One point needs to be made here. The climate crisis was always about alternative energy sources. That technology does seem to be coming along, so that we’re not necessarily going toward an energy-poor future—if we can live long enough to get there.

It’s important to understand that there are two phases with different concerns. In the very near term conservation is a big issue and we will need to deploy whatever carbon-saving technologies are available regardless of expected lifetime. Scientists have given us a carbon budget, and we have to stay under the cap or risk disaster. It’s worth noting that carbon capture is highly energy intensive, and unlikely to be a silver bullet.

Something like twenty years out we can think about nuclear fusion and other alternative technologies fully replacing the current reliance on fossil fuels. In that world the issue will be adapting everything to electricity or hydrogen as needed, but conservation will not be the issue—and the rest of the world can think about progress. We will still have other classes of environmental issues, but abundant energy can help with some of them, fresh water for example.

The situation is actually sort of parallel to covid, where there were also two phases: pre-vaccine, where the issue was population management to keep people alive, and then vaccination once the vaccines were available.

For energy we have to do what it takes to survive in the near term, but that doesn’t mean we’re going to a grim energy-starved future even twenty years out