in his vision of the future. I need not have worried.
In Kunstler's world after the Long Emergency, life has retracted back to the small town; he places the story in upstate New York in the town of Union Grove, upstream from Albany. The water is clean, the fish are huge, and they all farm. A gang of former motorheads mines the town dump and strips abandoned buildings for their aluminum window frames. The population is much smaller after a few well-placed bombs and a pandemic flu, and government has ceased to exist. There is little medicine, but the town still has a doctor and a dentist. It appears that if you have lived this long and manage to settle in such a bucolic site, then you can have a comfortable and busy life, with music, a social life and lots of fine weed.
The story revolves around the interactions of the various groups; the gang of motorheads, the arrival of a religious group fleeing Pennyslvania, and the townspeople.
Kunstler is a good writer; I only choked on one sentence:
"The long day's heat persisted well into the night and the little sleep I found was febrile with inchoate dreaming."
The story is plausible; our world runs on oil and when it is gone our world will change. People don't believe it, don't believe TreeHugger, don't believe they should even change a damn light bulb, but change is coming and it would not surprise me at all if it looked a lot like this. I preferred the future with flying cars, moonbases and tiny fast computers, but suspect that it is more likely that my grandchildren will be living in a World Made by Hand.
See also a long review and synopsis at ::Energy Bulletin
and Treehugger on Kunstler:
The Long Emergency : TreeHugger
Interview with James Howard Kunstler
James Howard Kunstler Spares No One in New Podcast
Questions from Treehuggers for Jim Kunstler
Dear Editor,
The first sentence of this article, "James Howard Kunstler is a controversial character and a bit of a crank,..." is curious....
First, and this may seem a simple and perhaps a stupid question, but what IS a crank?
And second, if this man is a 'crank' or a person ..."..of, relating to, or being a cranky or eccentric person; also : made or sent by such a person (from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary) and many times used to describe someone who is not worth "the time of day", why publish anything about this, James Howard Kunstler?
Aren't cranks people who have nothing to offer the rest of us who are gainfully employed by big corporations?
I ask this question as an offering because, people WITH new and eccentric ideas are people who CHANGE the world. Can we discuss this and how to discern what and who is a "CRANK" in a bad way and what and who is a "CRANK" in a good way? I think this is key to understanding what is Greenwash and what is not.
Jim Kunstler's a good writer, and he has fastened on several deep truths. However I believe that he over dramatizes the likelihood of what life will be like in a declining oil production world.
Primarily, it is his view that people will and are searching feverishly for oil substitutes and additional sources of energy. Much as the Y2K computer meltdown wound up being much about nothing, so we are likely to find a way to manage as oil supplies diminish. In fact, Y2K boosted tech sales and led to a modernization of computer equipment, raised GNP and provided jobs, and has helped to increase productivity.
Now, I like dystopian novels quite a bit. I think they can be entertaining, educational and thought provoking. And they can show what might occur if current trends are extended without any compensatory action. It is certainly bracing and cautionary, but it is unlikely to be an accurate prediction.
Read Thom Hartmann's book, "The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight". It will tell you what you need to know about the coming end of the petroleum age. Neith internal combustion nor diesel vehicles are necessarily doomed however. No, I'm not talking about the US government's give-away to the ethanol-from-corn producers----one of the biggest economic and environmental disasters shoved down the throats of our citizenry. Nor the dastardly programs being put into place in poorer parts of the world; like Indonesia where they are destroying millions of acres of rain forest to plant palm plantations in order to provide feedstock for US biodiesel producers. Palm oil for cooking is a staple of a billion people in that part of the world, and now most can't afford to buy it.
So, is there a solution to these problams that will allow the continued use of current engine technologies without destroying the environment? Yes. The solution is algae. There are tens of thousands of species of algae on this planet which are capable of safely, efficiently producing biofuels, medicines, nutritional supplements, cosmetics and countless other products.
Here's the problem. There are no algae lobbyists in Washington. Cargill hasn't figured out how to make a killing by growing algae---yet. Also, every time we see an article in the press about, say, biodiesel from algae, the headline usually smirks, "How Quaint. Farmer Brown is Going to Run His Tractor from Pond Scum." As long as the morons in the media refuse to take a serious look at at the value of algae as a means of solving the serious problems of the demise of the petroleum game and global warming, the public won't take a serious look at this incredible solution either.
As far as biodiesel is concerned, you can convert food oils like corn, soy or palm into oil feedstocks to produce biodiesel, but their yeilds are under 100 gallons, per acre, per year. The system my colleagues and I have designed will produce over 100,000 gallons per acre, per year. And as the algae grows, it eats CO2 and produces oxygen, thereby cleaning up the air. The vast majority of oxygen on planet earth is made by algae.
Go online and do some serious investigations of your own and see the truth for yourselves.
To start something off by stating somebody is a crank and to follow it up with mild praise is a great way to present something controversial without sacrificing the listener or readers' opinion of the teller.
More than just the belief that the decline of oil production will halt the modern lifestyle and the "3000 mile Caesar salad" is the notion to question its existence in the first place. No matter how eco-friendly and sustainable the fuel is, the whole concept of driving and roads and the production of these vehicles is very resource intensive. It mars not only the landscape of this planet but also that of our psyches, individual and collective.