Adaptation, Habituation, Consumption and $9/Gallon Gasoline

Warning: Undefined variable $result in /var/www/peakoil.com/public_html/wp-content/plugins/random-image-widget/random_image.php on line 89

Warning: Undefined variable $result in /var/www/peakoil.com/public_html/wp-content/plugins/random-image-widget/random_image.php on line 89

Warning: Undefined variable $result in /var/www/peakoil.com/public_html/wp-content/plugins/random-image-widget/random_image.php on line 89

Warning: Undefined variable $result in /var/www/peakoil.com/public_html/wp-content/plugins/random-image-widget/random_image.php on line 89

Human beings resist change until there is no other choice, and then they adapt and habituate rather quickly.

Human beings are remarkably adept at short-sightedness and denial. 100,000 years of adapting to the roaming, nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyle rather naturally led to a mind and awareness attuned to satisfying present-day needs and exploiting near-term windfalls (a tree loaded with ripe fruit, etc.).

In the hunter-gatherer worldview, the future would take care of itself; the group cycled through its usual collection areas, and if these were barren, then it moved farther afield. In this fashion, homo sapiens colonized the entire habitable (in terms of hunting-gathering) planet in a series of migratory waves out of Africa.

Flash forward to the present and the notions that gasoline will someday cost $9/gallon, Medicare/Medicaid will go broke and credit-money will no longer be abundant and cheap to borrow. No matter how rational the case for these futures may be, the vast majority of humans have taken no actions to hedge or adapt to these potentially radical changes.

Charles Hugh Smith