Can we have prosperity without growth? No.
Can we have sustainability with growth? No.
Then we can not have prosperity and sustainability.
Can we afford not having sustainability? No.
Then we can not afford prosperity.
It's a triangle: prosperity, sustainability, population. Choose 2 (and obviously if you don't choose sustainability the sh*t is going to hit the fan at some point anyway).
The key issue is the global population.
(Edit: We're discussing life on this planet. Colonising space obviously means that human population may continue to grow, but not on Earth and not using Earth' resources)
It's a diffult situation and not easy to find the true culprit, because the society we live in is a cascade of hacks of nature that started aprox. 10k years ago with the dawn of civilization and agriculture.
Nomadic tribes intrinsically self regulate, what can't be carried can't be possesed beyond group boundaries and falls back to the environment automatically.
Malthus was proven wrong by productivity gains. England did not starve due to a rising population, but went on to become an industrialized nation. Increased population allows for greater specialization.
This only holds true as long as free markets are allowed to operate somewhat unimpeded. Typically the Malthusian position is one that advocates excessive government intervention. When taken to an extreme this can make the Malthusian catastrophe self-fulfilling as the market can longer allocate resources efficiently.
That is wrong. In fact we have a much larger population, in many ways human life is more sustainable then it ever was and its easily more prosperous then in the past.
Just like in the 60s the people over-hyping population growth are just as fundamentally wrong as the people who wanted to force cut of trade and foreign aid to India to force them to adopt population control matters.
These same terrible dangerous and fundamentally wrong ideas pop up over and over again.
In fact, with a growing population humans have been using less of earths space. More people live in much denser areas. And even with billions more people we are far below the peak amount of agro culture land. In fact all over the western world wood and wild lands are growing.
With Nuclear, Solar, Wind, Water energy the environmental impact will be far less then what we currently have (and countries with nuclear had for a long time). We could double and triple world population again and there would be no energy issue other then a temporary scale issue.
unknown|6 years ago
[deleted]
atemerev|6 years ago
mytailorisrich|6 years ago
It's a triangle: prosperity, sustainability, population. Choose 2 (and obviously if you don't choose sustainability the sh*t is going to hit the fan at some point anyway).
The key issue is the global population.
(Edit: We're discussing life on this planet. Colonising space obviously means that human population may continue to grow, but not on Earth and not using Earth' resources)
deltron3030|6 years ago
Nomadic tribes intrinsically self regulate, what can't be carried can't be possesed beyond group boundaries and falls back to the environment automatically.
aww_dang|6 years ago
This only holds true as long as free markets are allowed to operate somewhat unimpeded. Typically the Malthusian position is one that advocates excessive government intervention. When taken to an extreme this can make the Malthusian catastrophe self-fulfilling as the market can longer allocate resources efficiently.
chii|6 years ago
nickik|6 years ago
That is wrong. In fact we have a much larger population, in many ways human life is more sustainable then it ever was and its easily more prosperous then in the past.
Just like in the 60s the people over-hyping population growth are just as fundamentally wrong as the people who wanted to force cut of trade and foreign aid to India to force them to adopt population control matters.
These same terrible dangerous and fundamentally wrong ideas pop up over and over again.
In fact, with a growing population humans have been using less of earths space. More people live in much denser areas. And even with billions more people we are far below the peak amount of agro culture land. In fact all over the western world wood and wild lands are growing.
With Nuclear, Solar, Wind, Water energy the environmental impact will be far less then what we currently have (and countries with nuclear had for a long time). We could double and triple world population again and there would be no energy issue other then a temporary scale issue.
unknown|6 years ago
[deleted]
atemerev|6 years ago