Cheap energy is a cornerstone of our (modern, American) way of life, to be sure, and losing it would be awful. For us. But there's the OP's point- climate cha

Cheap energy is a cornerstone of our (modern, American) way of life, to be sure, and losing it would be awful. For us. But there's the OP's point- climate change will screw over vast numbers of people who didn't even benefit from cheap energy to begin with. It would be interesting to see an in-depth quantitative analysis of the effects of dramatically reduced fossil fuel use versus dramatic climate change, in terms of a general global sum of badness (and if anyone knows of such a resource, please link it!) But there's more to the whole matter than global utilitarianism- there's also the sheer unfairness of the situation.