James Howard Kunstler on Main St. America

[GSfreebooks]

JHK is a gas! I have read & will read everything he writes. Thanks for putting this up.

[crazything117]

Wait a minute. This video is about sustainable development, and the highest rated comments are about science v religion?

[brin3535]

Fear monger.

[Beeza2996]

@brin3535 Realist.

[klined]

Ten stories or under? Sorry, this NYC native loves skyscrapers. Not everybody wants to live in a fake hipster urban core 'market space'. Skyscrapers might not be energy efficient(no idea), but they are efficient in terms of Square-footage versus cubic-footage, which is why they are built. These kind of concerns don't matter to academics that only spend other people's money.

[raptorkiller2k5]

@klined. I like skyscrapers as well. However, he does have a point about the costs associated with re-cladding the unit. It would be possible to maximize the households in skyscraper condos (and offices) and reduce per capita cost. That's the only issue at the moment. The way condos are arranged are very costly, vs a medium rise, high density arrangement.

[RpKingman]

Mr Kunstler has a great website. If you haven't seen it I recommend visiting it. There are humourous mp3 broadcasts on there.

[coreolis7]

Although I adore Kunstler, I have to say that this is the most hotheaded bunch of comments I have ever read. People seem like Kunstler because he's an iconoclast, regardless of whether or not he is right. Fire and brimstone preachers appeal to our lower instincts. Why does doom get us so excited?

[raptorkiller2k5]

@coreolis7. What he's suggesting is what big business seems to be supporting as well. Roughly fifty cities in US are going to be heavily downscaling and light rail systems are being built at a rapid level. On top of that, we're seeing more commuter services extended such as the Ann Arbor-Detroit line, CalTrain electrification and what not.

What Kunstler is asking for is for a more intensive funding package. It's rather ironic that we're being forced to downscale, and it's quite obvious.

[johntech7]

Does some college actually pay to hear this drivel? I think the college circuit for this wannabe-architect guy must be hard up for decent qualified speakers. He's telling us what to expect of the future and what "must be done" to save our society? What has he ever invented except a funny Powerpoint show with easy targets.

[jhopndontstop]

he's written massively influential books about the problems of how the US has been misusing our resources to the detriment of our society. Critiques on architecture are one part of what this guy does.

His nonfiction work is extensively rearched and is worth looking in to.

I suggest reading "Geography of Nowhere" before writing this guy off based on just a 7 min youtube video.

[florgat91]

isn't this just more Y2K stuff ?

[NunsAllowed]

This is 'show biz'.

So dated now, pictures of tent cities would be more appropriate.

If we could supply the nations energy with bullshit and Wall Street greed everything would be fine.

[dogterd]

I enjoy listening to Kunstler's bitching, but I love my four wheel drive truck, especially in hunting season when I drive for thousands of miles to meet other dinosaurs like myself, kill god's creatures all day and drink whiskey in honky tonk bars. I get a kick out of vegans and hippies and NDP moonbats, but I am antimatter to the whole deal. I am Hydrocarbon Man, endangered species, yes, but at the moment my species rules the earth. Fill er up and fire at will

[mistygarden]

Terd, who are kidding - you don't have any friends.

[livinn59801]

I go hunting every year, but never drive thousands of miles a season. Sounds like you need to move.

[moondog999]

do you ever see terd while hunting?

I bet he's making it up...

[mrmultidextrous]

That is the worst part of this thing. The big owners of big companies have outsourced their production as much as possible to countries where capital and labour costs are low, lining their pockets in the process, knowing or even not knowing that such a global supply chain would accelerate fossil fuel depletion and end their global empire, at which time they could retire and leave the rest of the world in a mess. Profitable in the short term, a disaster in the long term.

[carolinacricket]

Check out distributism... "Too much capitalism does not mean too many capitalists, but too few capitalists." GK Chesterton.

[mrmultidextrous]

The only real hope is working nuclear fusion, but even the physicists think it will be 20 years before they can harness what powers the sun on earth. By the time the infrastructure for that is set up there will be far fewer cars and global supply chains where parts come from different parts of the world to make you name it will have seen a gigantic collapse.

[SawViking]

you know, if nuclear fusion were to be figured out, it would solve some problems, but it would create others. So what i like about this guy is that his solution would work on the long term, and when other energy sources are more fesable, then it would just be like a "bonus"

[SlaughterMcKill]

Kunstler's an interesting commentator, focusing on the fact that we need to adapt ahead of time to the aftermath of events that are inevitable instead of placing hope in pie-in-the-sky pipe dreams designed to support an increasingly impractical civilization model.

[FunnyDigestion]

Fer rill.

Good comment, btw.

JHK's comments to the college kids were very wise too.

[tabrizicracker]

He's right, when I went to visit the home country of my childhood nanny, we stayed in a luxury hotel. When we faced a citywide blackout during the hottest part of the day, I was forced to open the window for air and realized that there wasn't a lot separating the rich jerks in the hotel from the animals and multitudes crowded in the stinking humid street below! What if this was a daily fact of life in our own country? Also I love this presentation, ended on a positive hopeful note.

[BubbFromGEI]

We need to MANAGE oil demand destruction.

Think CarFree. Invest CarFree. Get CarFree.

And New Urbanism provides a way of improving our living, while moving towards CarFree.

GreenEnergyInvestors dotcom is a place to build understanding, and explore the concepts

[soylentgreenb]

Portable power is the hard problem. Electricity is easy, there's always nuclear; fairly cheap and enough fuel for thousands of years into the future.

Long distance trucking may be going the way of the dodo, but ships and rail are very efficient and amenable to electrification.

[Vice81]

Let decentralized creativity create it. You create and find intercourse with fellow creators

[littleStomata]

Great message 'be your own generator of hope...'

[matchbox555]

Kunstler is totally full of shit.

[gareball]

Well, that settles it then. Thanks so much for your griping commentary.

[matchbox555]

he should be called cunts-ler

[livinn59801]

We wouldn't want to confuse your mom.

[malvarco]

The Middle Ages were a result of energy scarcity. One should study the fall of the Roman Empire and the medieval era to get an idea of where we are heading on to.

Jim Kunstler is great. He doesn't give solutions and he doesn't have to. He's just stating the facts of reality. He's right when he says it's one's responsability to know how to deal with this new reality.

[gtar100]

Part of the problem, too, with the dark ages was also a scarcity of knowledge. A dark religion was in control and scientific inquiry was demonized. It may make a difference in this day and age because our science has been developed much further than 2000 years ago.

[CrazyHorseInvincible]

Religion is poised to make a huge comeback. Ask yourself what's easier, taking responsibility for your actions and working hard to find a solution to the crisis, or getting on your knees and praying?

[TombKaios]

I hope the Deathless Gods make a comeback.

He makes a Religious point in the Old South as Evangecal Christianity and Neo-Feudalism, in the latter section of his book "The Long Emergency."

[coreolis7]

@CrazyHorseInvincible

That's cynical. Religion is virtuous in that it reminds people that they do not have ultimate control over their lives, that they are but one small part of a larger system. Many teach ethics and personal responsibility. The hubris of technophiles, who forget where they fit in nature and carelessly destroy our environment --- is just as ignorant and immoral. No fair complaining ---we all have a responsibility for solutions.

[CrazyHorseInvincible]

@coreolis7 It reminds people that they don't have ultimate control over their lives? How is this compatible with personal responsibility? I'm sorry, but I'll take bitter cynicism over happy fatalism any day. One miserable human's experience is more meaningful than that of an entire herd of happy cattle.

[coreolis7]

@CrazyHorseInvincible On the contrary, responsible people know better than anyone what they have no power over. Only powerless people imagine themselves all-powerful. People with real power know better.

[CrazyHorseInvincible]

@coreolis7 Never accept impotence as an integral part of the human condition. Human exceptionalism is as much a fact of nature as the existince of nature itself, and its origin is ambition. If we assume that the sum of our existence is just our interpretation of what happens to us, not what we do, then we start adopting a slave's mentality.

[Barklord]

@CrazyHorseInvincible

maybe if people had a metaphysical system of contemplation and meditation they wouldn't be so prone to technological addiction. (?)

[CrazyHorseInvincible]

@Barklord A metaphysical system? Of contemplation and meditation? We call this system "thought" and the concrete activity associated with it "thinking." So what you've just said is that we might not abuse technology if we're thoughtful. Good job.

[Barklord]

@CrazyHorseInvincible

actually, meditation detaches your mind from rational thought so that one isn't identifying it with the self. what i mean is exactly what i said. lose our addiction to technology. like you said above...we are more than our interpretations.

[CrazyHorseInvincible]

You need rationality to exercise judgement. You need judgement to identify an addiction in the first place. Your banality sickens me.

[Barklord]

@CrazyHorseInvincible

you need the ability to step outside your language games. meditation affords that as well as self knowledge. your smugness is very typical but it doesn't sicken me anymore because i've become immune to it.

[Barklord]

@CrazyHorseInvincible

good luck with that. i hope you feel better soon.

[klined]

@CrazyHorseInvincible

Don't be such a cynic.

[clumma]

A bit anachronistic. Science hadn't been invented yet. Literacy had to come first. The Middle ages were a result of literacy scarcity. Language is a powerful tool that we take for granted.

[jjbrouwer]

Lulz. Scientific inquiry was invented during that "dark" time and by that "dark" religion. "Science" did not exist 2000 years ago.

Read a book nikra, read a mofo book.

[goldsak]

What is that supposed to mean? What kind of base do you think there would be to move on from if our '10 000 year old civilisation' is 'destroyed'? Certainly not much of an intellectual platform to make any critques. The 'matter' wont be an issue any more. We will be gone.

[malvarco]

Jim Howard Kunstler is a great social critic. Behind all his witty and funny remarks there's a lot of strong basis in acknowledging the difficulties in the face of an energy scarce future.

[timwmartin]

Just try telling the bitches who live in Livonia and do all of their shopping at Wall-Mart that their way of life has no future. They'll think your an idiot.

[Mincan2]

hear hear

[Vice81]

Kunstler while he gives a great analysis on whats to come, ultimately lacks a solid critique of civilization and modernity to understand the root cause of these problems. The whole idea of smaller scale local capitalism and new urbanism(same as the old one) is not going to cut it. This 10 000 year old experiment of ours called civilization must be destroyed to trully get to the heart of the matter.

[PKM42]

But what will replace it?I agree that destruction maybe necessary to break the habits.

[alanhowitzer]

Won't we be dead? There will be no historians left.