• Solar and wind have major problems, but “smallness” isn't one of them. The sun is very large.
• Suppose, for the sake of argument, that we were entering a historical period of great stability, inanity and self-indulgent consumer prosperity. Would this be a real letdown?
• I don’t see why Peak Oil guys are so eager to demonize the Chinese. Wouldn’t the ‘Yellow Peril’ be about ten times scarier if they were self-sufficient in energy?
• There were no mass migrations during the oil-deprived Dark Ages, unless you count Huns, Mongols, Vandals, Celts, Langobards, Avars, Angles, Saxons, Vikings, anyone who believed in Mohammed, and practically everybody else.

[Etc.]

— Bruce Sterling, taking the piss out of James Howard Kunstler (Viridian Note 449)