[Heineken]

Your argument is the argument of the "soft landing," Daryl. Yes, it's possible we could have one, but very unlikely, because the entire monster machine that constitutes civilization has been designed to run on cheap energy. It took about a century to build this machine, and we're all totally dependent on it and therefore committed to it. I think the landing will be hard and painful because the means for the restructuring you envision will simply not be there. The financial system will be wrecked and most of the earth's resources will have been wasted and degraded. Meanwhile there will be in place 7 billion or so people to feed and clothe and medicate etc. etc. and the infrastructure for doing all those things will be in total disarray.

I do think economic collapse is certain. That's because the human economic system is entirely underlain by the earth's natural capital. Since we are relentlessly bankrupting the natural capital, bankrupting of the derivative human capital system is inevitable.

We'd have to have a sea change today, now, this instant, to have even a pale hope for a soft landing.