I totally agree that we've made great progress in providing material abundance since the start of the fossil fuel era. Unfortunately, we're heading toward the

I totally agree that we've made great progress in providing material abundance since the start of the fossil fuel era. Unfortunately, we're heading toward the end of this era. Without some kind of miracle (this isn't totally unlikely, but we can't exactly count on it), we will have to either dramatically lower our average standard of living, or reduce our population, in order not to totally overwhelm the planet's carrying capacity and therefore die out totally. Most likely, we'll need to do a bit of each. The trouble is that it's hard to get most people behind a plan that says, basically "We are reducing everyone's standard of living, including those of you making $1/day and those of you making $100,000 a minute. We all have to do our part." A still-difficult but much easier sell is "We're reducing inequality by giving some of us a hand up, and the richest of us are going to pitch in to help. We can't all live like Trump or the Sultan of Brunei but we can all be free from want without destroying the planet or suffering any mass-genocides." The easiest sell of all is "We can all be rich and live like modern-day Americans for eternity! All we need to do is de-regulate all of these job-creating, wealth-producing industries and boom! Invisible hand!" But that's a lie. Unfortunately, the easiest sell is the one that gets sold, but that's not to say that the middle one isn't something we can shoot for when the Plan A status quo becomes coming apart at the seams. Whether that will be too late remains to be seen.