Once energy problems gain traction, there will be a large new class of economic losers, and consequently a lot of social turbulence.

The Long Emergency will be chiefly characterized as a "time out" from technology. It could plunge us into a dark age of superstition. My guess is that we will lose a lot of knowledge and skill. But I also believe the human race desperately needs this "time out."

Two decades from now, I doubt that the home building industry, so called, will even exist as we have known it.

When a society is stressed, when it comes up against things that are hard to understand, you get a lot of delusional thinking.

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.

I believe our techno-zealotry will be moderated by sheer circumstance. We will do what reality compels us to do, not necessarily what our fantasies propose.

Painting allows me to use other portions of my brain pleasurably. Irony plays no part in what or how I paint. I paint the particular subject matter not to make polemical points but because I am interested in the human imprint on the landscape. I paint the landscape of my time and place with the stuff in it.