AS I have discussed in past columns, the only rational way to approach the 'energy transition' is to reduce the scale of the problem we are trying to solve. If energy demand continues to grow, especially given that growth will be accelerated by our effort to electrify everything to reduce fossil fuel use, we will not be able to develop alternative energy sources fast enough to keep up. We will be further handicapped by the inevitability that the first decade or two of the energy transition will reduce the amount of available energy by at least 10 percent and perhaps as much as 30 percent.

We want the energy transition to happen, and it has to happen for our broader aim to arrest and reverse anthropomorphic climate change to be accomplished. Clean up energy production and the corrections to most of the other human causes of climate change will follow. We want to fix climate change, of course, because if we do not, we will render ourselves extinct.