This month is the planet’s hottest on record by far – and hottest in 120k years

This does get more complicated when it's a societal level choice. You might feel subjectively energy-deprived at a very different point to me. At the same time though, a well-designed low-energy regime isn't perceived by its citizens as despotic. There's very little call (nowadays) to smash Houston-style freeways through Europe's semi-pedestrianised neighbourhoods. Curiously, this was not the case in lower-information times, but the intersection of high bandwidth/discoverability and walkability is a much bigger topic.

Now I'm old enough to remember Eastern Bloc totalitarianism, and I find the current Gen Z fashion/fetish of all things DDR/Soviet vaguely tragic, but the outcome of the path we're on right now is at least equivalent to tyranny, at least for the three billion or so people at the pointy end of it all.

What other concept so concisely captures the difference between how our primitive ape ancestors lived, to how cavemen lived, to how the ancient cultures lived, to how we live now? Or how countries at different stages of development now are to each other?

The Human Development Index correlates highly with per capita energy expenditure[0]. It's basically a necessary but not sufficient component of human development; otherwise you'd see countries in the lower-right quadrant of that chart. I find it surprising that you have such a strong reaction to this.

> Follow the money

Of course, Big Oil lobbied for their interests. I'm sure solar executives spend money on lobbying, too. Doesn't mean that the public, especially the interested and motivated public ("those who take climate change seriously"), should have been duped by it.

No one is absolving Big Oil for their part in swaying public opinion, but the public should also grow a backbone.

> What about [...]

They're all good ideas. My point is that good ideas don't happen in a vacuum. Everything carries with it an opportunity cost. "Increasing renewable energy options" isn't something that happens as a result of someone waving a wand; it's accomplished using limited time and resources that could be used elsewhere. So when you implement those ideas by taking away from fossil fuels, you had better make sure that the tradeoff is worth it.

> What about increasing city density and improving subways and trains?

On this point especially, I'm all for reforming zoning so that cities can become more dense. This would alleviate so many problems in America's highly desirable cities that are laughably sparse compared to other world cities (but of course, the precious "neighborhood character"...).

And sure, let's improve transit systems. But how? Take a look at the MTA's budget[1]: only a quarter is paid for by fares, meaning that people who don't use the subway already pay for three-quarters of the MTA. Even pre-pandemic, fares were a little over a third[2]. And this is in the area with the highest transit usage percentage by far out of anywhere in the country; the one place where they should be able to make it work!

So it appears that there is already a high degree of subsidization of subways and trains. Given how rapidly the ridership experience is deteriorating in almost all American transit systems, it seems irresponsible to put even more tax dollars in that direction, without first addressing the issues that make people not want to ride them very much.

[0]: https://visualizingenergy.org/does-more-energy-use-increase-...

[1]: http://web.mta.info/budgetdashboard/Budget_Transparencyd.htm...

[2]: https://new.mta.info/sites/default/files/2019-03/MTA-2019-Ad...

That's a weird take. The West has colonized the rest of the world, enslaved people, exported cheap product to decimate local industry (sometimes at gunpoint), extracted resources (frequently with indigenous people working like slaves), propped up dictators, you name it ...

(I'm not particularly trying to blame the nebulous "West," as many other countries would have done the same if they had the chance. See what Japan did during WW2.)

... but we draw a line at trying to avert a global climate disaster?

Just this year, America was busy making sure China doesn't get the chips they want, by pressuring its own allies into not making more deals with China. And these things are considered completely normal and part of "business as usual" as long as they support the continued hegemony of America.

But talk about fending off the existential threat against the human civilization, and people are like "Oh no! Won't anybody think about those poor Indians who need their gas-powered cars!!"

Even if the plants were cost competitive, which they are not, the existing ones are only built to last 30-50 years which means they'll age out and be replaced by renewables on that timescale at the very worst.

Powerful interests working to push back public opinion and paying politicians is an obstacle too though, for sure.