James Howard Kunstler speaks to SCAD faculty RE: the global energy crisis
Today was my first quarterly faculty meeting at SCAD. I was pleasantly surprised that besides the usual boring policy statements and announcements there was a fantastic keynote speaker, James Howard Kunstler. Once more the speaker was somoene I didn’t know but whom I really loved listening to.
I took the opportunity to live-tweet (put up a report on twitter) of the entire presentation (as best I can). some tweets may have gotten lost due to the lack of using the proper # code (so finding it later was a bit hard), But it is all on my feed.
So here is the whole thing for ya (I even filled in the unhashed ones):
daveIxD: At the quarter faculty meeting here at SCAD. There is a keynote by James Kunstler. View Tweet
daveIxD: Kunstler is speaking about the current environmental situation, and human antipathy to the real needs of sustainability. View Tweet
daveIxD: Current oil prices are a blip caused by outiside the financial collapse. View Tweet
daveIxD: Current oil prices are a blip caused by outiside the financial collapse. View Tweet
daveIxD: We live in a completely bancropt society where capital is disappearing into an abyss. View Tweet
daveIxD: There is no capital for repairing society. View Tweet
daveIxD: Oil markets are collapsing. Our new discoveries of oil are way below our production. View Tweet
daveIxD: We need a new Saudi Arabia every yr in order to keep up with need. View Tweet
daveIxD: Exporters are using more & more & will be exporting less. #kunstler. And using oil as a bargaining chip. View Tweet
daveIxD: Uk, Canada, & Norway have been depleted. And UK is again an importer of energy again. View Tweet
daveIxD: Mexico is #3 source of oil for US after Arabia & Canada. & won’t be able to export oil in a few years. View Tweet
daveIxD: Technology & equip are not being updated b/c people see it as a dying industry. View Tweet
daveIxD: Big story is not running out of oil, but the failure of how we run major complex economic markets & production. View Tweet
daveIxD: The prob with suburbia is that it is a living arrangement with no future. #kunstler. Trying to sustain it is a misplaced investment. View Tweet
daveIxD: The whole financial collapse is caused by the spirit of the surbirban myth. #kunstler View Tweet
daveIxD: We are not going to be able to run Disneyland, Walmart & the Interstate system on alternative energy. #kunstler View Tweet
daveIxD: The “wish upon a star” mythos is keeping us from truly taking reality seriously. #kunstler. View Tweet
daveIxD: Technology is NOT going to save us. Technology is not Energy. View Tweet
daveIxD: “they’ll come up with something” is not going to happen. So we have to make other arrangements. View Tweet
daveIxD: Keeping on living the way we do is not an option. We have to inhabit the land differently. #kunstler. View Tweet
daveIxD: we have to work with what we got, but many places don’t have models for sustainable habitation. View Tweet
daveIxD: how we grow food will have to change. Especiall increasing locally grown production. View Tweet
daveIxD: we need to change retail. (way too much retail space compared to other countries.) we have to return to non-chain retail. View Tweet
daveIxD: Education will have to change. And a model of the failed economy of previous investment. Centralized schooling won’t work. View Tweet
daveIxD: home schooling will replace centralized schooling. We are going to be a poorer society. View Tweet
daveIxD: . Railroads are going to have to be rebuilt. Our railroad system would be an embarrassment to Bulgaria. View Tweet
daveIxD: why is Obama focusing on the interstates. It is a decision that demonstrates the endemic situation re: previous investment. View Tweet
daveIxD: Europe never lost the idea that the city can be a wonderful place to live. Public transportation is a key to urban dev. View Tweet
daveIxD: we are going to have to put back the infrastucture for a maritime economy. No more waterfront condos. View Tweet
daveIxD: there is going to be a new class in the US–the “formerly middle class”. They r going to be poor & very pissed off! View Tweet
daveIxD: end of industrial agriculture. Return of the local small farm. View Tweet
daveIxD: the “city of the future” of yesterday is a failed vision. View Tweet
daveIxD: suburbanites aren’t going to NYC but to small cities that are of proper scale. View Tweet
daveIxD: skyscrapers won’t work. They take too much energy to maintain. Elevators won’t be running. View Tweet
daveIxD: the public in cities have to be reclaimed. There r too many places not worth caring about. “asteroid belts” of urban planning. View Tweet
daveIxD: if you have enough of these places you end up with a country not worth caring about. View Tweet
daveIxD: we can imagine a hopeful future. Hope comes from you as imagined. You can’t give hope to people. They have to do it themselves. View Tweet
daveIxD: that last message about hope was the most important for an audience of design educators (his direct audience today). View Tweet
daveIxD: wrote a novel about a post oil world “World made By Hand”. Comes out this month. THE END View Tweet
