"But it (shale) was something to do, at least, if you were an oil company — an alternative to 1) doing no business at all, or 2) getting into some other line-of-work, like making yoga pants or gluten-free cupcakes." The author is a prominent American social critic, blogger, and podcaster, and we carry his articles regularly on RI. His writing on Russia-gate has been highly entertaining.
He is one of the better-known thinkers The New Yorker has dubbed 'The Dystopians' in an excellent 2009 profile, along with the brilliant Dmitry Orlov, another regular contributor to RI (archive). These theorists believe that modern society is headed for a jarring and painful crack-up.
You can find his popular fiction and novels on this subject, here. To get a sense of how entertaining he is, watch this 2004 TED talk about the cruel misery of American urban design - it is one of the most-viewed on TED.
If you like his work, please consider supporting him on Patreon.
Editor's note: Kunstler is an expert on the shale question, which is central to his theory that the gradual drying up of hydrocarbon energy around the world is going to lead to inexorable economic and social upheaval.
It is great to have someone writing about this in a way that not only doesn't make ones eyes glaze over, but is actually fun and entertaining.
Shale is also central to Russia's fortunes. The Russians invented fracking in the 70s and never implemented the technology because it is not profitable. They have been very dismissive of it in recent years, arguing that it is a short term phenomenon made possible with ultra-low interest rates and is ultimately economically unsustainable, which coincides with Kunstler's view.
Should the US shale industry get ship-wrecked on the rocks of rising interest rates, global oil prices will rocket to economy-busting highs again, albeit giving a temporary windfall to low-cost producers like Russia, Iran, and Saudi Arabia.
As of this week, the shale oil miracle launched US oil production above the 1970 previous-all-time record at just over ten million barrels a day. Techno-rapturists are celebrating what seems to be a blindingly bright new golden age of energy greatness. Independent oil analyst Art Berman, who made the podcast rounds the last two weeks, put it in more reality-accessible terms: “Shale is a retirement party for the oil industry.”
It was an impressive stunt and it had everything to do with the reality-optional world of bizarro finance that emerged from the wreckage of the 2008 Great Financial Crisis. In fact, a look the chart below shows how exactly the rise of shale oil production took off after that milestone year of the long emergency. Around that time, US oil production had sunk below five million barrels a day, and since we were burning through around twenty million barrels a day, the rest had to be imported.
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