The long emergency : surviving the converging catastrophes of the twenty-first century / James Howard Kunstler.

Originally published: 2005.

Sleepwalking into the future -- Modernity and the fossil fuels dilemma -- Geopolitics and the global oil peak -- Beyond oil: why alternative fuels won't rescue us -- Nature bites back: climate change, epidemic disease, water scarcity, habitat destruction, and the dark side of the industrial age -- Running on fumes: the hallucinated economy -- Living in the long emergency

The last two hundred years have seen the greatest explosion of progress and wealth in the history of mankind. But the age of oil, that fuelled this expansion, is coming rapidly to an end. The depletion of fossil fuels is about to transform life as we know it, and do so much sooner than we think. In "The Long Emergency", the distinguished commentator and analyst James Howard Kunstler explains what to expect after we pass the tipping point of peak oil production, and sets out to prepare us for economic, political, and social changes of an unimaginable scale.