> At no point in the history of human civilization has growth been static.
Generally: correct. So far.
> It will not ever be.
Yes, it will. This will be forced by 2 factors:
a) The Earth we live on is essentially a closed system. Yes @ some point we might be able to mine asteroids, use extraterrestrial energy sources, move people off-planet etc. But this depends on technology to make this feasible. Until such technology appears, we're stuck on this rock. And thus, have to make do with what this rock provides. Which is a lot, but finite.
b) The laws of physics (those related to energy, in particular).
The "eternal growth" is a classical economist's view. Which (sadly) is very pervasive.
Historically, population growth, raw materials consumption, energy use, and technological progress have been tightly coupled.
But this coupling will be loosened.
Technology will probably keep progressing ..somehow.
Energy use might increase if eg. we can get nuclear fusion to work. Even that is not 100% a given, btw (apart from the timescale). How energy is generated will be very different 30..50y from now.
But raw material consumption can NOT keep increasing. There is finite amounts of [insert material here] on this planet. Never mind agri stuff like phosphor, pollution, or the amount of CO2 we can release 'safely'. And it's not feasible to recover 100% of any reserve.
Same with population. Earth is already too crowded. Would you want continued growth until entire Earth surface is covered with humans? Stacked 50 humans high?
No? Then population growth will stop. Not to mention that population growth eats any gains made elsewhere (10% more raw materials, 10% more energy, 10% more food, followed by 10% more people = back to square 1 despite the gains).
Historically this wasn't a problem because those limits weren't hit (well... they were, locally, which caused past civilizations to collapse). But we are hitting those limits now - globally.
It's this decoupling of growth factors that's a hard pill for people to swallow. Especially economists & politicians.
But don't worry! The laws of physics are very reliable.
Essentially, we can do this now. There is no real technological barrier and several organizations are actively developing solutions. We're at over a billion dollars invested. Go read a report on the status of things [1]. This isn't far off science fiction but something practical folks are throwing money after.
Generally: correct. So far.
> It will not ever be.
Yes, it will. This will be forced by 2 factors:
a) The Earth we live on is essentially a closed system. Yes @ some point we might be able to mine asteroids, use extraterrestrial energy sources, move people off-planet etc. But this depends on technology to make this feasible. Until such technology appears, we're stuck on this rock. And thus, have to make do with what this rock provides. Which is a lot, but finite.
b) The laws of physics (those related to energy, in particular).
The "eternal growth" is a classical economist's view. Which (sadly) is very pervasive.
Historically, population growth, raw materials consumption, energy use, and technological progress have been tightly coupled.
But this coupling will be loosened.
Technology will probably keep progressing ..somehow.
Energy use might increase if eg. we can get nuclear fusion to work. Even that is not 100% a given, btw (apart from the timescale). How energy is generated will be very different 30..50y from now.
But raw material consumption can NOT keep increasing. There is finite amounts of [insert material here] on this planet. Never mind agri stuff like phosphor, pollution, or the amount of CO2 we can release 'safely'. And it's not feasible to recover 100% of any reserve.
Same with population. Earth is already too crowded. Would you want continued growth until entire Earth surface is covered with humans? Stacked 50 humans high?
No? Then population growth will stop. Not to mention that population growth eats any gains made elsewhere (10% more raw materials, 10% more energy, 10% more food, followed by 10% more people = back to square 1 despite the gains).
Historically this wasn't a problem because those limits weren't hit (well... they were, locally, which caused past civilizations to collapse). But we are hitting those limits now - globally.
It's this decoupling of growth factors that's a hard pill for people to swallow. Especially economists & politicians.
But don't worry! The laws of physics are very reliable.