Charles Cresson Wood

This short-term thinking is what the child in each of us wants. This unevolved part of us just wants our reward, would rather not share any of the rewards, would really rather not be responsible, and would rather not make the effort to responsibly deal with other people (or other beings like animals). Although we don’t like to admit it, there really is a child within each of us.

The [US] Materials Management Service report claims that the ecological consequences of an oil spill could be ignored because such an event was “unlikely,” and besides, “no additional mitigation measures” would be needed in the event of a spill.* We now know that this was a horrendous mistake. Here, as in many other cases, the questions people ask are instrumental in creating the future they manifest.

Let’s compare the peak oil situation to three scenarios for which most large organizations have already prepared contingency plans: (1) a widespread flu pandemic, (2) a serious incident of workplace violence, and (3) a fire in a work related building. The calculations shown below are rough-and-ready, use a back-of-the-envelope style, and are intended only to make the point asserted in the title of this article.

This run-up-in-oil-prices-and-then-crash-in-recession cycle will continue until we actually move to other sources of energy.