The Big Misconception About Clean Energy

Showing graphs perfectly illustrating that we live in a carbon society, benefit from a carbon prosperity and a carbon democracy (I encourage you to read Thimothy Mitchell on this topic) and then saying « OK, I’ve figured it out, we just have to replace all the fossil fuel by (so-called) clean energy » emphasise the fact that you didn’t discover the solution, you’ve just understood the nature of the problem really.
A kind of renewable energy driven society is possible: it’s called the 17th century. Earth can carry 600 million of us, 80 per cent of humanity works in agriculture, there are horses in fields and windmills uphill. Democracy as we think of it doesn’t exist because most of us have to accomplish tasks directly related to the survival of the species and do not have any choice to make about it.
We could certainly hope (I personally do) that the crazy last three hundred years will leave us some useful technologies and insights on the best way to organise labour, women’s rights and political institutions. But we must face the fact that the world, as we know (7 billion humans, most of them wanting to live like an average early 21st-century American citizen), is most surely a spark about to burst.