Analysis Of The Long Emergency, By James Howard Kunstler

We all have curious questions and speculations about what is going to happen on Earth in the next few centuries. We all wonder what is going to be affected and how much of it is going to be affected by the rising speed of global warming. In this book, “The Long Emergency,” by James Howard Kunstler, he discusses what he thinks about “what is happening, what will happen, or what is likely to happen,” rather than what he wishes would happen in the future. He discusses his extreme concerns about the “modern” way of living, in which it may result in a depression for the economy. Kunstler negatively exaggerates many factors that can lead to what many people may usually think to be the “end of the world,” or an apocalypse. The book is mainly centered on the struggles of the cheap-oil age ending, and rebuilding our society with other energy sources for a sustainable way of living. After each argument, it seems that the foundation Kunstler constantly refers back to is that cheap oil is running out.
Like most authors that want to inform their audience about a specific topic, Kunstler educates us about the background story, within the first couple chapters, of how oil and fossil fuels became to be in the Industrial Age. He states that our society have basically reached a global peak, meaning that “we have extracted half of all the oil that has ever existed in the world – the half that was the easiest to get, the half that was most economically obtained, the half that was the highest quality and cheapest to refine” (p.24). The other half of the oil that has not been extracted lies under the most impossible places, such as the Arctic or deep under the ocean.
Kunstler begins to break down his general issue, the end of oil, into smaller conce...

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...ed the oil under the Islamic lands, which enraged the Islamic people even more. I think it was ridiculous for our government to even make excuses to cover up the fact that we needed resources from other countries, instead of saying that we are going to war simply because “they hate us” or “they’re jealous of us.”
With all of that being said, Kunstler expressed his beliefs in a very negative way, but also being reasonable. He brings up very intense issues, but at the same time, backs it up with his theories and his solutions that do make sense to people who may not initially agree with me, like me. Because he does make some outstanding points, I do agree with some of his ideas, only because of the evidence and logic he uses to follow up the issue. If his evidence were weak, I would still be closed minded about the issues and disagree with a lot of things he said.