> That is fundamentally false. Energy austerity is the road to poverty and more environmental damage. Not to mention war. Who said anything about austerity? It

> That is fundamentally false. Energy austerity is the road to poverty and more environmental damage. Not to mention war. Who said anything about austerity? Its only austerity of an authority forced reduced consumption on the people, I'm arguing that we should make that choice individually because it'd the right thing to do. > Nobody is claiming any miracles. Anyone claiming that wind and solar can replace fossil fuel use at the current rate of power consumption is claiming a miracle cure. Most models and targets aim for storage capacity as little as 8 hours, well below even the 3 day target that is often recommended in residential applications. A large-scale grid can't depend on a single night's worth of reserve capacity. > Lithium mining is not nearly the problem some of the propaganda suggest. At worsts its like other mining. Mostly its better. The total lithium amount needed is tiny even if you think all cars are going to be lithium batteries. If its similar to or only a bit better than current mining, isn't that a problem? As far as I'm aware we aren't only causing environmental damage via our use of consumable fuels, mining practices today also cause serious issues and destroy plenty of ecosystems. If you think that isn't actually a problem worth solving I'd be interested to hear more. > What you are really arguing actually is 'why should people in India and China be rich, it would be much better if they were poor'. > Are you gone determine what is 'rich enough' and when people should stop? Is Europe to rich already? You seem to be responding to something I never said. I never said anything about relative wealth, only about growth targets for gross domestic product. Your GDP can grow 2% whether you are starting out poor or rich. My argument is that we continue to use more energy at a similar rate to GDP growth. Natural resources are limited and our impact on the environment cannot follow limitless growth. Are you proposing that we can continue to use 2-3% more energy forever in perpetuity without consequence? If so please share more about how that would work. If not, then I guess we agree it isn't sustainable and can't go on forever.