Consider a personal approach to planning for a future with limited energy availability. There will be as many responses as there are people but let’s look at the extremes. One extreme response is to reduce consumption. This person tries to live without using cars for commuting or eating large meals at restaurants or having 10 children. In so doing, these people are well prepared for the future, if they survive!
For while one person reduces their consumption, another will increase theirs. And how will they increase it? They will capture the amount freed up by the reductionist. They will drive big cars, eat even more and look to maximize their gene’s survival. After all, we live in a Darwinian environment where only the strongest survive. On average, their many children will be strong and fit while the reductionists few children will, on-average, be weaker. As energy is a requirement for life, it’s also a requirement for strength and its only natural to want to capture energy.
Assuming the spread of energy change is the same across individuals, the groups overall energy consumption remains the same. The long term future of this planning is to drive up the energy demand. This is because the hungry energy consumers will win out. Their children will be strong and take over power. They will realize that their success is owed to energy. They will need ever more energy to push to the top of the heap. This is a workable strategy, at least while copious energy remains. When the overall amount of energy decreases, there will be insufficient energy and energy hungry individuals will be without. Thus, in the long term, this plan will doom the individual.