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Once energy problems gain traction, there will be a large new class of economic losers, and consequently a lot of social turbulence.

James Howard Kunstler

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James Howard Kunstler
Age: 76
Born: 1948
Born: October 19
Author
Environmentalist
Journalist
Novelist
Science Fiction Writer
Writer
New York City
New York
Class
Losers
Energy
Consequently
Social
Loser
Problem
Gain
Gains
Large
Problems
Traction
Economic
Turbulence

More quotes by James Howard Kunstler

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The immersive ugliness of our everyday environments in America is entropy made visible.
James Howard Kunstler
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People don't like railroad tracks near them? We'll see how they feel when the percentage of U.S. citizens who can afford to drive a car goes way down, as it will.
James Howard Kunstler
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A land full of places that are not worth caring about may soon be a nation and a way of life that is not worth defending.
James Howard Kunstler
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The cities of the future will be much smaller than they are today.
James Howard Kunstler
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In our current frame of mind, or paradigm, or whatever you want to call it, we like to think that marshalling government policy is the way to get things done.
James Howard Kunstler
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We will have to make new arrangements, or revive bygone ones. We may, for another example, see the return of the boarding house.
James Howard Kunstler
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We have to grow our food differently because industrial farming will soon end. That means growing more food locally on smaller farms with more human attention.
James Howard Kunstler
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Consider how badly-built suburbia is. Many business buildings are not designed to outlast their tax depreciation periods, and the McHouses are made of particle board, vinyl siding, and stapled-on trim. A lot of suburbia will simply become the slums of the future. Most of the rest will be salvage or ruins.
James Howard Kunstler
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I think we'll see a leveling off and then a contraction of population, not a continued upward trend.
James Howard Kunstler
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It pays to remember that societies get what they deserve, not what they expect.
James Howard Kunstler
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The economy of the 21st century will come to center on agriculture. Life will be intensely and profoundly local in ways that we can't conceive of today. Economic growth, as we have known it in a cheap energy industrial paradigm, will cease.
James Howard Kunstler
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Two decades from now, I doubt that the home building industry, so called, will even exist as we have known it.
James Howard Kunstler
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On top of the insult of destroying the geographic places we call home, the chain stores also destroyed people's place in the order of daily life, including the duties, responsibilities, obligations, and ceremonies that prompt citizens to care for each other.
James Howard Kunstler
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The suburban cycle which began a hundred years ago is nearly over. We are in for a period of contraction and economic hardship.
James Howard Kunstler
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Detroit right now is virtually abandoned at its core to the degree that a lot of what had been slums thirty years ago are now wildflower meadows. The rebuilding of Detroit will occur a much smaller scale. It remains to be seen what will become of Detroit's vast suburbs.
James Howard Kunstler
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The salient fact about the decades ahead is that we are entering a permanent global energy crisis and it will change everything about how we live.
James Howard Kunstler
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I have a new theory of history, which is certain things happen because they seem like a good idea at the time. And suburbia seemed like a good idea at the time, but it was a special time and place in history, with special dynamics. And now, we're going to have to live with the consequences of that. And the consequences will be tragic.
James Howard Kunstler
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Ridicule is the unfortunate destiny of the ridiculous.
James Howard Kunstler
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Under the current high energy / high entropy regime, sustainable development is a joke.
James Howard Kunstler
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Of course, the toxic bullshit of incessant advertising and show biz for nearly a century has stripped us of cognitive abilities for dealing with reality that used to be part of the normal equipment of adulthood - for instance, knowing the difference between wishing for stuff and making stuff happen. We bamboozled ourselves with too much magic.
James Howard Kunstler