Technology

worsening problem

I think things are getting better, or at least the groundwork is getting better. Some indicators (numbers come from energy use by sector):

• heat pumps are getting popular - home energy is ~10% global energy usage
• EVs are getting more popular - currently accounts for ~12% global energy usage
• energy production from renewables is growing, and energy from coal is slowing - overhead from fossil fuels is 5-10%, so this will drop as renewables grow

So just looking at that, we have 20-30% of our energy use that's in the process of being replaced or replaceable with renewables, and that's a conservative estimate of the low-hanging fruit. The numbers are better in more developed countries as well, so as these technologies get cheaper, we'll see more rapid rollout.

understanding we have the capacity to to go beyond them to our own demise, and wisdom to actively choose sustainability

Yeah, I don't think that'll ever happen. We're generally pretty bad at planning ahead at scale, though we're pretty good at responding to stimuli.

Instead of trying to get everyone to be wiser, I think it's more productive and thus better to adjust the stimuli to get the responses we're looking for. If greenhouse gases are destroying the planet, tax them. If sprawl is killing ecosystems, make it more attractive to build high density housing. And so on.

exploitative economic systems and the ability to cheat the natural energy balance by using prehistoric sunlight energy (fossil fuels) are the drivers of this explosion

I disagree. If that was true, wouldn't we see a lot more population growth in developed countries and less population growth in poorer countries? Those are the ones using the most energy per capita.

Population growth is greatest in poorer areas, probably because of a mix of poor education and reliance on kids for elder care.

If we improve access to technology and wealth in poorer areas, we'll likely see growth of energy use in the short term, followed by decreases per-capital as more efficient infrastructure rolls out, and then better access to education will lead to drops in population growth. We can hopefully short circuit the initial growth in energy use by developing cheap renewables so they won't need to go through the fossil fuel phase first.

In short, if we want to reach a population equilibrium, we should be focusing on technology to improve the lives of people in poorer areas, not pushing for reduced reproduction directly.