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Cold Turkey
I’ve been a fan of James Howard Kunstler ever since I read his books Geography of Nowhere and The Long Emergency. While I certainly don’t agree with all of his conclusions on current geopolitics, and I often tire of his relentless “The World is Doomed” pessimism, I think he’s nonetheless serving an invaluable purpose. Whether or not Peak Oil is imminent, he brings much needed attention to the problem of our country’s crippling fossil fuel addiction, and his constant calls for a reorganization of of society away from suburban sprawl and towards more livable, walkable communities can only help us in the long run.
In his latest column, he turns his rhetorical guns on those poor deluded fools who still think we’re currently enmeshed in the Iraqi quagmire for any reason other than oil. I disagree strongly with some of his wilder conclusions (the idea that “if we leave Iraq now, the Iranians will invade the next day” is ridiculous) but I like that he’s basically telling the American people to grow up: either we accept that American blood and treasure must be spent to ensure access to a substance that our entire way of life is built on, or we find a way to stop using that substance.
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