"It is no exaggeration to state that reliable supplies of cheap [and easy-to-find hydrocarbons like] oil and natural gas underlie everything we identify as a benefit of modern life. All the necessities, comforts, luxuries, and miracles of our time–central heating, air conditioning, cars, airplanes, electric lighting, cheap [ready-to-wear] clothing, recorded music, movies, supermarkets, power tools, hip replacement surgery, the national defense, you name it–owe their origins or continued existence in one way or another to cheap fossil fuel. Even our nuclear power plants ultimately depend on cheap oil and gas for all the procedures of construction, maintenance, and extracting and processing nuclear fuels. The blandishments of cheap oil and gas were so seductive, and induced such transports of mesmerizing contentment, that we ceased paying attention to the essential nature of these miraculous gifts from the earth: that they exist in finite, nonrenewable supplies, unevenly distributed around the world."