Is there any hidden blessing in the 'oil peak'?
Julian Darley: There are many possible reactions to an understanding that oil peak is going to happen or indeed is happening. Some people can see in it a certain blessing in disguise. Other people think it's going to be just a universal horror and they can't face it. And then there are some people who are the opposite of cornucopians--the absolute 'die-off doomsdayers' -- and for them, this is 'it', this is what they've been predicting all along. I wondered where you were--a bit of blessing in disguise, a bit of die off, neither?
James Kunstler: I think that's accurate. You know, the die-off gang has put out a pretty compelling set of arguments, and one of things we didn’t talk about today was where microbiology fits in because you can make some persuasive arguments that the world is revving up for a combination of events that are going to considerably thin out the population, and I mean specifically a serious mega-influenza pandemic, or the thing that is already underway, the AIDS pandemic, which has prospects for becoming much worse over the next 20 years and very problematically.
But, that said, I do find myself not very firmly in the die-off camp. I do think the human race does have some resilience, and I do think that we have some prospects of going forward and remaining civilized. It occurs to me that we may face a period of darkness. That has happened before, and it's not something I particularly welcome but it’s a plausible outcome for a while. History happens to occur in cycles.
I don’t think the human race is ready to throw in the towel. We have the means to do it, but it ain't necessarily going to happen. It's certainly an interesting period of time to live in. Those of us who were born in the hippie period, like myself, may even enjoy the prospect of returning in another incarnation, to see things going on a little further.
Who knows? I'm really not that much of a New Ager, but I'm very curious about what’s going to happen, and I wish us the best.
from: http://www.globalpublicmedia.com/interviews/141
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