JAMES KUNSTLER: At Peak

[Tace]

James Kunstler -- World News Trust

I helped burn a few thousand gallons of aviation fuel flying out to San Francisco over the weekend to attend a meeting of people concerned about the injustices of globalism -- not exactly my bag, as we liked to say so many years ago, but a worthy crew of thoughtful folks to consort with. My job, as I understood it, was to introduce the idea that this baneful globalism is not a permanent condition but a set of transient relations made possible by the fabulous inputs of cheap energy we continue to get.

I had the local news on the boob tube up in my hotel room before the kickoff cocktail schmooze. There was some kind of grotesque traffic accident on the Nimitz Freeway across the bay and the TV station had aerial shots from their helicopter showing a vast ribbon of frozen headlights snaking clear down from Alameda to Fremont in the violet crepuscular rush hour gloaming. The news clones were treating this like an everyday event, ho-hum, and I had to suppose it was. But it was easy to imagine the despair of someone stuck down there in a Toyota Highlander with a bladder near bursting and not a hope in the world of being able to do anything about it. How many people pee all over their car seats every night, I wondered. Must be a few at least.

These, I was moved to reflect, are some of manifestations of being at peak. Peak Oil, that is. The all-time worldwide production zenith.

Now, I was also moved to wonder: why do the good people of the Bay Area willingly endure this insanity? They built a subway about thirty years ago called Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART), but it barely goes anywhere except back and forth under the bay. It would cost less to put in surface light rail lines down both sides of the bay than to fix two freeway overpasses -- but they'd rather pee on their car seats because at least they'd be able to choose their own tunes while doing so.

more

http://worldnewstrust.org/modules/AMS/article.php?storyid=2104

[endarkenment]

1. I asked a relative about this.

He commutes from San Jose to San Fran every morning. I asked him why he didn't take Caltrain instead of driving. 2.5 hours each way on Caltrain vs 1hr in his car. Simple enough. We never really got serious about building a mass transit alternative and instead we poured billions into new highways and bigger highways. Consequently, except for NYC, basically there aren't any mass transit friendly urban centers, and my guess is that most people work in exurban edge cities anyhow. Bottom line: we are doomed.

[GliderGuider]

3. Bad mass transit in the US didn't happen entirely by accident

In the 1930's GM and Chevron teamed up to buy the electric railroad system around which the Los Angeles suburbs had been designed. They then closed it down. The same thing was done in other cities in the US.

Take a look at The Streetcar Conspiracy

[Jokerman]

7. Damn Right! (but your link doesn't work)

My mom grew up in Los Angeles in the 30's and I've heard the same story from her.

(BTW - your link has too many "/")

[hatrack]

2. Best quote:

There may be no moment of clarity, only new kinds of delusion and disorder. We'll keep behaving the way we do until we can't, and then we won't.

[bemildred]

4. Yeah, that is good.

And that is exactly the way to bet.

[depakid]

5. Pretty typical of collapse or reductions in complexity

Societies keep on trying to maintain their unsustainable practices long past the point of diminishing marginal returns. Sometimes, they're smart- like the Byzantines, and downsize & decentralize the structure of their society. Other times, they're stupid, like the Caliphates of the same period, and intensify production and irresponsibly misuse their resources.

America seems to be pursuing the latter course, and will likely suffer in the 21st Century to the same degree that that is prospered in the 20th.

[Tace]

6. I See Blithe Obliviousness In So Many Members Of My Extended Family

Some of them seriously resent any threat to their bubble dream.

[katty]

8. here in CA perfect example of bad mass transit by design

-red car line (early 20thC) in LA eradicated for: car makers, oil peddlers, and rubber-barons
Walt Disney tried to get his monorail into LA in the late in 40's-50's--no way
the titans of industry wanted Californians to be conditioned to the car, so much space, so many miles to travel...so much money for them

[Porcupine]

9. He's never been on a BART train at rush hour. They're packed.

There are seats available only at the first station of each line. For everybody else it is strictly standing room only. Bay Area citizens are some of the most ardent mass transit riders in the nation.

The REAL problem is that we have built an economic system that requires us to work far away from our homes. Even if one wage-earner in a household can somehow finagle a job close to home frequently job instability or availability requires the other one to work an unreasonable distance away.

Don't even get me started on the unreasonable cost of housing near San Francisco. It's insane.