End of the Binge

American Conservative ^ | September 12, 2005 Issue | James Howard Kunstler

[elmer fudd]

Trying getting to work to make your contribution to the GDP without oil.

I've done it in the past, either by bicycle or electric train. Sure we depend on oil, but you could make the same point about electricity. If anything we need it even more, yet nobody would claim we have an electricity based economy. Heck, we wouldn't last for long without our farmers either. There are dozens of things we depend on everyday, but that doesn't mean they're the basis of our economy.

[B-Chan]

Finally, someone with guts enough to tell the truth.

[lucysmom]

The problem with all the doomists is that they always fail to account for human ingenuity. They assume that humans when standing in a ditch as the water approaches will not move. The fact is the history of human civilization is recovering from disasters and/or adapting to new situations. I guess some people just love to be chicken littles.

If you mean by "humans" the entire human race, I agree with you. That does not hold true, however, for individual humans, individual companies, or individual countries.

Several years ago California announced stricter emission standards for cars; Detroit whined, "we can't, its too hard" (Chicken Little response?) and asked Washington to intervene. Japan was already working on it. Which country do you think is more likely to lead the way, adapting to a changing world and developing new technology?