The germ theory, which emerged in the late nineteenth century, focused the world's attention on the specific agents responsible for... diseases, but … - James Howard Kunstler

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The germ theory, which emerged in the late nineteenth century, focused the world's attention on the specific agents responsible for... diseases, but the [physical,] social and ecological contexts are equally important [for it], and these are now coming more prominently into play with world population well beyond the limits of the earth's [sic] [...] [optimum] carrying capacity and with climate change... in progress. [...] Ecological... [pressures], rapid changes in land use, penetration of formerly inaccessible habitats, and disturbed migration routes can lead to the appearance or diffusion of a disease. While we may be able to identify [some, if not all] the microorganisms involved, we can be helpless in the face of it, and our behavior may still promote its spread.

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About James Howard Kunstler

James Howard Kunstler (born October 19, 1948, New York City, New York) is an American author, social critic, public speaker, and blogger.

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Climate change, competition for water, and polluted water sources will also be exacerbated by failures in the electric grid caused by oil and gas supply disruptions. Even if water is available, localities may lack the power to push it through their treatment plants and municipal pipes.

[Globalism's] demise will coincide with the end of the cheap-oil age. For better or worse, many of the circumstances we associate with globalism will be reversed. Markets will close as political turbulence and military mischief interrupt trade relations. As markets close, societies will turn increasingly to import replacement[s] for sheer economic survival. The cost of transport will no longer be negligible in a post-cheap-oil age. Many of our agricultural products will have to be produced closer to home, and... by more intensive... labor as oil and natural gas supplies become increasingly unstable. The world will stop shrinking and become larger again. Virtually all... the... relationships... that we have taken for granted as permanent will be radically changed [...]. Life will become intensely and increasingly local.

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If the folks who lived along this highway put in gardens to make up for the escalating inadequacies of an industrial farming system starved for fossil fuel “inputs,” would they be able to feed themselves? Did any vernacular knowledge survive in a populace conditioned to think that food came from the supermarket? Did they know anything about cabbage loopers, powdery mildew, or anthracnose? Would they be able to prevent catastrophic crop loss? How would they defend their crops against deer, rabbits, [and] woodchucks? Would any of them know how to build a garden wall or even a fence? Where would they get fencing material? Would they have to sit out among the potato hills and the bean rows at night with loaded shotguns? And what would they do for light when they heard something munching out there? Would they know how to keep chicken, sheep, [and] cattle, including breeding and birthing them?

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