Consumption isn’t the primary concern. It’s the byproducts of consumption: waste. Greenhouse gas emissions, plastics in the ocean, persistent organic substances that are deleterious to biological systems. We are polluting the well. Capitalism must evolve to a #circulareconomy
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It might not be fixed, but it isn't infinite, either. There's an impassible ceiling somewhere, even if we can raise the lower ceilings several times before hitting the impassible one.
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There is a limit, but it's far above what numbers commonly cited, which assume conventional methods of farming, manufacturing, and transportation. It's probably in the low trillions, unless you start mucking about with human biology, in which case it could go even higher.
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I looked it up. Isaac Asimov calculated it at 15 trillion, assuming all animals and all inedible plants are destroyed. Which would be bad, but then, 15 trillion people is rather a lot.
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"...assuming all animals and all inedible plants are destroyed..." I think Asimov and I have very different ideas about what counts as a 'limiting factor.'
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Asimov wrote a pair of stories back in 1970, one in a future dystopia where the only living things on Earth were humans and the plankton they ate, and one where that was averted. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2430_A.D . https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Greatest_Asset …
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Say that to the overcrowded Bangladeshi or the extinct Easter Island civilisation. I've got one prosperous idea for you: be realistic about your current capacity to keep the system trajectory within the stability nullclines, and to conceive of new solutions.
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Although I agree enviros can be too panicky, I find this essay to be magical thinking - wishing there to be no carrying capacity does not make it true. Obviously the earth has only so much mass, receives only so much sunlight. There IS a carrying capacity.
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Is it me or Pinker has begun to sound more mystical and continentalish as of late? The claim is not that capacity is fixed (although physics does set upper limits), but rather that it's practically finite at any given time, and our needs could easily exceed it.
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Who would want to live on a planet with 100 billion people? - not me. There is a constraint somewhere, be it food production, waste disposal, physical room, or whatever. Malthus must be right eventually.
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That is not the point being made in the text. Population is predicted to peak at some point, and then decline (i.e., 2055, see link). The harder problem relates to whether this will coincide with sustainable enough consumption.https://www.cnbc.com/id/101018722
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This is misplaced optimism; even dangerously so. To place our hopes in continual scientific advancements is to abandon the Precautionary Principle, and needlessly put our entire species at risk. Earth's carrying capacity is not fixed, but it is definitely *limited*.
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As residents of the universe we have access to infinite energy and materials. Knowledge is also an endless resource. There are thus no known growth limits from a natural science point of view.
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I suspect survival depends on the ideas outpacing the stuff, I'm not sure that's the current trend. Oceans full of plastic is not a good look for a planet for one.
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The predictions could be right and our math off; nature is a complicated thing. And we don't really have a handle on natures adaptability. Our sciences are young - and from memory - complete physical solutions only work on 2 body problems near equilibrium...
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Then again, there is still very little evidence for this kind of decoupling of economic growth and environmental harm. We need stronger growth, but just having services grow stronger without actually decreasing harm elsewhere is not enough.http://www.academia.edu/36988409/Dematerialization_Through_Services_Evaluating_the_Evidence …
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