ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to examine the long-range implications of the observed higher rates, should they continue and describes a guess about the likelihood of continued high rates of change. The energy price increase is almost surely a permanent change; a return to the Scenario I price level is virtually impossible. The changes in Scenario I are largely forced by circumstance; those in Scenario II are assumed to be more spontaneous or, at any rate, to be more indirectly brought about as people examine the consequences of a continuation of growth trends. One of the indications that attitudinal change may continue is the "dissynchronization" between prevailing shared social interests and the society's incentive system. The appearance of basic contradictions, and of "dissynchronization" between incentives and social interests, has in the past often been an indication of an approaching period of revolutionary or tranformational change.
