I think the world's middle class of over a billion people would be unwilling to voluntarily cut direct and indirect energy consumption more than about 20%. I'm talking about less driving, bare bones holiday travel, no air conditioning, lower protein diet and so on. However the combination of oil depletion at 5-10% a year and the goal of reducing coal burning by 60% means we will one day have enforced energy cuts well beyond this -20% 'comfort zone'. So unfortunately we will have to adapt to some combination of rationing (eg by wealth) and less-than-ideal energy sources both coal and nuclear. We are locked in to some degree of economic sacrifice and climate change until we get the balances right.

A simple example of energy efficiency.

In my otherwise unheated office of twelve square meters, I use a 1000 watt oil heater during winter. I was still somewhat cold, so should I replace the heater with a more powerful model? Instead I decided to move its location to under the desk. I found that I needed to turn thermostat from 9 down to 4. Problem solved.

So instead of increasing consumption, there was a way of halving it.

Companies around the world are doing the same on a much larger scale with their various processes.

Solving the global warming is not about going backward. It's about going forward.

David Latimer, I hope that the disagreements I sometimes have with your posts are not terminated by your going to sleep at the oil-heater warmed desk due to carbon monoxide poisoning.

David Latimer says, "Solving the global warming is not about going backward. It's about going forward." Well said!
But a crucial component of the problem has not been mentioned and I think that is 'democracy'. Most people aren't going to vote for a party that wants to clip their wings because they are greedy and ego-centric. Less wasteful lifetsyles have to be made ego-friendly. Instead of people being proud of conspicuous consumption they need to be proud of being clever. It is happening slowly but the ecology image has to dump all the connections to feminism and gay rights etc that have completely discredited it. "Look at me! My XYZ gets 100 kilometres to the litre!

Professor Lowe, you are dead right, if a little too optimistic. On both fronts – climate change and peak oil – the urgently required response from decision makers is simply not there. Both horses have bolted.

Despite this, there is a lot to be optimistic about.

Turning away from oil dependency will cause some temporary hardship, for sure, perhaps even civil war and bloodshed in places, as scarcity bites deep.

But then for every negativity there will be many more positives.

Oil dependency has given us personal mobility, which we all love, but at an immense price. It has given us the road carnage, polluted and alienating cities, unsociable cultures, the obesity pandemic, raging consumerism - these leading on to a catalogue of social ills like drug dependency, mental disorders and now the onset of resource wars and consequent terrorism.

By contrast, those who walk and ride bikes and grow community food and spend quality time with their children are finding out that their lives become immediately more convivial, socially enriched, healthier and mentally and spiritually uplifting.

Good people like Professor Lowe do need to alert decision makers to the critical dangers we all face. But naked alarm is not empowering. We need to build new, realistic visions of society that are so compelling people will want to join the rush.

This should be no harder than coaxing prisoners to come out of their cells and enjoy, for the first time, the exquisite freedom of their dreams.

The heroic Professor Lowe gets the usual hysterical reactions from ostriches like Perseus and Anti-green - methinks they do protest too much. The truth is uncomfortable and so the reaction of some frightened minds is, as always, to shoot the messenger.