I think I misread your final sentence as we shouldn't do anything because it means we will fall down a few rungs but having re-read it I suspect you meant if we don't do anything we will be forced down a few rungs.
To me it is clear we should do something about it but that is unpalatable to many or even most people because they think their lives will be worse without cheap abundant energy. I think they are wrong.
Hey thanks for the reply. Yeah that's my main thrust: we need to be taking urgent and concrete action if we're to avoid catastrophe (if it's not already too late). I think that's why some of the replys to the original comment came off a bit 'sharp': 'spirituality' is great and all, but it's such a nebulous concept that it suggests nothing that is really actionable (at least, on a non-individual level).
On cheap abundant energy, I come at it from the other side of things. You're probably right that those is 'first world' countries (like myself) could be more conservative and less wasteful in our energy usage. And we've already got more than enough 'stuff', and having a little less is unlikely to hurt us. My concern is more about developing countries, particularly large ones like India and China that are rapidly industrialising. It's not that people's lives in developing countries will be worse if they halt this process, it's more that they will be condemned to living significantly poorer, and shorter, lives because of a problem they're mostly not responsible for (and that other countries have gotten rich from).
The latter two in particular have rapidly growing energy consumption, and, to be fair, they are making some attempt to generate energy from viable non-co2 sources (for instance, both are strongly pursuing nuclear fission programmes). That said, the overwhelming majority of their current increases in generating capacity comes from constructing new coal-fired plants.
Asking people in these countries to lower their energy use seems extremely unfair: it's like asking the poor to eat a tax-hike to repair the budget. I suspect they'd find it quite intellectually insulting if we were to suggest that instead of continuing to make material improvements to the quality of their lives, they should instead pursue 'spirituality'.
To me it is clear we should do something about it but that is unpalatable to many or even most people because they think their lives will be worse without cheap abundant energy. I think they are wrong.