Remember that time you went on a long drug binge and it turned into a crime spree and you totally messed up your life and hit rockbottom and had to go to jail for a while but in retrospect it was the best thing that ever happened to you because otherwise you wouldn’t have your great job now at Goldman Sachs (by the way, great quarter, eh?)? Well, you’re kind of like America, it turns out. At least according to Christopher Steiner, a staff writer at Forbes whose first book is about how high oil prices are coming and they’re going to cause an economic meltdown, but that’s a good news, because it’ll makes us stop being a nation of fat greedy dipshits.
The title of the book maps out the argument rather cleanly: $20 Per Gallon: How The Inevitable Rise in the Price of Oil Will change Our Lives For the Better. On the cover there’s a picture of a red five-gallon oil can with some cute little hippie flower logos on it.
By now, most of us know the basics of the argument here: Oil production will almost certainly be slowing in coming years because the “easy” oil is all gone and that means much higher prices; and because everything in our lives from hairbrushes to creamed corn is produced with oil, that means no more creamed corn for you, mister, unless you grow yourself it in the foyer of your McMansion, which by then you will have by necessity converted into an organic garden.
Not to suggest the subject or Steiner’s argument aren’t serious. Both are. But before offering modest praise and a modest critique, we have to say that we kept imagining a conversation involving some combination of the agent, editor and publisher prior to the book being written that really stressed how important it was to make this a positive book–after all, everybody is sick of downers like Jim Kunstler talking about oil crashes. And since negative scary arguments apparently just make people retreat deeper into their cocoons of denial where their only sustenance is crime dramas and celebrity blogs, it’s important to keep. it. happy. We’re serious: HAPPY! Thus sentences like this one in the introduction: “The future will be exhilarating.”
In looking toward the future Steiner uses the word “will” a great deal. He predicts big important trends: “High gas prices will clean up our skies and clear our vistas”; “$6 gas will spark an infrastructure revolution and the era of widespread tolling”; “Our cities will regroup, renew, grow denser.” But he also predicts weird small stuff: high school sports teams will travel less and more cops will do foot patrol beats.
The speculation can get a tad overheated at times. For instance, because gas for U-Hauls will be so expensive, when people decide to move–say, from Virginia to San Diego–they “will be better off simply selling almost all their things in Virginia and then restocking on the attires of living once they get to Sand Diego. This will be a sad reality for some people who cling to the sentimentality of their stuff, but for other it will be liberating. Just cut your wires and go. Each new destination in life would carry with it a new tranche of furnishings and surroundings.”
Many predictions center around auto and air travel becoming vastly more expensive. The airline industry will shrink dramatically, cars will become too expensive for many Americans. This will spark a return to denser living in small towns and cities. The sprawly exurbs will not fare well, nobody should be surprised to hear.
If Steiner is correct, American cities will undergo a dramatic transformation in coming decades. In the chapter $12 (the first chapter is “$6,” the second is “$8,” and so on to “$20,” each tracing the effects of a rise to that price level), he writes: “As people leave the suburbs because they can’t afford 3,000 sq ft, four exterior walls, and two SUVs, our cities will swell with newcomers.” The density will make them better places. Rust belt cities will be particularly appealing to people seeking affordable lifestyles that don’t involve $3,000/month gas bills: “These are the cities with existing downtown infrastructure that’s terribly underused. Buildings of thirty or forty stories wait to be seized by someone with vision, someone with drive to make them great again.” [Stalin, perhaps? -Ed.] And all those 12-lane highways will still be useful, but not for cars. Rather, they will “offer municipalities unmolested rights of way radiating out of central cities–easements that can used by governments to locate train lines.” Schemes like this will be possible because Americans will be driving less than half as many miles per year. And people will adjust: “Minivan lovers will learn to love the city. They will learn to love density. Places like Denver, Dallas and Atlanta will move from being mere regional hubs to world-class cities as people culture and commerce crowd in.” Hooray!
Well-built old small towns on rail lines will thrive too. Their commercial life will cease being defined by that single Wal-Mart a mile or two outside town. Why? “Wal-Mart will die.” $14 gas will make its disposable crap-centric business model implode. All those boarded up Main Streets in Littlesville, USA, will be reclaimed and rehabbed so people can have compact walkable places to live and cluster their commercial needs.
None of these scenarios are new, but fortunately Steiner puts some numbers behind his case: At $14/gal, oil prices will functionally act as 25 percent tariff on everything we import from China. In a lot of cases that will mean that it’s more expensive to make it in China than it is to just make it here. Thus the withering of global supply lines. “Small towns across America will see their futures buoyed as manufacturing returns home.”
He thinks the country won’t get really serious about high speed rail investment until gas gets up around $18/gallon and the airline industry has essentially disappeared as an option for everyone but the riches. To do it right would probably cost into the trillions. There will be good and bad in high energy prices, says Steiner. “High-speed trains, however, will be unequivocally good and welcomed by all.” All except Randall O’Toole, he must mean.
The high-speed rail system will need electricity to run it though, and Steiner rightly suggests that nuclear energy should be at the center of our low-carbon national energy strategy, together with agressively pursuing efficiencies and innovation and building out renewables as niche contributors.
Of course, nobody knows what the future holds. Steiner does a solid job of laying out a positive scenario: relocalization, densification, renaissances in rail and nuclear power, and decline of the culture of materialism. If it happens, awesome. But the bumps in the road will be wicked, of course, and while Steiner passingly acknowledges “difficulties,” he says almost nothing about them. Then again, people like Kunstler have already done plenty of that from the “peak oil” perspective. It is a relief, in any case, that that phrase seems to be fading, and smart people everywhere are starting to recognize that oil will simply be getting expensive in the future and we don’t have to turn it into a polarizing debate. Steiner does well functioning in that vein. His book moves all this stuff closer to the center of the American discourse, and that’s a major accomplishment.
But as a side note: Chris, tell your publishing company to get a good copy editor for the paperback. There are a few cringeworthy usage gaffes in here your editors should have picked up. “Las Vegas will perserve, but at less than half its current largesse,” for instance.
If you’ve read the book, or part of it, or are planning to, or just have an opinion on it anyway, please offer your thoughts in comments. We’d like the reviews to function more like discussions. Our next book review, hopefully late next week, will be of Wrestling with Moses: How Jane Jacobs Took On New York’s Master Builder and Transformed the American City
Tags: BOOK CLUB
the future will not be so rosy for those of us who live more than 2000+ miles from the nearest major land mass and have to import the vast majority of our food, energy, and other necessities and amenities.
I see from bifyu’s server info s/he is in Hawaii. Very good pt – don’t think addressed in book.
If Steiner is right, then perhaps buying that old house in a semi-distressed transition-zone area of New Haven might be a good idea then, right?
wow i’m amazed that he is calculating the effects out to $20/gallon. i would have thought we’d see massive changes in behavior and spending well by $8/gallon. $18/gallon before we really invest in HSR?
anyhow i hope these scenerios come true.
I like the direction he suggests, but he seems to say that America will go back to how it was in the 50s without considering technological advances. While gas will get more and more expensive, there are already vehicles with alternative fuels so people will still be able to own cars, drive their U-Hauls and eventually fly across the country for cheaper than it is now. Despite the “happy” narrative you suggest, it is not as happy as it could be.
I think that when peak oil truly hits and the real changes start coming, I’m going to cry from the overwhelming mixed emotions of happiness for the positive changes and despair.
Thanks for the review. I can cancel my hold at the library.
Bifyu –
Are you talking about Hawaii? Man I’m seriously disappointed with that state. Hawaii really has no need to import anything, unless you think Maine lobster is a requirement – which I’ve actually seen on a menu in Honolulu. You could get enough geothermal energy off the big island to power New York City plus a million cars. Lovely place but terrible thinking in terms of sustainability.
When gas costs $20/gallon, I just need a car that gets about 94mpg to spend an equal amount on fuel costs as we do today. Given our family’s pattern of driving, a plugin hybrid with an electric range of 30 miles would provide the equivalent of more than 94mpg.
“about how high oil prices are coming and their going to cause an economic meltdown”
Who needs the copy editor?
Thanks for the review, Jebediah. Just started the audiobook. Very happy to see that the oil debate is finally becoming sophisticated enough to yield scenario-building about the effect of rising prices on technology and society as opposed to books that facilely claim there’s no transition coming (The Bottomless Well) or that we’re all doomed (Kunstler). Looking forward to hearing the rest of the book.
I read this book. It’s straight-up good. For a non-fiction work, it’s a legitimate page turner.
What I don’t get about the Kunstler crowd and their doom scenario: they seem to assume that the oil is just going to shut off completely at some point. While that theory lends itself well to an apocalyptical The Long Emergency-style outlook, it really doesn’t make any sense. Even if oil production goes down, say, 15 percent during the next 10 years (and that’s A LOT), we’re still extracting 70 million barrels a day from the earth. That’s still a ton of oil. So what happens? The price goes up and we adjust our lives–which is exactly the case and point of Steiner’s book.
“$20 Per Gallon” can run a bit on the rosy side, but it’s far more realistic and well-researched than Kunstler’s book.
Touche, I suppose. But let’s stipulate: there are many typos on this site and there always will be until we get an actual copy editor (I am not a very good one) and that will be approximately never. What I was pointing out was something a bit different.
JR
I think substantive changes in people’s willingness to embrace alternative development models will happen quite a bit sooner — around $9 per gallon.
However, I also think that we’ll be seeing gunfire around suburban gas stations at $6 or $7. That’s not going to be a pretty transition point.
I’m a peak oil believer having read “twilight in the desert” but Kunstler is tired hack on a jeremiad, might give this a look over. Good review, cheers!
I present an alternative vision of the future. If people were observant they would notice that currently there is an increase in crime and increasingly weird ones as well. As gas prices increase together with inflation on other consumables without increasing employment and wages watch for the guns and ammo being stocked at the moment to be brought out. This is not going to be Woodstock.
JR,
I think it’s possible you got an early “review version” of the book that had yet to go through final proof readings. For instance, the Las Vegas passage you mention (on p. 79 of my book) reads correctly with no misspellings, unlike the version you quote.
Don’t those review copies come with giant stickers on the front that say “uncorrected proofs, not for sale” or something like that? Isn’t it kind of bush league to levy copy-editing criticism on an early, uncorrected version of the book?
Food for thought.
Dave,
Well, it was usage issues (e.g. “largesse” is misused in that sentence–it has nothing to do with size) I was pointing out, not regular old-fashioned copy mistakes. And that kind of stuff really does need immediate fixing. I was using the first ed hardback, not a review copy.
JR
Hmmm. My copy reads differently and the book has only been out three weeks.
@ The_Observer
Actually, crime in the US has dropped since the recession began 18 months ago. Check out an article written by Shaila Dewan: “From New York to Los Angeles to Madison, Wis., major crimes, violent or not, are down 7 to 22 percent over the same period last year. In Chicago, the number of homicides dropped 12 percent. In Charlotte, N.C., hard hit by the banking crisis, that total fell an astounding 38 percent. It is too soon to conclude that crime will decline throughout the recession, and the new numbers, which come from standardized reports that police departments send to the FBI, have yet to be made into a national measure.”
This is a bit of a curiosity to criminologists, because, in a recession crime is supposed to go up, not sharply down. And no one really knows why.
I remember 2 years ago how Hell would freeze over when gas went over $3 / gallon. Well it went over $4, then the economy tanked and it’s back under $3 again (maybe not for long). I see plenty of Escalades (not the hybrid versions) running around in Northern Virginia, so I believe there is still the Bottomless Well mentality that exists, especially among the Limbaugh/Hannity/Levin/Palin crowd, which by the way is much larger than we think (spending time outside the Beltway, Bay Area or Manhattan is highly educational for those who think we are headed toward a new green society).
As for crime – the murder rate may be down, but the mass murder and bizarre family death rate seems to be climbing, if the media coverage isn’t overblowing it. All I can think of is….can you say “1970′s”?? Folks are talking about “eco-driving” now, i.e., gee, let’s drive 55 again! As for the murder rate, I’m just waiting for the next John Gacy, Gary Gilmore, Son of Sam, SLA, and Jim Jones to pop up……oh yeah, I forgot we’re still trying to find Osama bin a Terrorist (and I thought Bush had been hiding him so we had a reason to fight).
I dont have any links to back it up, but I remember reading that at $4 a gallon, demand started to fall. I think we have a lot of optional use that can go away as prices start to rise.
Colin -
This is one story that sticks out in my mind:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/25/business/25exurbs.html
A lot of optional use *will* go away — but I suspect the definition of “optional” might prove rather liberal.
JR
My prediction is that telecommuting will become the rule, not the exception, along with a bunch of the stuff predicted here. Good NTY article JR.
@ Dallas
Why should criminologists be surprised? If I were to ask them two questions it would be: “Are the police, FBI and other agencies accurately reporting the figures for calls for help and other investigations ?” and “What would be the percentage of crimes that don’t get reported?” Surely the crime statistics depends on whether crimes are reported, when the criminals are caught and the actually “time-stamping” of when any crime has occurred. Consider corruption such as pay-to-play by politicians and administrative staff which is endemic in the USA. They are only getting investigated and caught now but it’s been going on for donkey years. Crimes by financial advisors, hedge funds, etc are certainly on the increase as the economic crisis has basically shaken these monkeys out. Those such as Madoff spanned an unbelievable 30 years+. There would be new crimes committed by white collar workers now except that they are probably busy filling in forms for all this stimulus money the government is doling out.
Then demographics may playing a part in the dampening of the crime statistics. Because people are having smaller families in the USA today which plays a part in the reduction of the 18 – 40 age group responsible for most crime. Also at the moment a awful large amount of men in the 20-40 group age have been imprisoned in the USA. Then there is the military where a large number of men aged 18 -35 are currently serving overseas in Iraq and Afghanistan.
These same demographics can however spring a surprise of their own. For example, California over the next two years is going to give up to 37,000 prisoners early release owing to budgetary constraints. Look to other states to follow suit. Military personnel after serving their tours of duty will be coming back to the mainland USA and will be needing and wanting jobs. There had better be jobs waiting for all these people as these and other sources may be placing highly skilled, highly organized potential criminals and killers among the general population.
I surely hope not but then I am a pessimist by nature.
I am indeed in Hawaii. Maine lobster notwithstanding, even if (and I think it’s debatable) we could meet our energy needs through geothermal and solar, there is still the problem of other food and other material goods for the population of 1.2M+. The economy is also heavily based on tourism. With air travel infeasible, we can say aloha to that… as well as being stranded ourselves.
This sounds like a less smart version of Toffler’s Future Shock. Maybe I should write a predictions book too?
As an astute commenter observed, at $4 a gallon our economy basically melted down. Certainly prices will go up, with inflation they always will. The question is of course how fast? If prices double in 2 years then yes our economy will sour again. If we cross the 5 dollar mark in less than five years I’m thinking another Great Depression. Putting a rosey picture on that strikes me as foolish, to say the least.
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[...] Review: What Will Life Be Like In the US When Gas Costs $20 Per Gallon? Not to suggest the subject or Steiner’s argument aren’t serious. Both are. But before offering modest praise and a modest critique, we have to say that we kept imagining a conversation involving some combination of the agent, editor and publisher prior to the book being written that really stressed how important it was to make this a positive book–after all, everybody is sick of downers like Jim Kunstler talking about oil crashes. And since negative scary arguments apparently just make people retreat deeper into their cocoons of denial where their only sustenence is crime dramas and celebrity blogs, it’s important to keep. it. happy. We’re serious: HAPPY! Thus sentences like this one in the introduction: “The future will be exhilarating.” [...]
More people will choose bicycles as a way to get around and they will be happier people. Denmark was judged the happiest country – a nation of bicyclists!
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