No way out? The double-bind in seeking global prosperity alongside mitigated climate change

[NoOneMan]

20. Well, just to start....

So, coal/gas is burned to manufacture & distribute them, then you have to pay for them (meaning you had to go to your earth-raping job to get the capital), then that capital gets disbursed and either reinvested into the business (to make more machines) or given to employees who produced/sold the item, who themselves spend it on the own energy-efficient machines (thus reverberating more production across the economy).

If something is new (and you already have an old one), creating it, distributing it, buying it causes production and creates wealth (the ability to command energy) which is inevitably commanded for more production. Its an endless cycle that perpetually increases (as we observe) the velocity of capital/energy in the economic machine.

Is all the consumption that it is to save you in the future worth all the immediate production that is necessary in its purchase, and the production that purchase caused via the multiplier effect (resulting in GDP growth)? If immediate GDP is always growing (which translates to real carbon emissions), despite efficiency savings we might get in the future, is there any real way out of this? Is there some magic point in time when suddenly our consumption levels will stop because everyone has their efficient stuff and we are done making and buying them? Then what happens to the economy? What will be the state of the environment at that point?

But no, I don't think old, inefficient stuff rules. Rather, I think we have a complex system that tends to continually result in more and more energy being consumed. Can we buck the trend? Thats the million dollar question (just don't spend that million on an energy intensive item).