Sorry it took me so long to notice this comment. You’re correct about the doomer fallacies, of course – I’d imagine folks who spend so much time fantasizing about this on the Internet just indulge in escapist fantasies instead of doing more productive things that would actually help them survive. In particular many of them appear to be essentially loners, whereas it’s well known that during collapse it is of the utmost importance to insert yourself into a community or circle with varied skills and connections.

Since I plan the book to be a “future history”, I’m not really thinking of proposing any concrete solutions – except as allusions to ideas that were suggested during the course of the early part of the 21st C. I see the future as highly bifurcated – either technology will decisively overtake limits to growth and we will usher in something resembling paradise; or the limits prove unmanageable and there is a widespread die-off, as occurred cyclically since times immemorial. How this turns out is going to be the main theme of the book.

A born-fiction-writer writing with a more learned, skeptical futuristic perspective might go a longer way in portraying realistic scenarios, and perhaps doing a better job of communicating the problems we face (and, dare I suggest, offering solutions that will save lives and result in improved conditions for individuals), rather than just delivering Doomer Porn, as your review suggests this work does.

Kunstler’s own penchant for Doomer Porn (from what I’ve read of his writing online) is one reason I’ve yet to read any of his books all the way through.

‘Solutions’ should not be “society collapses and 80% of humans die off and the remaining ones live in Arcadian paradise”, but rather should allude to how the next few generations can live with less, including less children, as solutions to the energy/resource inputs dilemmas are sought, whilst avoiding catastrophic die-off and still caring something for the rights of the individual (something even Medieval cities boasted).