The salient fact about the decades ahead is that we are entering a permanent global energy crisis and it will change everything about how we live.
The skyscraper - any building over seven stories really - will come to be seen as an experimental building type that doesn't work well in an energy-starved economy.
There is not going to be a "hydrogen economy," and no combination of alternative energy systems or fuels will allow us to continue the suburban pattern. It's finished. We will, however, desperately need to grow more of our food closer to home, and so the preservation of agricultural hinterlands is of great importance. But don't expect the fiesta of suburban construction to continue more than a few more years.
Anyone who studies the energy predicament understands its connection with the operations of capital - and by this I do not mean capitalism as an ideology, I mean the behavior of acquired wealth and its deployment for productive purpose. (A lot of educated idiots don't understand this, and we waste a lot of time blathering about capitalism.)
Once energy problems gain traction, there will be a large new class of economic losers, and consequently a lot of social turbulence.
I'm not against Kyoto. I just think it's a fantasy, especially considering China's energy predicament and their coal supplies.
We are in for a fiesta of default, repossession, and distress selling of suburban property, much of which will lose its presumed usefulness and monetary value in an energy-scarce economy.
Under the current high energy / high entropy regime, sustainable development is a joke.
