"We of the richer societies, who have had access to more energy than we have the experience to wield intelligently are making decisions we are not qualified to make almost every time we enter the voting booth, go to the grocery store or step into a car show room. We do not know what is "normal." Because our whole life and in some respects a generation or two before us have only known this era of fossil fuel exploitation and resource grabbing; we call this normal."