[AlanE]

Originally Posted by Piwoslaw

There's an alternative (pun!) to covering growing global energy needs: Reducing those needs.

Exactly right. The MUST condition being invoked is just a furtherance of a particular religious viewpoint for there are other alternatives which invalidate the MUST condition.

And I don't mean just increasing efficiency, which should be done anyway.

Do you travel anywhere for vacation or recreation? Are those valid reasons for using energy? Look, there is nothing holy about being energy efficient. There are reasons to be energy efficient but as with everything in life, there are trade-offs. Saving energy is not some holy gesture in and of itself. If saving energy was a holy effort then you and everyone else would never be permitted to squander energy by driving to visit a relative, by taking a train to go to the ocean shore, by going on a plane to visit a far off land for vacation or business, by eating oranges and bananas if one lived in Europe, for it takes energy to transport those fruits to people in Europe and for what, dietary variety, which isn't a matter of survival but rather is an activity which enhances quality of life, and thus not NECESSARY. There are trade-offs involved between using energy and saving energy. Being energy efficient is usually synonymous with spending more money to save energy. Sometimes there are better uses for people's money. Sometimes the future benefits, when discounted to the present, don't make the investment worthwhile. There is no universal answer here.

The best strategy is to make energy efficiency more cost effective than energy wastefulness. This dynamic is self-regulating in an environment of rising energy costs. People will act in their own self interest, rather than acting to advance an ideological position regarding the need to conserve energy simply for the sake of conserving energy.

Yes, it will probably mean that the economy will stop growing, or will even shrink, but must the economy always grow?

You're a new parent, if I recall correctly, so what do you propose that your children do when they become adults in a world where the economy has not grown since they were born? To answer your question, no the economy doesn't always have to grow - we all saw what happens when economies around the world contract. People generally don't like to live through economic recessions and depressions.