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Honestly I find the arguments about dropping standards of living unconvincing. What do we need all these energy for? Mining bitcoins? Powering online ads? After I stopped driving car every day my standard of living has only gone up. I am sure stricter limits on energy consumption will only unleash untapped creativity and spawn the whole new industries and create tons of new jobs.

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Well, we use different sources for different things, but as a rule literally all fabrication and industrial activity uses energy. Eg, some big ones,

* Producing aluminium (Apple products) * Producing & storing food (Haber process is energy -> fertiliser @ ~1-2% of worlds energy, refrigeration will also be a big deal) * Transport (of food and goods) * Heating (probably a bigger deal in places like Europe)

Energy is secretly quite fungible - eg, we can burn fossil fuels directly for grid electricity and use grid electricity as a substitute for fossil fuels if the price differential between the two gets large.

If general energy costs go up, food prices go up. That is the most obvious link between energy prices and poverty, but there are other less clear ones.

I find it similar to arguments that try to scare me with "but then we won't be able to eat meat for every meal."

"Well, good," I think, "sounds like exactly what we need."

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