wow fascinating read.
If global resources are finite, it would explain the drive to colonize space.
If global resources are finite, it would explain the drive to colonize space.
Finite is not another word for "meager."
Discussions of physical resource limits would be better if pessimistic prognosticators did not write as if finite-is-meager, and if optimistic prognosticators did not write as if plentiful-is-infinite.
So we'd have to get resources from elsewhere like asteroid mining or space colonization.
The BBC asked a bad question and got an obvious answer. (Maybe the badness and obviousness aren't apparent up front if you don't have a physical science background.)
Asking if fixed-percentage economic growth can continue forever is rather like asking if Moore's Law can continue forever. No, neither can continue forever. That doesn't mean that things get bad after the growth phase. Somehow both optimists and pessimists conflate "the end of growth" with "the end of prosperity." That's ridiculous, IMO. The median citizen is much better off in low-economic-growth (and negative population growth) Japan than in rapidly growing Bangladesh.