One bizarre trait that strongly characterizes modern human civilization is a widespread inability to plan ahead. On every issue imaginable — debt spending, fossil fuels, health care costs, resource extraction and so on — our citizens and political leaders demonstrate near-retarded cognitive function by failing to see where their actions might lead. (And it’s almost as if they’re proud to be so stupid, too.)

There’s no better example of this than the city of Las Vegas, Nevada — a city of 600,000 people who almost universally depend on one lake for their water. MORE