PUBLIC MARKS from multilinko with tag oil

Among the more fashionable of recently perceived (or contrived) apocalypses is "the end of suburbia," a notion popularized by a documentary of the same name, which argues coming oil scarcity will soon make modern suburbs uninhabitable. If only it were true! For the sake of suburbanites alone, the end of suburbia would be a blessing. But that's not happening. To the extent we understand suburbia as a single place, wherever it occurs -- an uncomfortably definitive mould, a collection of syndromes masquerading as a lifestyle -- it is all too robust. We made our bed over the past half-century, shaping increasingly homogeneous, car-dependent, overconsuming, overworked, socially exclusive suburbs, and now we must lie in it.

In this year's State of the Union address, President Bush told us that it was time to get serious about America's addiction to foreign oil. The next day, we found out that his idea didn't sit too well with the Saudi Royal Family. A few hours later, Energy Secretary Bodman backtracked and assured the world that even though the President said he planned to reduce the amount of oil we import from the Middle East, he actually didn't mean that literally. If there's a single example out there that encapsulates the ability of unstable, undemocratic governments to wield undue influence over America's national security just because of our dependence on oil, this is it.

1965 was an incredibly significant year for modern civilisation. Because, although this fact went largely unremarked for three decades, it was the year in which our rate of crude oil discovery stopped rising and began to fall. It was the year of peak discovery, and since 1965 we have been steadily finding less.

Say goodbye to your suburban house, yoke up that horse, and stand by to repel pirates! Author James Howard Kunstler talks about the dire world of his new book, "The Long Emergency."