[Marha01]

Perhaps you are right in principle, but I think advocating for degrowth is entirely hopeless. 99% of people will simply not chose to decrease their energy usage if it lowers their quality of life even a bit (including things you might consider luxuries, not necessities). We also tend to have wars and any idea of degrowth goes out of the window the moment there is a foreign military threat with an ideology that is not limited by such ways of thinking.

The only realistic way forward is trying to make energy generation greener (renewables, nuclear, better efficiency), not fighting to decrease human consumption.

[breuleux]

I agree that people won't accept degrowth.

This being said, I think that the alternatives are wishful thinking. Better efficiency is often counterproductive, as reducing the energy cost of something by, say, half, can lead to its use being more than doubled. It only helps to increase the efficiency of things for which there is no latent demand, basically.

And renewables and nuclear are certainly nicer than coal, but every energy source can lead to massive problems if it is overexploited. For instance, unfettered production of fusion energy would eventually create enough waste heat to cause climate change directly. Overexploitation of renewables such as solar would also cause climate change by redirecting the energy that heats the planet. These may seem like ridiculous concerns, but you have to look at the pattern here. There is no upper bound whatsoever to the energy we would consume if it was free. If energy is cheap enough, we will overexploit, and ludicrous things will happen as a result.

Again, I actually agree with you that advocating for degrowth is hopeless. But I don't think alternative ways forward such as what you propose will actually work.

[Marha01]

If humanity's energy consumption is so high that there is an actual threat of causing climate change purely with waste heat, I think our technological development would be so advanced that we will be essentially immortal post-humans and most of the solar system will be colonized. By that time any climate change on Earth would no longer be a threat to humanity, simply because we will not have all our eggs in one basket.