By James Howard Kunstler
The most astonishing thing is how quickly we've come to take these things for granted. The [wonders] of cheap oil and gas are so seductive that we've ceased paying attention to the essential fact about these gifts: that they exist in finite, nonrenewable supplies. Even people who ought to know better are wishing ardently that a smooth, seamless transition from fossil fuels to their replacements - hydrogen, solar power, whatever - lies just a few years ahead. This is a dangerous fantasy. The truth is. we can expect [at best] an extremely turbulent interval between the end of cheap oil and whatever comes next. Also mostly likely, new fuels and technologies will never replace fossil fuels at the scale, rate and manner at which the world currently consumes them.
Our lack of awareness about this is not new. Throughout history, even the most important and self-evident trends are often completely ignored because the changes they foreshadow are simply unthinkable, so far beyond the ordinary experience of those dwelling in a certain time and place that they cannot make sense of available information. . . .this is why we are sleepwalking into the future.
By Alice Walker, African American poet and essayist
It is true
I've always loved
the daring
ones
Like the black young
man
Who tried
to crash
All barriers
at once,
wanted to
swim
At a white
beach (in Alabama)
Nude.
return to main page