The existing standard of living requires exponential growth and unbounded resource consumption. It isn't possible to maintain that while reducing energy consumption "almost completely." This isn't Star Trek where you can just outsmart the laws of thermodynamics and run everything on free energy and vibes.
A "raging environmentalist" should understand that, particularly given that climate change and the collapse of the ecosystem is already underway. The window for "Manhattan project" scale solutions passed decades ago, the only solutions available now are damage mitigation. The future is going to be about maintaining our survival and civilization, not a reasonable standard of comfort.
Hard disagree. China and India are adding massive amounts of renewable energy in the form of solar, wind and nuclear energy every year. Electric cars are basically selling like crazy in Europe and Asia and to a reasonable extent in the US. Our challenge in the US is simple. Destroy the oil lobby. This should be followed by large scale renewable energy installations and nuclear power plants. Use natural gas as a transitional energy source or in peaker plants to back up the renewables. You having one less room contributes almost nothing to the solution. A cruise ship is going to offset a 100 of your “hardship” gains in about 10 minutes of emissions.
A "raging environmentalist" should understand that, particularly given that climate change and the collapse of the ecosystem is already underway. The window for "Manhattan project" scale solutions passed decades ago, the only solutions available now are damage mitigation. The future is going to be about maintaining our survival and civilization, not a reasonable standard of comfort.