| The crazy thing is that we have basically everything we need right now. You can live in a well-insulated fully electric home powered by renewable energy and have most things you need within a walk, bike, or public transport ride away, _OR_ use an electric car for the things that aren't. If you combine that with a mostly-plant based diet (or at _least_ swapping chicken for most of your beef and lamb) and have 2 kids or fewer you're... basically there. The main reason most people can't do this is because of political choices, not technological limitations. Granted this doesn't include luxuries like jetting halfway around the world for a 1 week holiday or living in a 4000 square foot house in the desert and driving a studio apartment an hour to work every day, but really, is that a better life? |
Have you travelled? This doesn't describe most of the world. Most of the world would need to increase carbon emissions to live the way you're describing.
You aren't describing a zero carbon lifestyle, you're describing a lower carbon lifestyle. And we still use carbon in building the things in your scenario: the building, the car, etc.
Lower carbon lifestyles can slow the speed of the increase in global warming, but as long as we're emitting any carbon we're increasing global energy forcing.
By all means choose lower carbon lifestyles, but fundamentally we need nuclear or renewables + battery or all of the above such that we don't face a tradeoff between energy use and getting stuff people want.
Energy is extremely useful.