For those who have all the that, the de-growth camp asks that people give up meat, down-size their houses and give up one of their cars. Maybe they should, but that will never win any popular support. The answer is always both though, we need to make things more efficient and produce more energy than ever using renewables.
Products advertised as "energy saving" are almost invariably worse.
E.g. modern dishwashers use much less energy, but also take much longer (4 hours instead of 1 hour).
If there are products that are equivalent in functionality but use less energy (housing insulation? heat pumps?), I'm all for it.
More expensive systems to consume less are logical in cities or for things that can't be scheduled, when p.v. and other renewable with similar output characteristics can't be used.
Much of the rest is just not for efficiency but for sell cheaper crap for the OEM at a bigger price for the customers.
I don't think a willingness to accept less energy for a decade or two, constitutes an anti-civilization agenda. I don't even think the small fraction of extremists who want everyone living on an organic commune are anti-civilization.
Sounds like "two weeks to flatten the curve". Very slippery slope. Expect a lot of people to oppose it (me included). Especially since there will invariable be different rules for the elites (same as with the pandemic).
Another necessary short term sacrifice to lessen the risk to society?
> Very slippery slope
I don't know where you're scared "increase effeciency" or "waste less" will go. It's perfectly fine to have gripes with how that gets accomplished. "Fuel taxes are bad because X", "cap and trade would be terrible" or "Windmills suck", I get, "using less energy is bad", I do not get.
> Especially since there will invariable be different rules for the elites
I mean, the most common proposal is taxes on consumption to fund clean energy and/or cleanup. Not really a "different rules" situation in my mind.
On the other hand, if anyone wants to use more energy the onus is on them to explain how we can do that within our carbon budget, when we're not even living within our budget currently.
Deep ecologists have decided once and for all that technology and science won't provide the solution, hence what you call their " anti-civilization agenda".
Let's take a step back and look at things calmly. You want not to be restrained in your way of life. But a better efficiency enable to do the same with less energy. So you'd be not restrained in any way. Therefore there is no reason to want to use "more energy" as a goal by itself.
Better efficiency implies batter technologies and better Science. This is where too many ecologists get it wrong.
However, we can also say that technologies don't mechanically provide a better world.
Biotechnology has resulted in a massive use of pesticides that kills biodiversity while the agro-tech business make people fat through over-processed food and ingredients bad for health.
Technology also enable us to do industrial wonders but they also pollute (rare metal extraction for example).
Eating food bad for your health and living within high level of pollution don't look to me as great civilizational achievements, do they?
Last point: we need "clean energy", not "cleaner". Science has demonstrated how fast climate changes and biodiversity plummets. In the short term, the cleaner, the better - but that can last only during a rather short transition time to really clean energy.
Many countries have at last got out of endemic poverty. Many African countries before the Covid were growing their GDP by 3 to 5% per year. It's great but that means their use of energy is rising fast.
So to stop the climate change, we really need to transition much faster. Many ecologists don't see that transition even starting ; neither do they see science and technology provide the solution on the coming years. Hence their agenda of rationing.
I can't see that agenda being politically feasible. I personally conclude that we will hit a wall collectively. When climate will be so bad and the collapse of biodiversity will directly hit our way or life, then we will take the hard decisions.
I don't believe in a civilization collapse. Books by true historians have debunked every claim of a civilization collapse due to overuse of the natural resources. And even so, we are super resilient animals, super efficient as organizing and adapting when necessary.
But, as you rightly pointed out, we are not equal in this world. The huge costs when hitting the wall will not be fairly splitted. The wealthier you are in a wealthier country you are, the less you are likely to suffer from it.
Since you don't want any change in your way of life, you should aim to belong to the 1%. Because 99% of us will have to change.
And even so, being part of the 1% doesn't protect you totally, far from it. Driving a Bugatti won't matter much if a tree fall onto you because of a big storm. And you won't escape a pandemic either.
Some people prefer to be super rich and live in fear all the time of being attacked. I prefer a system where every job provides a decent way of life so streets are safe.
That is the same for climate. Some will prefer living in huge mansions with underground self-sufficient bunkers. I prefer that everyone gets to live in a super energy efficient place so that we don't need bunkers against tornadoes. Because when the tornado arrives, you'll making an errand 30 miles away and your children will be 10 miles from that bunker as well.
The solution is collective. Hence my pessimism: we will change our way of life only when it will have become unbearable. Nature will be deep into the already current 6th extinction, meaning that it will restart despite us. But that takes thousands of years. So we will have to change our way of life starting from a low point rather than starting now.
So the ecologists' agenda is not irrational. That may hurt your wanting to keep your way of life. Maybe you will be able to. But your children and your grandchildren will have quite different conditions.
Except if Science and technology provides a way out. Many bet on it. That's not irrational either but the time is the issue. We need to capture huge amounts of CO2 and methane in the next 20 years to maintain our way of life. Is this a reasonable bet?
Well, if we collectively invested trillions of dollars to reach that goal, I may take the bet. For now, we prefer bail-out the wealthier of us ; and some lunatics leaders around the world will force us to spend that money on the military.
"Good night and good luck".
"Fighting Climate Change" is all sunshine and rainbows and photovoltaics until you realise that the messaging has been thoroughly usurped by an anti-civilisation regressive agenda. They don't want people using cleaner energy; they primarily want people using less energy; they sell that goal with promotion of "eco" and "green" etc.
I want us to use more AND cleaner energy; one without the other is a civilisation-level failure.