This is the only part where we maybe differ a little Nikos. To me it looks clear we are not at the end of anything worth lamenting, we are actually at the beginning of something so incredibly cool it literally can't be fully understood by anyone, but machine intelligence seems to be doing a better job than most of us.
Humanity is just forming its first leaves, those are relentlessly scaling up, to at some point explode, when we get to understanding how to put to full use the energy being received by them.
I know there are concerns of materials etc required, but honestly, when we look at the wastage caused just for profit, and remove that, by removing the possibilities of what is at its heart an energy con, we end up with only a very small fraction of what we used to need in the old extracted energy system.
There is no possibility of profit by stealing energy from the sun - it was already given, with nothing asked in return from the sun, other than we use it wisely, which means putting it to use other than the heat it would become if neither we nor nature used it to create anything else.
Notice nature / the planet invests in a way, in every new plant, it gives the new plant the energy the plant needs, that the plant gets by doing some work, to extract the energy it needs to the point it starts to form leaves. Then the plant explodes into growth, powered by the sun, and the energy from the plant, paid back to Earth, thousands of times over.
We just formed our first leaves, it took thousands of years to form these leaves, so its a big investment by the planet in terms of energy, every Joule of which we've had to obtain by work.
I don't think what happens next is supposed to be that we just expire, now we formed the leaves, what remains is how to conduct the energy we are receiving, to all who need it, including the planet.
I believe issue of solar indexed stimulus will achieve this.
The biggest risk, it seems to me, is that we might never understand any of this, effectively carrying out what would be a self fulfilling prophecy of doom.
What else could drive people to actually ignite and accelerate the forest fires seen, that we know would be inevitable in any case, but which we know are actually increasing the rate of destruction and temperature rise? I think the shortage of availability of energy has to be affecting folk's minds in ways we can't understand.
Anyhow, I don't see many "Cassandras" actually trying to destroy the Trojan Horse of Energy by Extraction with their own two hands, as yet, not that I would ever encourage that, I think this bad boy will only be defeated by wisdom :)
