Lee Johnson said...
Mr. Greer, you are exactly correct and perfectly accurate except for the final sentences. I was the co-editor of RAIN Magazine and wrote almost all the conservation and renewable energy, as well as oil, gas and coal, book reviews that were later compiled into RAINBOOK. It is my considered and experienced opinion of 33 years that we are not only a deer in the headlights, but that we are about to be hit and mortally wounded. The nation is doomed to die a slow death a la Kunstler's THE LONG EMERGENCY but without a reprieve or a set of integrated solutions. We are "a day late and a dollar short." We waited too long and have frittered away the money, time, talent and will required to make a transition to sustainable economics and culture without major and killing hardships. The optimism of Americans; their faith in the techno-fix; their belief nothing bad can happen to them; all those views and myths are about to be tested big-time. Oh, we will finally do some things after several worsening energy crises coming closer and closer together in time, but such last minute desperation moves will cause extreme hardship that I believe most of my fellow citizens are not tough enough to stomach. I would not suggest, as you did, that people read RAINBOOK. They should be reading the only blueprint and forecast for what is about to happen to them, and how to garner the least modicum of security: THE PROSPEROUS WAY DOWN by Dr. Howard T. Odum, his last book before he died. All else is dross and, as you noted with such keen perception, being repeated ad nauseum as we make the same mistakes again. Lee Johnson, OMSI Energy Center, 1972-1974; Ecotope (Seattle), 1972-1978; RAIN: Journal of Appropriate Technology, 1973-1978; Western SUN, 1978-1982; City of Portland (OR) Energy Office, 1983-1990; MicroWeir Co., 1991-2002.
9/6/06, 2:54 AM
