the hairshirt brigade is dwindling with every new discovery in PV, and every MW of wind installed.

there is still some truth to the atonement principle, in that huge swathes of land needs to be reclaimed from the ravages of burbis and chem ag monocultures.

if we continue cling to fossil fuels as our main energy drivers instead of using them to help us transition asap, then we could quite well find ourselves in a terrible condition... this is the fear that creates the desire to atone for our past greedy stupidities, like a drunk after a bender.

were we to manage the transition expeditiously, rolling out mass transit and sustainable energy with urgency climate change demands, then we could conceivably keep many of our demands met without too much hiatus.

after we have completely crossed the energy rubicon (20-30 more years?) and definitively left dirty energy behind us, then i think we will be only limited by our imaginations as to how much energy we can play with.

it would do many people good to detox off of many wasteful habits we have in the first world, 1000 mile salads etc, but i think we will be grateful afterwards to have shed some of the excess, like people feel better after losing a few pounds from dieting.

exaggerating the guilt-trip some feel because of our collectively clumsy handling of our environment, needlessly polarises people, imho.

'The history of public debt is full of irony. It rarely follows our ideas of order and justice.' Thomas Piketty