...anyone who is willing to commit suicide for the cause.
The world abandoned so called "renewable energy" in the early 19th century on the grounds that most people - even more so than today - lived short miserable lives of dire poverty. That population was 1/7th of what we have today.
The belief that we can survive on so called "renewable energy" is therefore not progressive; it is reactionary, and, in fact, highly elitist.
I ask people who believe that the answer is only population control, who the six people among any group of 7 are who must die so we can all live sustainably. No one ever answers; they just behave as if I am nuts.
We know, by observation, that the countries with the lowest birth rates are precisely those where people are secure in their homes, have health care, education, food and useful work. Many companies like Japan, Finland and others have birth rates below the replacement rate.
The world as of 2018, was consuming just shy of 600 exajoules of energy, dominated by growing amounts of dangerous fossil fuels. Coal, and not so called "renewable energy" has been the fastest growing source of energy on this planet in the 21st century.
The reason that people use dangerous fossil fuels is their high energy to mass ratio.
Were we to raise the energy efficiency of our energy systems, I have convinced myself, after many, many, many years of difficult study, that we could conceivably achieve human development goals on 600 exajoules of energy per year, perhaps even less. The laws of thermodynamics dictate - they cannot be repealed by a legislature or even a dictator - that the highest efficiency is achieved with the highest temperatures.
A caveat to high efficiency energy as a saving grace is Jevon's paradox, which must be addressed, perhaps by regulation.
The fuel with the highest energy densities, capable of running at the highest temperatures are all the actinides. We have mined (and in many cases discarded) enough uranium and thorium to supply all the world's energy needs for centuries to come. Uranium, in particular, is inexhaustible. We have accumulated prodigious amounts of plutonium, neptunium and americium. We have grown to hate the use of actinides on the left, and do so for highly irrational reasons, holding them to a standard of "safety" that we attach to no other form of energy. Seven million people each year die from combustion waste known as "air pollution" and still we are concerned about so called "nuclear waste" about which in general, very few opponents of it know a damned thing. The reality is that so called "nuclear waste" hasn't killed anyone for decades, and almost all of its components are valuable.
If we want a sustainable world - and I believe it is a crime against all future generations that we have done nothing effective to build one - 6 out of 7 of us can volunteer to commit suicide - which won't happen, everyone thinks they should be #7 who survives = or we can think.
Since we refuse to think and refuse to identify the six people who must be killed we have little hope of ethically building a sustainable world. Here in the US, we think the problem is Trump. Trump is a problem, one of the worst people ever to have held any power, but if we really, really, really, really want to find the culprits for this tragic outcome of the human condition, the best device for doing so would be a mirror.
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