The reason for this obvious idiocy is that it's all about the cars. That's all we care about - Kunstler

SHOOT: Exactly right.  The solution to our energy problem is that we pursue a lifestyle that doesn't involve car use at every single intersection.  That means walkable communities plugged - if possible - into some sort of organic system in the surrounding countryside.  It also means an end to suburbia, shopping malls and skyscrapers and an alternative to long distance trucking to get stuff from far off places to us.

Kunstler: There are a few things you can state categorically about the US energy predicament and the national conversation we're having about it - including the leaders of that conversation in government, business, and the media. One is that we are blowing a lot of green smoke up our collective ass. None of these schemes is going to work as advertised. The disappointment over them will be massive and probably lead to awful political consequences.

     Another is that we are ignoring the most obvious intelligent responses to this predicament, namely, shifting our focus to walkable communities and public transit, especially rebuilding the American passenger railroad system - without which, I assure you, we will be most regrettably screwed ten years from now. Mr. Obama had one throwaway line in his speech about public transit and nothing whatever about walkable neighborhoods.

     The reason for this obvious idiocy is that it's all about the cars. That's all we care about in the USA, the cars. We can't get over the cars. We can't talk about anything except how we'll find magical new ways to run all the cars. This is a very tragic sort of stupidity and if we don't change our thinking about it, from the highest level on down, history is going to treat us very cruelly.

Read more.