The world will run out of cheap oil within the next few years, and this will end the debate over what to do about global warming, according to author James Howard Kunstler in his newest book, The Long Emergency.  (For details on Kustler, the anti-sprawl crusader and author of "Home from Nowhere" and other books, go to http://www.kunstler.com/).  

We'll stop pumping out so much carbon dioxide because our industries will run out of fuel.  The Kyoto Protocol and other attempts by the government to limit greenhouse gas emmissions will become irrelevant because of the looming oil crisis, Kunstler argues.

Environment Maryland, an advocacy group, is collecting signatures on a petition urging Gov. Martin O'Malley to take action against global warming.  In a recent report, the organization recommends greater fuel efficiency, more green buildings and other measures.  (For more information, see  http://www.environmentmaryland.org/reports).

But what if these efforts to cut back on the burning of oil and gas are trumped by....a sudden lack of oil and gas?  In a way, that might seem like good news, in the sense that we'd need no government action to get a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions.

But Kustler argues that a little global warming would seem pleasant compared to the ravages of a true oil crisis.  He predicts that, within a few decades, our petroleum-based economy will collapse, leading to a breakup of the U.S.  The whole suburb-building enterprise -- which is now the main engine of the U.S. economy, as our industries move overseas -- is based on cheap oil.  And without that oil and sprawl, chain stores like Wal Mart will cease to exist, people will abandon cul-de-sac commmunities dependent on cars, and America will violently lurch back into the era of horse and foot power, Kunstler argues.  Alternative fuels and vehicles won't be marketed quickly enough to prevent the economic black hole caused by skyrocketing oil prices.  And with this collapse will come the end of the federal government, and all big businesses and alternative fuel programs, the author asserts.

"There will be hunger instead of plenty, cold where there was warmth, effort where there was leisure, sickness where there was health, and violence where there was peace," Kunstler writes.

On the positive side, Americans will suffer less depression, because they will no longer be cogs in a dehumanizing system of chain stores and vast corporations.  They will have to farm, with their bare hands.  They will have to work together cooperatively, with their immediate neighbors in small rural communities.  And they will have to go to smaller local schools they can walk to.  Large universities will cease to exist.  Sounds a bit like Kunstler is conjuring up a Mao-like fantasy of collective farm life.  

Kunstler sees small towns in the East and Midwest faring best during the oil-starved "Long Emergency" fuel crisis.  These towns are still surrounded by farmland, so people will be able to get food to market without trucks.  And they still have sidewalks and local shops, so residents won't have to walk miles  from suburban subdivisions to distant malls to get basic supplies. 

But he sees the American southwest -- Pheonix and Las Vegas, for example -- returning to lifeless desert as the air conditioning is shut off.  Arizona, Nevada, California and New Mexico "will revert to being a barely habitable arid scrubland filled with abandoned tract housing, deserted freeways, vacated strip malls, decommissioned fast-food emporiums, and all the rest of the equipment that could be of use only in a cheap-energy economy."

In the states of the Old Confederacy, a culture of violence, religious fundamentalism and extreme individualism will lead to a lawless meltdown, Kunstler writes. In big cities like Baltimore and New York, the economic collapse will lead to rioting.  The Pacific Northwest will be plagued by pirates from China and other Asian nations that will be even more desperate when the lights go out.

Kunstler writes that people in the future will look back with wonder. "The richest nation in the world in the early 21st century had become an amazing panorama of ruined towns and cities with broken institutions and demoralized populations, surrounded by Wal Marts and Target stores."

Is this our future?   Or is Kunstler a crackpot neo-communist? 

DR. CINDY PARKER, a professor at the Johns Hopkins Center for Public Health Preparedness, wrote the following response about Kunstler's book, but noted that her personal opinion does not reflect the official position of her institution. 

DR. PARKER: "I wanted to comment on one particular point you made in the blog about the end of cheap oil ending the debate about what to do about global warming. I also thought that would be the case until I did some further research on the relationship between peak oil and global warming.