Carter's speech in 1979 was prescient: http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/jimmycartercrisisof... "We are at a turning point in our history. There are two paths to choose. One is a path I’ve warned about tonight, the path that leads to fragmentation and self-interest. Down that road lies a mistaken idea of freedom, the right to grasp for ourselves some advantage over others. That path would be one of constant conflict between narrow interests ending in chaos and immobility. It is a certain route to failure. All the traditions of our past, all the lessons of our heritage, all the promises of our future point to another path -- the path of common purpose and the restoration of American values. That path leads to true freedom for our nation and ourselves. We can take the first steps down that path as we begin to solve our energy problem."

Too bad we (US Americans) collectively picked the wrong path...

But thankfully some of us did go down the right path individually and in small groups. And so, for example, forty years later, solar power is now cheaper than coal, and electric cars are increasingly cost effective, and we know how to build super-insulated passive-solar homes in cold climates that do not require a furnace, and so on. We could have had that all decades earlier with a lot less suffering and pollution and other expenses from externalities -- and maybe had fusion power and thorium power too by now. But at least we made progress because of individuals with the same spirit of grace-full humanity, community-mindedness, persistence, and cooperation that Jimmy Carter demonstrates.