End of suburbia draws nigh
This 'living arrangement ... has no future' when cheap gas disappears: Documentary

CHRISTOPHER HUME

Already the cold winds of change have started to blow through the suburbs. Everywhere around us there are signs of looming catastrophe.

But as anyone who watches the upcoming television documentary The End of Suburbia: Oil Depletion and the Collapse of the American Dream will see, that doesn't seem to have caused us even a moment's hesitation. If anything, we are rushing towards oblivion faster than ever.

The one-hour special, which airs Wednesday at 10 p.m. on Vision TV, should be a wake-up call to all those denizens of sprawl. If the talking heads who appear in this compelling and deeply disturbing Canadian-made program are right — and they most assuredly are — North America had better figure out new ways of living that don't depend on cheap, plentiful oil.

Perhaps the most compelling expert on hand, Matthew Simmons, chair of the largest energy investment bank in the world, puts the case against suburbia very eloquently.

"Everything in society we cherish ended when the blackout (of August 2003) came," Simmons states. "If that wasn't a fire drill for how important energy actually is ... but people didn't get it. I don't think we actually learned a thing from it."

Indeed, as other speakers make clear, rather than deal with these issues, we simply elect politicians who aid and abet our refusal to get real.

Their argument is simple: suburbia couldn't exist without cars, and people couldn't afford to drive those cars without endless cheap gas. As they also make clear, the amount of oil pumped out of the ground is expected to peak sometime between now and 2010 at the latest. After that, every gallon of gas grows more and more expensive, rendering auto-based sprawl obsolete.

"The whole suburban project can be summarized pretty succinctly as the greatest misallocation of resources in the history of the world," explains author James Howard Kunstler. "America took all its post-war wealth and invested it in a living arrangement that has no future."

What makes the situation even harder to understand is our unwillingness to face up to it while it's still possible. This cultural, intellectual and economic inertia can be seen right here in Ontario where the debate about the greenbelt has only just started. To his credit, Premier Dalton McGuinty has adopted a greenbelt plan, but the development industry and — God help us — some farmers will do everything they can to stop it. Groups such as the Fraser Institute and various home builders' associations parade their experts, mostly American, who for a fee explain people actually enjoy commuting, that sprawl is good and global warming isn't happening.

If only. The truth is we will have to learn how to make do with much less. As Kunstler points out, the days where the ingredients of a Caesar salad travel 4,800 kilometres to your table are over, whether we realize it or not. Those farmers busy railing against McGuinty's perfectly sensible, desperately needed scheme to stop sprawl will soon find themselves part of an agricultural system based on proximity to local markets. Future growth based on oil and natural gas is not possible, Simmons warns. Those holding their breath for hydrogen fuel should get serious; it's not going to happen. Instead, we'd rather carry on building suburbs destined to become the slums of tomorrow, McMansions that will be obsolete long before the mortgage has been paid off.

Though there's some discussion on the show about the New Urbanism, a movement that seeks to reform urban planning, it's unlikely to be the answer.

If author Richard Heinberg is correct, we are at the end of an era that stretches back uninterrupted almost 50 years. The question, he says, is whether future generations will look back on the second half of the 20th century as a golden age or a time of unmatched stupidity.

Not surprisingly, he opts for the latter.

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1110150624552&call_pageid=970599119419

It's a bleak but very realistic outlook. I'm continually bewildered by the blind refusal of our society to consider or accept the consequences of our current activities. We've always known that fossil fuels are finite and that we have no viable technology to replace fossil fuels as our main energy source. So what happens when it all runs out?

I believe that the problem is rooted in the fundamental flaw of the economic systems that drive our modern culture. While corporations are motivated SOLELY on the ability to deliver short term profits & dividends to their shareholders there is absolutely no incentive to consider the long term plan. This is outside the control of any government's policy or international treaty (unless you consider wholesale revolution, of course).

In my dreamworld, Wall Street would assess corporate success not only on profit but also ecological soundness, treatment of employees, moral and fair trading, giveback to the community and reinvestment in education. But it's not going to happen :(.

Unfortunately they make a lot of assumptions to come to their conclusions, like "peak oil production will be reached in 2010".  The problem is that "peak oil" is always five or ten years away.  Unlike the gas crunch 30 years ago, work has been made towards alternative energy sources, and there are many that are getting near the cost of oil now.  If gas doubles in cost in the next few years, we'll begin seeing a move away from gas as the dominant energy source.  Even with gas up only $.50 US in the past year or two, SUVs have begun declining in sales. 

Gas costs would need to hover around $10 US before people decided to move into cities where apartment costs are already quite steep, let alone what costs would be like if there was a mass exodus away from the suburban areas. My mortgage payment is less than most apartments in the area, let alone Boston.  I'd have to spend five hundred dollars a month in gas to make the difference worthwhile before I moved to the city.

I prefer the city to the boonies anyway..but this article probably did exaggerate on certain aspects, although it did point a few things out that need to be addressed.

Well, we're not really the "boonies"...my town is technically considered a "far west suburb", but we're a bit outside of town. 2 minutes to the tollway and only about 10 to the 3rd (or 4th, can't remember) largest city in IL so it's not as rural as I make it seem....although my subdivision IS surrounded by cornfields ;)


Ewww, those are so ugly man. If I had to choose a rural area to live in, I'd much rather live in the beautiful piney woods of my native East Texas than the barren midwest. ;D

Most people don't realize the terrible prices humanity pays for the internal combustion engine and the personal passenger car.

I'll spare you the details, they are at your fingertips.  Just do a google search and you'll find gobs of articles on the matter.

I'm afraid ecological catastrophies will visit famine and plague upon the Western world before we break ourselves of the habit of the suburbs and the automobile.

But, hey, look on the bright side: no suburbs = no Rush Limbaugh!

why the rise in popularity in SUVs and trucks when the car manufacturers know there's an impending fuel shortage? i've read in a car magazine not too long ago that 8 cylinder big cars are making a comeback, a part of this retro kick that the north american market has been seeing in the last few years. why?! are the car manufacturers and big oil know something that we don't know. is there some great untapped reserve of oil lying in the ground somewhere in the world...

In a book titles Cannibles and Kings Marvin Harris argues that societies built on a particular technology have collapsed in the past and could very well collapse in the future.  Our oil-based technolgy could very well be our Achillie's heal.  But, like all such societies, we ignore the signs and want just one more dance.

.... societies built on a particular technology have collapsed in the past and could very well collapse in the future. 

Quite right Don Carlos, you only have to look at what happened to the Easter Islanders to see a clear allegory for the whole of our planet, the way things are going.

And for those of you considering what you'd do if gas hit $10 a gallon, what will our children do when it's $100 or our grandchildren do when it's $1000? Arguments along these lines are futile because you're really only talking about postponement of the inevitable here, fossils fuels are FINITE!!

Quite right Don Carlos, you only have to look at what happened to the Easter Islanders to see a clear allegory for the whole of our planet, the way things are going.

And for those of you considering what you'd do if gas hit $10 a gallon, what will our children do when it's $100 or our grandchildren do when it's $1000? Arguments along these lines are futile because you're really only talking about postponement of the inevitable here, fossils fuels are FINITE!!

I like Harris' point that the Easter Islanders didn't see it coming either!

...work has been made towards alternative energy sources, and there are many that are getting near the cost of oil now. 

This thread is escalating from the threat that oil shortages pose to suburbia in the short term to the theat that the nonsustainable nature of our energy based economy poses to human civilisation.

Having said that, Chucky, what are the alternative energy sources that you're referring to?
As far as I'm aware there is no viable energy technology yet discovered that comes anywhere close to the cost, transportability and energy efficiency of oil. It's true that many potential oil reserves exist in what are known as "difficult environments" e.g. in shale rock beds. These are money-inefficient to extract today, i.e. economically unviable. However, these reserves are also energy-inefficient i.e. it consumes more energy to access it than can be realised by burning what you extract! Hence there is never going to be any point in trying to extract them even if the consumer price of oil were to rise exponentially.

The more I consider this problem, the more I feel that we're all going to Hell in a hand-cart at some point in the next century.
I may not be around to see the worst effects myself but my children and grandchildren almost certainly will. I fear for the future :(.

Well speaking from the UK where its pretty much already $10 a gallon for fuel, ya kinda think twice about taking the car out for a jaunt. Still I'm a bad person because I've got an old 3 litre Mercedes but most people drive smaller cars in the UK (except for the idiots in the big 4x4s clogging up the city centres - our roads are tiny grrrrr).

Well speaking from the UK where its pretty much already $10 a gallon for fuel, ya kinda think twice about taking the car out for a jaunt.

It's going to get a lot more painful than $10 a gallon before habits are changed.

In fact my contention is that habits will never change by economic pressure or encouragement but there will be a forced change when mass panic sets in. Human beings are simply incapable as a species of acting in any other way.

In other words, I foresee panic, state authoritarianism to control the mass panic, war and devastation fought over dwindling resources, collapse of the global economy, collapse of the food and energy infrastructure  and a massive reduction, over 2 or 3 generations, of the Earth's human population.

Call me a doom monger if you like but please somebody tell me I'm wrong and explain clearly why I'm wrong!?

(BTW, I'm in the UK also).

Yep that would make a pretty good Evening News item maddog. Follow it up with, "...and on a lighter note a skateboarding squirrel" type story maybe?

I think that is a pretty gloomy outlook but better to worry now than fry later. Fact is, our resources are finite so the more we use the less will be around for the future generations. Imagine a world without plastic? Doesn't bear thinking about now - we're so dependent on oil in all its forms that alternatives need to be - and are already - be sourced.

....we're so dependent on oil in all its forms that alternatives need to be - and are already - be sourced.

Well, UKVisitor, here we go again with these mysterious "alternatives" that everyone seems to know about except me.

What exactly are they!?
Please don't respond based on theory around harnessing wind / tidal / solar power etc. as they're not VIABLE, at least not by my  definition of viable. Cold nuclear fusion is a con trick so that leaves us with .... nuclear fission! So what, we're all going to be driving around in cars with a small nuclear generator under the bonnet?

This thread is escalating from the threat that oil shortages pose to suburbia in the short term to the theat that the nonsustainable nature of our energy based economy poses to human civilisation.

Having said that, Chucky, what are the alternative energy sources that you're referring to?
As far as I'm aware there is no viable energy technology yet discovered that comes anywhere close to the cost, transportability and energy efficiency of oil. It's true that many potential oil reserves exist in what are known as "difficult environments" e.g. in shale rock beds. These are money-inefficient to extract today, i.e. economically unviable. However, these reserves are also energy-inefficient i.e. it consumes more energy to access it than can be realised by burning what you extract! Hence there is never going to be any point in trying to extract them even if the consumer price of oil were to rise exponentially.


Sure, nothing matches THE CURRENT price of gasoline.  We're not talking about what replaces gasoline today.  We're talking about what replaces gasoline if it's $5 a gallon US or $10 a gallon US.  If gasoline jumps significantly in price, several alternative energy sources become cheaper by comparison.

Here's one example:
Ethanol is claimed to be iinefficient, yet there are studies to prove that there is 56% more energy in a gallon of ethanol than it takes to produce it.  That's one case where the amount of energy exerted does not equal the amount used to produce it. Hence if oil costs rise too much, ethanol becomes cheaper.

Well, UKVisitor, here we go again with these mysterious "alternatives" that everyone seems to know about except me.

What exactly are they!?
Please don't respond based on theory around harnessing wind / tidal / solar power etc. as they're not VIABLE, at least not by my  definition of viable. Cold nuclear fusion is a con trick so that leaves us with .... nuclear fission! So what, we're all going to be driving around in cars with a small nuclear generator under the bonnet?


all of those are viable to reducing some of the energy demand.  They don't need to replace oil entirely.  A mixture of the above wouild do well to replace it. 

Solar has dropped in production costs for years.  The cost of the equipment is less, the efficiency is greater.  Same with wind. 

Cold nuclear fusion is 20 years away.  Pebble bed reactors however are VERY practical, produce little waste and can't not reach critical mass like the current breeder nuclear reactors.  If you pull the control rods from a pebble bed reactor, it shuts off.  There's a solution right there. 

Drive around with a nuclear reactor?  You've never heard of batteries/fuel cells/etc?  You're trying to make a joke right?

Drive around with a nuclear reactor?  You've never heard of batteries/fuel cells/etc?  You're trying to make a joke right?

Yes, a poor joke at that, sorry  :-
Cold nuclear fusion is 20 years away. 

I'd like to believe this but there's no concensus on this in the worldwide scientific community. It's true that various governments are still funding research and that there is a "hardcore" of cold fusion zealots who still believe it's viable. However, the experiments of Pons and Fleischman in 1989 that appeared to offer the first evidence of cold fusion have been discredited and their results have never been consistently repeatable. That's what I meant by a "con trick".

You make some good points about complementary energy sources Chucky, I concede these are viable COMPLEMENTARY options.
But it still only postpones the inevitable exhaustion of fossil fuel supplies.

Here's one example:
Ethanol is claimed to be iinefficient, yet there are studies to prove that there is 56% more energy in a gallon of ethanol than it takes to produce it.  That's one case where the amount of energy exerted does not equal the amount used to produce it. Hence if oil costs rise too much, ethanol becomes cheaper.

Interesting point, although the net energy figure of 56% that you quote is debatable depending on the factors you use in the equation, e.g. farm inputs of fertilizer, energy used in corn transportation, energy used in the ethanol conversion process etc.

Also, how much land would have to be given over to corn production (to provide the raw material for ehtanol production) in order to sustain energy demand at its current level? And what effect would that have on the land available for corn production for food (or housing, or pasture, or forestry?).

Ethanol production would not be cheaper if oil prices rose, unless you were transporting the corn by a non-oil based method.
It only becomes comparitively cheaper.