No Magic

Too Much Magic is James Howard Kunstler's follow up to his 2005 book The Long Emergency. His answer to the sentiment that technology will save us from a myriad of ecological and economic problems is that we need to focus on intelligent responses rather than on solutions. Daily life will be changing in ways we don't prefer, and yet we are going to have to make "other arrangements" (as Kunstler likes to say).

He's been writing about these issues at least since the early 90s with The Geography of Nowhere.  There Kunstler wrote about car centered lives and the disaster of suburban sprawl.  At the time I didn't pay much attention to his comments about declining oil reserves or that burning fossil fuels was causing a global warming effect.  It was already clear that "the joyride is over" and "[w]hat remains is the question of how we can make the transition to a saner way of living."

It was a little over seven years ago that the concept of "peak oil" grabbed my attention.  I spent a couple of nearly sleepless nights reading through The Long Emergency.  It also redirected some of my attention to climate change.  I read a lot that summer in preparation for a public lecture in November.  It was one of those times when a huge dose of reality meant you can't ever see the world in the same way again.

For some time, I kept up with Kunstler's blog.  I could agree with everything he wrote while still wishing he was wrong.  Or more selfishly, hoping that he was wrong for a few more years.

Update (October 3):  Robert Jensen discusses Kunstler's book.