I've been following Kunstler's lectures and writings for years. This guy is on spot about all the issues he discusses. People can criticize his presentation of ideas but, at least he's talking about the problems and tieing them together in a logical way. He's right! we just don't get it. American's have been disconnected from their reality and think we can keep going the way we always have.
Most adults behave in childish ways when ther toys might be taken away from them. Politicians haven't got the guts to act like responsible parents. Giving your power away to psychopatic personallities is NOT a good idea. Any person being hired has to goto a personality screening(not any of this for people running the world and taking decisions that concern billions and even trillions of animals) Don't blame politicians, people need to GROw up and take personal responability for their lives and the ones they love
Stephen Martin where is this large oil discovery occurring. Link please ? In the last 10 years we have discovered merely 20-30 days worth of global consumption
"Every policy imaginable" can be distilled down to NO POLICY. Walkable communities develop when merchants and residents can symbiotically locate near each other. The reason they don't is mostly attributed to zoning.
Well Ayn Rand, governments do zoning, so complaining about government inaction in a democracy is pointing at oneself. Opposing government policy and complaining about democracy is pathological.
I am about to go to Cornell University to study Urban and Regional Planning (just accepted in December), and I am totally behind this guy. While I don't necessarily condone the apocalyptic tone, I think smaller, walkable communities will be much nicer places to live. Less rush hour and long commutes, less dangerous parking lots, more community-oriented living... and much more beautiful, too. EDIT since this is still being noticed: I left Cornell after one year to study historic architectural preservation at a smaller university in a historically-rich area. I decided, among other things, that urban planning would not be a fulfilling and enjoyable career for me, public policy in general is not something I enjoy dealing with, and Cornell's large lecture-style classes are simply not my learning style and not an environment I can grow in. I'm much happier where I am now and I've already taken so many more work and experience opportunities than I ever had even found before.
@Khaled Rapp I'm only just now seeing these comments because I don't use this account much, but I actually left urban planning after studying it for one year. I decided to go into historic architectural preservation instead, for a huge number of reasons. Overall I'm a lot happier now, and I simply did not feel like an actual career in urban planning or public policy in general would be fulfilling for me.
@Stephen Martin There's a whole host of things wrong with that statement, but as I said to someone else here, I am no longer even studying in this field anymore as I decided to stay out of public policy-making. So make of that what you will.
OH Yeah,,, Kunstler and M Ruppert's Peak Oil Thesis is down the crapper thnx to fracking, N gas, and ABIOTIC oil and gas....Research journal Science on universal methane (natural gas)!
By your statement you are confirming the truth in what Kunstler says. If there was easier oil to get, we certainly wouldn't be destroying water aquifers while "fracking" in order to access it.
You(archives dave)simply misunderstand "peak oil" ; Even IF oil is completely abiotic and "renewable" (and it might be: Saturns moon Titan is awash in hydrocarbons; with nary a dinosaur to be seen). Oil is found in porous rock layers not laying around in pools on the surface.. So whether it takes a million years to convert biomass into oil or it takes a million years for oil to seep up through the porous rock; it's not going into your S.U.V. next month. The deeper or farther offshore you go to get oil the more energy it takes to get it and get it to the refinery. Once you expend a barrel of oils' worth of energy to get that barrel back into the system; you are done. You might as well save the resource and not drill. Additionally: Economically: Oil over $75 a barrel kills economies with cost. Oil under $75.00 a barrel kills oil companies. we are at that teeter tottering point.
Some interesting ideas for the future. A few of the predictions didn't age well ie. there will be no commercial aviation industry in five years time. In reality, a lot of this is likely to be a gradual process that may last decades. The fact that modern "advanced" countries are so wasteful means that plenty of savings can be made while a transition is occuring.
Our globalization is analogous to the globalization of the postclassical and early medieval periods of history (The Silk Road, Indian Ocean Trade, etc.). It was entirely dependent upon relative global stability, energy inputs, and massive empires, e.g. the Mongols (today it's the US). It also ended, and people relocalized.
Kunstler has a fairly black view on things, but I perfectly understand the scenario where he could be right. We have huge challenges in energy, resource scarcity and ecological damage that we arent really working on as we should. Its really hard for people to think about lowering their living standards to solve problems, but it seems unless we discover some major new non-polluting energy source and a fantastic new "vein" of resources - the future might very well be like Kunstler describes.
I just disagree with the "discontinuity" he predicts, I don't think it will be that much more severe than now. If we try to inflate the bubble once more, however, then all bets are off...
This 20 minute TED, format is way too short for a sensible conversation. It's about long enough for a few soundbites. Come on TED, provide a channel for people with more than a 10 minute attention span. You are doing a disservice to people who are trying to present decent ideas, backed up with evidence. Get a grip...
Gen Z hears this man. We aren’t afraid of losing this way of life. We’re tired of this consumerists society and tech bros. We want walkable cities, less cars, and localization.
He says the economic stress is causing delusion, no the delusion is caused by the massive amount of unnecessary unnatural childhood trauma we've created since the "free love" movement of the 1960s. It would be great if he had more curiosity about why the world looks the way that it does... that way we don't repeat it...
Great video. Our entire way of life depends on cheap oil and we have no backups. Without cheap oil our very way of life collapses. We have probably reached peak oil, as we have had a run up on oil prices, followed by a Great Recession, which substantially destroyed demand. Pretty soon we will start to recover and oil prices will shoot up and we will have another collapse in the economy.
yes oil is like the blood of our economy and the veins and arteries are the highway system. kill the oil and the economy collapses. BUILDING up makes the carbon footprint small.
7:38 Well I guess the entire aviation industry only has about 10 months left to exist then. I share his concern about the negative effects of sprawl and the terrible state of modern architecture, but these sweeping apocalyptic statements about the downfall of society "within 5 years" make him lose a lot of credibility.
+calculon000 If you think modern architecture is the problem then you don't get it. Modern architecture is a style but what we build is not determined by a style and architects it is determination by developers and the commodification of building construction to maximize profit for developers. More than anything else. In post WWII America property developers became more aggressive and more influential. The drive for profit dictated the standardization of construction toward low cost products and away from on site craftsmanship. Today buildings are dictated by construction methods and products. The terrible state of modern architecture that you identify was a relevant observation 30 or 40 years ago but if you compare what architects do today to what they did then this will b e apparent. But few buildings in America are designed by architects.
predictions like his are always a bad thing to do. He's right that the reality of peak oil hasn't changed but wrong in trying to pinpoint some point of collapse. In reality, societal collapses take decades to centuries and these collapses have a lot of moving parts along with periods of time when things seem ok. When it comes to peak oil, it was never about running out, it was always about 2 things: how fast can you get it out of the ground at a price the economy can afford, and what is the energy returned on energy invested. Oil is getting more and more expensive to extract and the energy return on the energy it takes to get it out of the ground is falling. Globally, it used to be 100:1, now it's 30:1. Declining net energy is a serious problem because we have to divert more and more energy from productive uses to get more energy. Temporary price declines can happen (and have). Demand destruction combined with a little bit of fracking can temporarily make it look like peak oil is a myth, but it doesn't make it go away.
+David J Gill I don't think modern Architecture is *THE* problem, but it's contributing to public spaces not being valued. As an example, The Brutalism that characterizes a modern transportation system makes is utilitarian, but an eyesore. This has the effect of a lot of infrastructure being seen as a necessary evil that has to fight more NIMBYism to be built than it otherwise would have to if it were more visually appealing.
Unfortunately we don't really have a plan B and it may in fact be too late. I know that gas prices have crashed to about $2, however historical speaking it is really really high. And we are just getting used to a really high price of $2, soon we will have to get used to averages of $4 plus a gallon.
None other than Freeman Dyson championed that crackpot theory of abiotic oil production, LOL. At some point that guy totally lost his mind. Sad. JHK, great speaker and prophet of our time.
Fracking means we're at the bottom of the barrel in extracting oil. The easy stuff is long gone. We burn a billion barrels every 50 days in the USA. The world burns a billion every 12.5 days. When oil was over $140 a barrel in 2008 the economy collapsed. JHK didn't see the coming of Uber which has only increased congestion in cities and promotes single car use with a passenger at subsidized investment money. Uber doesn't make a profit, probably never will.
Your question is a brief glimpse of one thread between micro and macro. The presenter did not construct a 20 minute train of ideas over 24 hours. The man is freeballing in general accord with the slideshow while remaining as authentic and engaging as possible. If you take away one question and reflect on it, the presenter has achieved his aim. Similarly: What are the artifacts of a people which is characterized as empowered, intelligent, and vibrant?
I think it's the other way around, the cultural problems (childhood trauma caused by parental promiscuity) created the delusional world we have today. This means we're going to have to heal from this *reealy* fast...
All those comments from a year ago criticising this guys crystal ball.... yeah well looks like the Long Emergency rollercoaster left the station a long time ago but you guys were too busy oogling over your gift shop purchases to realise. Capitalism cannot sustain itself in a finite population with finite resources, its that simple.
Relalt unifies urbanism and permaculture, seemingly unlikely bed fellows. The common thread of land stewardship is what i think unites them. I like a lot of the ideas, I think a lot of the predictions are wrong. His big idea of REDUCING energy usage is still absent in the conversations we're having today. Michael Shellenberger highlights this as part of the sham of the environmental alarmism that prevails today. Proposals that could reduce emissions dramatically aren't even considered.
Expecting any sustainability with 7.5 billion humans is not possible. The system that devours and rarely considers the distant future is too entrenched.
Fracking bought us 20 years of time but then peak oil will bite. standard oil and gas extraction already hit peak oil and fracking was always just a short lived solution and there will be nothing after that.
@NERD GANGANGANG He said "Within 5 years." He was wrong. I like and listen to what he has to say. But he was wrong. The aviation industry would still thrive if it weren't for the Covid thingy.
@Monad I don't think he was talking about airplanes not flying for a year or two because of a pandemic. They'll go back to normal after we beat corona.
Airlines accessed credit. Or their investors did. He was early because he did not imagine capital was limitless. Of course, monetary expansion delays but does not eliminate the debt structure.
@@Rnankn good point. If you want to see an amazing example of limitless capital propping up a defunct industry weekend at bernies style look into Fracking.
The problem comes when the rich have made the transition to electric vehicles and the working poor are paying astronomical prices for gas. The trickle-down plug-in-vehicle technology introduction model has that major flaw. It can foreseeably cause active, in the streets, social unrest.
Exactly the problem! When enough people's mobility is restricted, these people may come to recognize themselves as marginalized and that can cause real anger.
Not quite. There will be enterprising fellows who knows there is a huge market to be tapped with electric vehicles affordable by the working class. Folks like Henry Ford did that with his Model T... ironically, petrol powered vehicles allowed for smaller, cheaper & more reliable modes of transport in the early 20th century. Technology progression will see more affordable electric vehicles. The cellular phone cost thousands in its early years & you couldn't save numbers on it. Today you can buy an iPhone for $200 at Best Buy.
Itd about giving the poor the ability to travel without paying astronomical prices for either gas or electric cars. Electric cars are not the solution, walkability and good public transport is
Well I disagree with your "points"(whatever they are) . There: Yet Another pointless interwebs comment. Jim is spot on and has been for years (except for his unflinching partisan support for the "liar in chief").
Recall the moribund dialogue between the American/Russian Generals in 'Fail Safe'----'the best cities are walking cities'......just before the destruction of two of them; alas, Babylon
Going to have to run the government on revenue coming in - that sure was correct! USA has been doing that the last 6 years! Cheapest efficient solar energy - a clothesline.
Really want to know the true reason why he pushes overpopulation to the side? The solutions sound good, but just slow down the process. Basically every issue we have today leads back to overpopulation. That topic needs to be addressed again, because sooner or later it will backlash and will end up in a really bad way. Lowering the birthrate is a kind solution, much better than killing. And it can be done through several ways like rewarding people that adopt, that have only one child, that have no biological children and free access to education and birth control.
The world was ending in 2011 and it is still ending all these years later ... it never lives up to the hype though. Also, shale oil, duh. Energy is a political issue not a technological one. Between solar, wind and nuclear I think we will be ok.
Wait 26 thousand view, that is a lot for a peak oil video. But only 26 thousand people really care about a crisis that will destroy there way of life! That is extreme stupidity.
The speaker makes way too many doomsday predictions. He also says something and immediately dismisses it - that being Thorium nuclear energy. He doesn't give that enough credit. China and India are both pursuing Thorium reactors. Reactors such as the Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor (LFTR) can be 200x more efficient than an Uranium LWR/HWR, with no chance of pressure failure and almost no waste (the waste being reactor-grade Pl-238 used by NASA). Thorium is far more abundant than Uranium and can easily solve any grid-level energy crisis for the next several hundred years.
So why isn't it stepping up? Look more deeply. A quick-skim read through a few Wikipaedia articles isn't good enough. Abundant, cheap, capital-efficient thorium-driven energy, with full, global infrastructure fully built and running, and fully de-bugged, costing only as much as the capital - the REAL capital, that is - that we have to spare, is just another of the sheaf of comically-innumerate, denial-of-grim-reality delusions in which the Pampered Twenty Percent of the world's humans - mostly in the over-rich countries - are indulging currently. Forget it. Wake up. If you manage to live another thirty years, you are going to face the things that Jim is describing, whether you agree or not. As John Michael Greer quips, "collapse early, and avoid the rush!" In other words, get ready in good time to deal with these consequnces of the Long Emergency (Jim Kunstler), aka the Long Descent (John Michael Greer), that you simply can't hope to dodge. Trying to get ready - for example, by learning how to grow almost all your own food - with only a few months notice doesn't work; not in the real world. It takes a lot longer to be confident that you and yours can really do that reliably. In my sixth year of learning how to do this, I'm just getting confident that I can grow and store reliably ALL the basic-staple foods that we need, in sufficient amounts to see me and mine through till the next year's harvest. Even using the most intelligent methods that have been developed in recent years, this simple requirement is absolutely not just 'stick a few seeds in the ground, wait a while, then eat.' Not remotely. Our recent anscestors understood this with steely clarity; and the young generation alive now is faced with the absolute, inescapable necessity to re-learn it too, PDQ. And as with homegrown food so with all the mass of other things that we - those of us who survive the upcoming global natural population cull over the next few decades - are going to have to learn to do for ourselves again; without any outside help, apart from the mutual cooperation of our neighbours, our immediate local community, and - for those of us who our still lucky enough to have one - our extended family/clan. Or, you can go on acting like a delusional, infantilised clown, such as Jim describes and illustrates in this TED, and just lie down and die when it dawns on you that you're screwed, beyond rescue.
@@RhisiartGwilym I'm afraid this is correct. really kudos to have learnt to grow food yourself. any read I can get my hands on before amazon collapses ?
@@RhisiartGwilym Tell us why it doesn't work before dismissing (or the solar that gets energy roi well over 15 and rising past oil). Not saying we're not going to have another great depression but it's not the end of the world. Most of the people you love will still be alive into old age...
He might not be wrong. They are weather dependent and low efficiency and compete with everything else for land use. Capacity so far in like 10% globally, but had no reduction in carbon energy because demand grows more quickly than renewables can be added. Plus the technology has geographic limits. There has to be enough sun and wind for them to work.
He's absolutely correct about solar and wind. Take a look at Planet of the Humans on youtube. And if you want a detailed explanation, get the book Bright Green Lies. Solar and wind is just causing more destruction...digging us into a deeper hole...distracting us from the necessary steps we need to take to brace ourselves for what's ahead.
He's right about the oil but this is old.There have been some brilliant discoveries and ideas right after this. Don't sell people short. Necessity has always been the mother of invention.
I think climate change is bunk and Schwab says we will own nothing and be happy about it, which kind of gives me a mental image of an angry mom gritting her teeth and telling a child they will eat their broccoli and they'll like it. I don't remember watching this 7 yrs ago lol. I do know that my world view has changed alot in that time. I think overpopulation is bs too. It doesn't matter what the solution is, most of our problems are either made up or intentionally created. This is all by design.
AynManRand segregation of land uses results in longer path lengths which makes walking/biking less feasible, and increases travel time. Increasing travel time increases the probability of multiple people or vehicles traveling along the same segment of road at the same time meaning that roads need to be wider which inturn again reduces the feasibility of walking/biking. Reducing the feasibility of walking/biking increases the percentage of trips made by car which further reduces the feasibility of walking/biking. Accommodating cars with parking lots pushes everything further apart, which inturn further reduces the viability of walking/biking.
Its all debt, saved as financial assets based on future returns that presume more capital will be available. And as long as more money is produced, it is available as more debt to invest in more financial instruments. You see the problem. It’s not real. The present is living on the promise of a future that will never come, and the minute someone credible says it out loud, it will vanish and everything will collapse. Don’t worry, I have no credibility, I’m nobody.
Yeah, how about that American aviation industry? Was supposed to have collapsed over two years ago. God damn what an angry-ass old curmudgeon (Only saying this because I actually met him at the 2008 ASPO conference. Treats his fans like shit). And I don't get his dumping on suburbia. We can grow enough food in both yards to feed ourselves with just fine.
Silly disatrophism, There is no way to run out of capital, resources yes, but money is not an object, it is a representation of any number of things, but at its heart it is an imaginary non-thing. there is no way to run out of imagination. yes systems may fail, things still have futures, even if he doent think so, we adapt old systems to new need and uses; the future is in our imagination, its too bad his is so bleak. Its cute that he can only see the future by escaping into a fantasy of the past; His dislike of the way people dress is a symptom of this sort of degenerate ahistorical romanticism with an idealized past that simply must be the future or we all die. Things will change, and should in someways, sprawl should cease, but to a large extent it is, because people have grown disillusioned with the suburbs, people are moving to the cities.
Josh Twelve 1, capital is not money. Capital is the combined trade value of assets, which includes money. Capital is only worth what people are willing to trade for it, so his argument is that a lack of demand for suburban houses when an automobile-reliant lifestyle disappears will reduce the total capital in North America, essentially leaving people destitute. This is a scaled up version of what happened when derivatives crashed in the USA a decade ago. 2, there is an interesting parallel to the late days of the Western Roman empire, when young men began to dress like the Visigoths, eschewing the established adult norm. Just an observation; not sure what to make of it.
The problem is political and the trend is moving away from the desirable future Kunstler would like to see come about. In America power is moving toward the interests of corporate profit, property owners, deregulation and away from government, rational judgement and our common interest. America has only two political parties and that won't change. One party is insufficiently reform oriented the other party is very aggressively in favor of corporate power, the oil industry, deregulation and private interests and seeks to disable govts ability to change things. If you agree with Jim Kunstler but you vote Republican you either don't understand how things work or you are a hypocrie.
America has always had one party, the "business" party, with two wings, repubs and dems. FDR saved capitalism temporarily, the end to it is fastly approaching, the pope continues to advocate for a centralized economy and has quiet alot of backers to see it to fruition.
@@ronraygun4098 No party and no government can be anti-business. Every country promotes those businesses based in their country because business activity employs people, generates wealth, pays taxes, etc. If you think th two parties are th sam you aren't really paying attention. The Pope? The Pope has almost no influence over the shape of the American government. I don't know why you think the Pope wants centralized government. The Pope's agenda is spiritual rather than political. This has not always been true historically, but with Pope Francis, I believe it is true.
While I agree with him on many issues, he doesn't seem to believe technology will help us solve some of the problems and I can't agree with him on the idea that going back to stone age is the only solution.
Kunstler doesn't hate technology, he just knows that it's dramatically less important in keeping this country running than walkable communities and the like.
Technology is venture capitalism and marketing. Ideas and values are what change the world. We’re likely going to be searching our phones for “solutions” when we start asphyxiating and going hungry.
James Kunstler is one of my heroes. The world needs more people like him in it!
I've been following Kunstler's lectures and writings for years. This guy is on spot about all the issues he discusses. People can criticize his presentation of ideas but, at least he's talking about the problems and tieing them together in a logical way. He's right! we just don't get it. American's have been disconnected from their reality and think we can keep going the way we always have.
Most adults behave in childish ways when ther toys might be taken away from them. Politicians haven't got the guts to act like responsible parents. Giving your power away to psychopatic personallities is NOT a good idea. Any person being hired has to goto a personality screening(not any of this for people running the world and taking decisions that concern billions and even trillions of animals) Don't blame politicians, people need to GROw up and take personal responability for their lives and the ones they love
Once again Mr Kunstler comes through with great analysis.
Even though he was not correct on his time line, he is absolutely correct on the overall issues. The fracking magic is over in 5-10 years.
Stephen Martin where is this large oil discovery occurring. Link please ? In the last 10 years we have discovered merely 20-30 days worth of global consumption
"Every policy imaginable" can be distilled down to NO POLICY. Walkable communities develop when merchants and residents can symbiotically locate near each other. The reason they don't is mostly attributed to zoning.
Well Ayn Rand, governments do zoning, so complaining about government inaction in a democracy is pointing at oneself. Opposing government policy and complaining about democracy is pathological.
This is a message of hope. Fewer cars, walkable cities. Brilliant.
arcosanti.org/
We won't see it in our lifetimes. And btw, it will require a reduction of the population by 85%...
@@Knaeben Yes. There is no possible way to have 8 billion people on the planet without fossil fuels.
Will never happen in the US.
It's time to abandon this sh-hole.
TED talks from 10-12 years ago are just different. True freedom of thought and speech, bold ideas. Even language is uncompromising
I am about to go to Cornell University to study Urban and Regional Planning (just accepted in December), and I am totally behind this guy. While I don't necessarily condone the apocalyptic tone, I think smaller, walkable communities will be much nicer places to live. Less rush hour and long commutes, less dangerous parking lots, more community-oriented living... and much more beautiful, too.
EDIT since this is still being noticed: I left Cornell after one year to study historic architectural preservation at a smaller university in a historically-rich area. I decided, among other things, that urban planning would not be a fulfilling and enjoyable career for me, public policy in general is not something I enjoy dealing with, and Cornell's large lecture-style classes are simply not my learning style and not an environment I can grow in. I'm much happier where I am now and I've already taken so many more work and experience opportunities than I ever had even found before.
Hoping that you're able to make change, we desperately need it.
Hope your still at it Zachary and good luck!
Awesome! Go for it! 🤗👍
@Khaled Rapp I'm only just now seeing these comments because I don't use this account much, but I actually left urban planning after studying it for one year. I decided to go into historic architectural preservation instead, for a huge number of reasons. Overall I'm a lot happier now, and I simply did not feel like an actual career in urban planning or public policy in general would be fulfilling for me.
@Stephen Martin There's a whole host of things wrong with that statement, but as I said to someone else here, I am no longer even studying in this field anymore as I decided to stay out of public policy-making. So make of that what you will.
At this point in 2022 this guy's speech is more relevant than ever.
Nothing will change if there is money in these things
Everything James said is absolutely correct. Smart man.
One of the best recorded talk of JHK
James is spot on. I commend him for raising some much needed awareness!
The best speaker on the planet!
OH Yeah,,,
Kunstler and M Ruppert's Peak Oil Thesis is down the crapper thnx to fracking, N gas, and ABIOTIC oil and gas....Research journal Science on universal methane (natural gas)!
By your statement you are confirming the truth in what Kunstler says. If there was easier oil to get, we certainly wouldn't be destroying water aquifers while "fracking" in order to access it.
You(archives dave)simply misunderstand "peak oil" ; Even IF oil is completely abiotic and "renewable" (and it might be: Saturns moon Titan is awash in hydrocarbons; with nary a dinosaur to be seen).
Oil is found in porous rock layers not laying around in pools on the surface.. So whether it takes a million years to convert biomass into oil or it takes a million years for oil to seep up through the porous rock; it's not going into your S.U.V. next month.
The deeper or farther offshore you go to get oil the more energy it takes to get it and get it to the refinery. Once you expend a barrel of oils' worth of energy to get that barrel back into the system; you are done. You might as well save the resource and not drill.
Additionally: Economically: Oil over $75 a barrel kills economies with cost. Oil under $75.00 a barrel kills oil companies. we are at that teeter tottering point.
it was gradually getting dumber and after about 7min I realized hes a complete nut, but kept watching for entertainment purposes
@@shway1 He had to move fast, I suspect you just aren't armed with enough information on the topics to allow yourself to fill in the blanks.
Some interesting ideas for the future. A few of the predictions didn't age well ie. there will be no commercial aviation industry in five years time. In reality, a lot of this is likely to be a gradual process that may last decades. The fact that modern "advanced" countries are so wasteful means that plenty of savings can be made while a transition is occuring.
Our globalization is analogous to the globalization of the postclassical and early medieval periods of history (The Silk Road, Indian Ocean Trade, etc.). It was entirely dependent upon relative global stability, energy inputs, and massive empires, e.g. the Mongols (today it's the US). It also ended, and people relocalized.
It's 2024 and alot of this stuff is coming into fruition.
Kunstler has a fairly black view on things, but I perfectly understand the scenario where he could be right. We have huge challenges in energy, resource scarcity and ecological damage that we arent really working on as we should. Its really hard for people to think about lowering their living standards to solve problems, but it seems unless we discover some major new non-polluting energy source and a fantastic new "vein" of resources - the future might very well be like Kunstler describes.
There's no non-polluting energy, it alwats comes at a cost. We'll have to do with less, which isn't a bad thing afterall.
I just disagree with the "discontinuity" he predicts, I don't think it will be that much more severe than now. If we try to inflate the bubble once more, however, then all bets are off...
This 20 minute TED, format is way too short for a sensible conversation. It's about long enough for a few soundbites. Come on TED, provide a channel for people with more than a 10 minute attention span. You are doing a disservice to people who are trying to present decent ideas, backed up with evidence. Get a grip...
Relevant.
Listen to the Kunslercast and all will be revealed. Three is one show that goes into it.
Gen Z hears this man. We aren’t afraid of losing this way of life. We’re tired of this consumerists society and tech bros. We want walkable cities, less cars, and localization.
Gen Z are a bunch of TikTok buffoons.
He says the economic stress is causing delusion, no the delusion is caused by the massive amount of unnecessary unnatural childhood trauma we've created since the "free love" movement of the 1960s.
It would be great if he had more curiosity about why the world looks the way that it does... that way we don't repeat it...
Min 13:00 is devastating. People willing to be saved without changing anything they love: driving cars, etc.
This is 13 years old and relevant today.
"The Earth is a bon-bon with a creamy, nougat center of oil"
Brilliant.
I hate TED but i like Kunstler so i guess I'll watch
THIS GUYS TELLS IT LIKE IT REALLY IS AND HE'S RIGHT THIS IS THE AGE OF DELUSION
It's been 4 years, I hope you realise now he's a nut
@Just Shane that's not what he said. his predictions already didn't happen
@Just Shane what's not going to happen?
@@shway1 his views on cars and buildings are still quite accurate
Great video. Our entire way of life depends on cheap oil and we have no backups. Without cheap oil our very way of life collapses. We have probably reached peak oil, as we have had a run up on oil prices, followed by a Great Recession, which substantially destroyed demand. Pretty soon we will start to recover and oil prices will shoot up and we will have another collapse in the economy.
Stephen Martin honestly the problem is unconventional oil is expensive and at best it delays the problem.
Stephen Martin we will eventually.
Stephen Martin what if consumption increases continuously due to growth.
Yep roll on.
yes oil is like the blood of our economy and the veins and arteries are the highway system. kill the oil and the economy collapses. BUILDING up makes the carbon footprint small.
7:38 Well I guess the entire aviation industry only has about 10 months left to exist then.
I share his concern about the negative effects of sprawl and the terrible state of modern architecture, but these sweeping apocalyptic statements about the downfall of society "within 5 years" make him lose a lot of credibility.
+calculon000
If you think modern architecture is the problem then you don't get it. Modern architecture is a style but what we build is not determined by a style and architects it is determination by developers and the commodification of building construction to maximize profit for developers. More than anything else. In post WWII America property developers became more aggressive and more influential. The drive for profit dictated the standardization of construction toward low cost products and away from on site craftsmanship. Today buildings are dictated by construction methods and products. The terrible state of modern architecture that you identify was a relevant observation 30 or 40 years ago but if you compare what architects do today to what they did then this will b e apparent. But few buildings in America are designed by architects.
3 months
predictions like his are always a bad thing to do. He's right that the reality of peak oil hasn't changed but wrong in trying to pinpoint some point of collapse. In reality, societal collapses take decades to centuries and these collapses have a lot of moving parts along with periods of time when things seem ok. When it comes to peak oil, it was never about running out, it was always about 2 things: how fast can you get it out of the ground at a price the economy can afford, and what is the energy returned on energy invested. Oil is getting more and more expensive to extract and the energy return on the energy it takes to get it out of the ground is falling. Globally, it used to be 100:1, now it's 30:1. Declining net energy is a serious problem because we have to divert more and more energy from productive uses to get more energy. Temporary price declines can happen (and have). Demand destruction combined with a little bit of fracking can temporarily make it look like peak oil is a myth, but it doesn't make it go away.
+David J Gill
I don't think modern Architecture is *THE* problem, but it's contributing to public spaces not being valued. As an example, The Brutalism that characterizes a modern transportation system makes is utilitarian, but an eyesore. This has the effect of a lot of infrastructure being seen as a necessary evil that has to fight more NIMBYism to be built than it otherwise would have to if it were more visually appealing.
Almost 2018 and the Aviation industry is well and alive,what a crock pot. Gasoline is cheaper than in 2011.load of bs.
My man!
Unfortunately we don't really have a plan B and it may in fact be too late. I know that gas prices have crashed to about $2, however historical speaking it is really really high. And we are just getting used to a really high price of $2, soon we will have to get used to averages of $4 plus a gallon.
Well right now producers are paying to store oil.
Well… it just hit $4.00 May 2022 … 🫠
Bingo.
Yes.
None other than Freeman Dyson championed that crackpot theory of abiotic oil production, LOL. At some point that guy totally lost his mind. Sad.
JHK, great speaker and prophet of our time.
Fracking means we're at the bottom of the barrel in extracting oil. The easy stuff is long gone. We burn a billion barrels every 50 days in the USA. The world burns a billion every 12.5 days. When oil was over $140 a barrel in 2008 the economy collapsed. JHK didn't see the coming of Uber which has only increased congestion in cities and promotes single car use with a passenger at subsidized investment money. Uber doesn't make a profit, probably never will.
What does the "men dressing like babys" part have anything to do with what he's talking about?
Your question is a brief glimpse of one thread between micro and macro. The presenter did not construct a 20 minute train of ideas over 24 hours. The man is freeballing in general accord with the slideshow while remaining as authentic and engaging as possible. If you take away one question and reflect on it, the presenter has achieved his aim. Similarly: What are the artifacts of a people which is characterized as empowered, intelligent, and vibrant?
A symptom of the age of delusion
I think it's the other way around, the cultural problems (childhood trauma caused by parental promiscuity) created the delusional world we have today. This means we're going to have to heal from this *reealy* fast...
and he's basically saying that we shouldn't have it anymore... and it doesn't seem like there would be an impetus to not have it otherwise.
bicycles are great
Quieter than cars, save money and healthy! We need more infrastructure for them!
@zassounotsukushi Why even comment if you don't have examples? Bigbox / aviation / currency wars; all are spot on imo.
All those comments from a year ago criticising this guys crystal ball.... yeah well looks like the Long Emergency rollercoaster left the station a long time ago but you guys were too busy oogling over your gift shop purchases to realise. Capitalism cannot sustain itself in a finite population with finite resources, its that simple.
Bless your heart for mentioning the fking stupid sideways hats. I thought it was just me.
How about we don’t judge people for how they look. First step to a better world.
Relalt unifies urbanism and permaculture, seemingly unlikely bed fellows. The common thread of land stewardship is what i think unites them.
I like a lot of the ideas, I think a lot of the predictions are wrong.
His big idea of REDUCING energy usage is still absent in the conversations we're having today. Michael Shellenberger highlights this as part of the sham of the environmental alarmism that prevails today. Proposals that could reduce emissions dramatically aren't even considered.
Sadly the most productive activity today is building the suburb which turns into a vicious cycle.
True
Expecting any sustainability with 7.5 billion humans is not possible. The system that devours and rarely considers the distant future is too entrenched.
This guy predicted no more commercial air travel in 5 years... 11 years ago. So in other words, his models don't yield accurate predictions
CAT is dependent on available oil. Well with climate change we dont have a option.
Fracking bought us 20 years of time but then peak oil will bite. standard oil and gas extraction already hit peak oil and fracking was always just a short lived solution and there will be nothing after that.
*Aviation industr*y: We still have one. Just another year. Else his prediction is going to fail...
I do agree on his take regarding skyscrapers.
@NERD GANGANGANG He said "Within 5 years." He was wrong. I like and listen to what he has to say. But he was wrong. The aviation industry would still thrive if it weren't for the Covid thingy.
@Monad I don't think he was talking about airplanes not flying for a year or two because of a pandemic. They'll go back to normal after we beat corona.
Wow, within 4 years ago there’s going to be no more Passenger Air Travel industry.
Gotta love TED
Shale oil delayed things... but for a short while
His timeline is off, but his overall analysis and predictions will eventually turn out to be true
Airlines accessed credit. Or their investors did. He was early because he did not imagine capital was limitless. Of course, monetary expansion delays but does not eliminate the debt structure.
@@Rnankn good point. If you want to see an amazing example of limitless capital propping up a defunct industry weekend at bernies style look into Fracking.
16:45 Don't be hatin' on my bling!
The problem comes when the rich have made the transition to electric vehicles and the working poor are paying astronomical prices for gas. The trickle-down plug-in-vehicle technology introduction model has that major flaw. It can foreseeably cause active, in the streets, social unrest.
How will working poor be able to pay astronomical prices for gas?
Exactly the problem! When enough people's mobility is restricted, these people may come to recognize themselves as marginalized and that can cause real anger.
Not quite. There will be enterprising fellows who knows there is a huge market to be tapped with electric vehicles affordable by the working class. Folks like Henry Ford did that with his Model T... ironically, petrol powered vehicles allowed for smaller, cheaper & more reliable modes of transport in the early 20th century.
Technology progression will see more affordable electric vehicles. The cellular phone cost thousands in its early years & you couldn't save numbers on it. Today you can buy an iPhone for $200 at Best Buy.
Itd about giving the poor the ability to travel without paying astronomical prices for either gas or electric cars. Electric cars are not the solution, walkability and good public transport is
Well I disagree with your "points"(whatever they are) . There:
Yet Another pointless interwebs comment. Jim is spot on and has been for years (except for his unflinching partisan support for the "liar in chief").
I actually kind of like his talk... because urban sprawl sucks. I hate it.
Recall the moribund dialogue between the American/Russian Generals in
'Fail Safe'----'the best cities are walking cities'......just before the destruction of two of them; alas, Babylon
All good except the issue of the credit card economy! Everyone still loading up on debt
Happy motoring turned to tears with $7 gasoline
Going to have to run the government on revenue coming in - that sure was correct! USA has been doing that the last 6 years!
Cheapest efficient solar energy - a clothesline.
What the heck was that bit about people's clothes?
Good talk, but wth was that thing about how we dress at the end? Seemed out of place.
Funny how you guys jumped the fence and now are the other side , pretty smart. NOT, To late ! What hope are you giving for your sayings ? Its over.
Really want to know the true reason why he pushes overpopulation to the side? The solutions sound good, but just slow down the process. Basically every issue we have today leads back to overpopulation. That topic needs to be addressed again, because sooner or later it will backlash and will end up in a really bad way. Lowering the birthrate is a kind solution, much better than killing. And it can be done through several ways like rewarding people that adopt, that have only one child, that have no biological children and free access to education and birth control.
i want a horse...
And everything else you see happening is the rats fighting each other for the last of the cheese.. that's bureaucracy for you!
bump
Whether it be climate change, or vaccine mandates, if its really that dangerous for civilization, you should not have to lie about it.
The clothing piece was kinda boomer but otherwise good
The world was ending in 2011 and it is still ending all these years later ... it never lives up to the hype though. Also, shale oil, duh. Energy is a political issue not a technological one. Between solar, wind and nuclear I think we will be ok.
You seem to be awfully misinformed. Reality will catch you up some day
Wait 26 thousand view, that is a lot for a peak oil video. But only 26 thousand people really care about a crisis that will destroy there way of life! That is extreme stupidity.
Such winnie the pooh :-D . Classic panic for money prophet.
The speaker makes way too many doomsday predictions. He also says something and immediately dismisses it - that being Thorium nuclear energy. He doesn't give that enough credit. China and India are both pursuing Thorium reactors. Reactors such as the Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor (LFTR) can be 200x more efficient than an Uranium LWR/HWR, with no chance of pressure failure and almost no waste (the waste being reactor-grade Pl-238 used by NASA). Thorium is far more abundant than Uranium and can easily solve any grid-level energy crisis for the next several hundred years.
So why isn't it stepping up? Look more deeply. A quick-skim read through a few Wikipaedia articles isn't good enough.
Abundant, cheap, capital-efficient thorium-driven energy, with full, global infrastructure fully built and running, and fully de-bugged, costing only as much as the capital - the REAL capital, that is - that we have to spare, is just another of the sheaf of comically-innumerate, denial-of-grim-reality delusions in which the Pampered Twenty Percent of the world's humans - mostly in the over-rich countries - are indulging currently.
Forget it. Wake up. If you manage to live another thirty years, you are going to face the things that Jim is describing, whether you agree or not. As John Michael Greer quips, "collapse early, and avoid the rush!" In other words, get ready in good time to deal with these consequnces of the Long Emergency (Jim Kunstler), aka the Long Descent (John Michael Greer), that you simply can't hope to dodge.
Trying to get ready - for example, by learning how to grow almost all your own food - with only a few months notice doesn't work; not in the real world. It takes a lot longer to be confident that you and yours can really do that reliably. In my sixth year of learning how to do this, I'm just getting confident that I can grow and store reliably ALL the basic-staple foods that we need, in sufficient amounts to see me and mine through till the next year's harvest. Even using the most intelligent methods that have been developed in recent years, this simple requirement is absolutely not just 'stick a few seeds in the ground, wait a while, then eat.' Not remotely. Our recent anscestors understood this with steely clarity; and the young generation alive now is faced with the absolute, inescapable necessity to re-learn it too, PDQ.
And as with homegrown food so with all the mass of other things that we - those of us who survive the upcoming global natural population cull over the next few decades - are going to have to learn to do for ourselves again; without any outside help, apart from the mutual cooperation of our neighbours, our immediate local community, and - for those of us who our still lucky enough to have one - our extended family/clan.
Or, you can go on acting like a delusional, infantilised clown, such as Jim describes and illustrates in this TED, and just lie down and die when it dawns on you that you're screwed, beyond rescue.
@@RhisiartGwilym I'm afraid this is correct. really kudos to have learnt to grow food yourself. any read I can get my hands on before amazon collapses ?
@@RhisiartGwilym Tell us why it doesn't work before dismissing (or the solar that gets energy roi well over 15 and rising past oil).
Not saying we're not going to have another great depression but it's not the end of the world. Most of the people you love will still be alive into old age...
hes correct about a lot, but he was. wrong about solar and win
He might not be wrong. They are weather dependent and low efficiency and compete with everything else for land use. Capacity so far in like 10% globally, but had no reduction in carbon energy because demand grows more quickly than renewables can be added. Plus the technology has geographic limits. There has to be enough sun and wind for them to work.
He's absolutely correct about solar and wind. Take a look at Planet of the Humans on youtube. And if you want a detailed explanation, get the book Bright Green Lies. Solar and wind is just causing more destruction...digging us into a deeper hole...distracting us from the necessary steps we need to take to brace ourselves for what's ahead.
He's right about the oil but this is old.There have been some brilliant discoveries and ideas right after this. Don't sell people short. Necessity has always been the mother of invention.
What about now?
I think climate change is bunk and Schwab says we will own nothing and be happy about it, which kind of gives me a mental image of an angry mom gritting her teeth and telling a child they will eat their broccoli and they'll like it.
I don't remember watching this 7 yrs ago lol. I do know that my world view has changed alot in that time.
I think overpopulation is bs too. It doesn't matter what the solution is, most of our problems are either made up or intentionally created. This is all by design.
You wouldn't know bullshit if you sat in it. My comment is DIRECTLY attributed to Kunstler's own theory. He lambasts zoning all the time.
AynManRand segregation of land uses results in longer path lengths which makes walking/biking less feasible, and increases travel time.
Increasing travel time increases the probability of multiple people or vehicles traveling along the same segment of road at the same time meaning that roads need to be wider which inturn again reduces the feasibility of walking/biking. Reducing the feasibility of walking/biking increases the percentage of trips made by car which further reduces the feasibility of walking/biking. Accommodating cars with parking lots pushes everything further apart, which inturn further reduces the viability of walking/biking.
i disagree with his comment about highdensity downtowns
wait and see
Where's all the "capital"? What can't "we" afford?
Its all debt, saved as financial assets based on future returns that presume more capital will be available. And as long as more money is produced, it is available as more debt to invest in more financial instruments. You see the problem. It’s not real. The present is living on the promise of a future that will never come, and the minute someone credible says it out loud, it will vanish and everything will collapse. Don’t worry, I have no credibility, I’m nobody.
CFN - lol.
Yeah, how about that American aviation industry? Was supposed to have collapsed over two years ago. God damn what an angry-ass old curmudgeon (Only saying this because I actually met him at the 2008 ASPO conference. Treats his fans like shit).
And I don't get his dumping on suburbia. We can grow enough food in both yards to feed ourselves with just fine.
This didn't age well.
SOLUTION : Call on Jesus Christ , if you can.
Where were you when before all these problems were cropping up ? You should of been talking then instead of filling your pockets.
Maybe he was busy calling on Jesus Christ.
This has not aged well.
Silly disatrophism,
There is no way to run out of capital, resources yes, but money is not an object, it is a representation of any number of things, but at its heart it is an imaginary non-thing. there is no way to run out of imagination.
yes systems may fail, things still have futures, even if he doent think so, we adapt old systems to new need and uses; the future is in our imagination, its too bad his is so bleak. Its cute that he can only see the future by escaping into a fantasy of the past; His dislike of the way people dress is a symptom of this sort of degenerate ahistorical romanticism with an idealized past that simply must be the future or we all die.
Things will change, and should in someways, sprawl should cease, but to a large extent it is, because people have grown disillusioned with the suburbs, people are moving to the cities.
Josh Twelve 1, capital is not money. Capital is the combined trade value of assets, which includes money. Capital is only worth what people are willing to trade for it, so his argument is that a lack of demand for suburban houses when an automobile-reliant lifestyle disappears will reduce the total capital in North America, essentially leaving people destitute. This is a scaled up version of what happened when derivatives crashed in the USA a decade ago.
2, there is an interesting parallel to the late days of the Western Roman empire, when young men began to dress like the Visigoths, eschewing the established adult norm. Just an observation; not sure what to make of it.
The problem is political and the trend is moving away from the desirable future Kunstler would like to see come about. In America power is moving toward the interests of corporate profit, property owners, deregulation and away from government, rational judgement and our common interest.
America has only two political parties and that won't change. One party is insufficiently reform oriented the other party is very aggressively in favor of corporate power, the oil industry, deregulation and private interests and seeks to disable govts ability to change things. If you agree with Jim Kunstler but you vote Republican you either don't understand how things work or you are a hypocrie.
America has always had one party, the "business" party, with two wings, repubs and dems. FDR saved capitalism temporarily, the end to it is fastly approaching, the pope continues to advocate for a centralized economy and has quiet alot of backers to see it to fruition.
@@ronraygun4098 No party and no government can be anti-business. Every country promotes those businesses based in their country because business activity employs people, generates wealth, pays taxes, etc. If you think th two parties are th sam you aren't really paying attention.
The Pope? The Pope has almost no influence over the shape of the American government. I don't know why you think the Pope wants centralized government. The Pope's agenda is spiritual rather than political. This has not always been true historically, but with Pope Francis, I believe it is true.
While I agree with him on many issues, he doesn't seem to believe technology will help us solve some of the problems and I can't agree with him on the idea that going back to stone age is the only solution.
Yakkun not stone age, maybe steam-punkish 19th century era.
Kunstler doesn't hate technology, he just knows that it's dramatically less important in keeping this country running than walkable communities and the like.
@@goatprince1 , Technology is powered by energy. They are interdependent, not substitutes for one another. If you lose either one, you lose the other.
Technology is venture capitalism and marketing. Ideas and values are what change the world. We’re likely going to be searching our phones for “solutions” when we start asphyxiating and going hungry.
autonomous busses will replace drivers. flood the cities with shuttles that pick you up at your place take you to work works.
Kunstler has some very humorous observations in his talks but his pessimism reminds me of the apocalyptic Christian cult rhetoric.
Are you trying to be cryptic with all these acronyms?
*****
Doh, I guess I must be dumb. The term "internet" had no meaning to me until I was 26 years old.
I lost interest with the global warming comment. Seven years have past, who is worried about GW now?
"Seven years have past, who is worried about GW now?" Umm anyone with a brain