Suppose you're born on a planet that has some amount of natural resources and some characteristic that makes it liveable. Now if you consume part of the resources to produce stuff, and pollute the environment as a side effect, you're richer of the amount of stuff that you produced, but you're also poorer of the non-renewable resources that you consume, and you'll have to pay for the environment at some point too.
For instance, in the case of global warming, there will be migration of populations, raise of ocean level, extreme weather events, all of this will have a cost that we'll have to pay eventually.
All of this has to be taken into account if you want to assess the merit and sustainability of our production system and demographic growth.
Putting it another way, we're rich because we were given a huge loan in the form of natural resources and a hospitable environment, but this is ending. Unfortunately, there's no perpetual growth in a finite world. This is a mathematical truth.
> All of this has to be taken into account if you want to assess the merit and sustainability of our production system and demographic growth.
Sure — so show me the actual account.
You’re just hand-waving about possible costs without showing they’re unsustainable on reasonable timelines OR that fewer people would help the problem at all.
That’s not a rational basis to want fewer humans.
> this is ending. Unfortunately, there's no perpetual growth in a finite world. This is a mathematical truth.
Discussing abstract concepts like limits without showing that we’re near those limits is merely dogmatic belief — it doesn’t justify anything.
It's impossible to give exact prediction and timelines, but it's certain that the perpetual growth model isn't sustainable and most likely, limits will materialise within the next decades.
> How can you conclude that when you previously said you can’t “ give exact prediction and timelines”?
Because I read "the limits to growth", the IPCC report summary, and various authors on the topic and that's what they say based on actual data. And I'm yet to find quantified arguments that say otherwise. You're the one whose ideas are based on faith, not me.
> To me, you seem to be repeating the same “the world is ending!” nihilism that has always permeated society.
No, because
1. I don't think the world is ending, just that current growth will stop one way or another, because it's not sustainable and limits are within sight
2. it's not about nihilism but predictions based on numerous data, which are more accurate and comprehensive than what was available in the past
> Because I read "the limits to growth", the IPCC report summary
Except both the links you provided and your own comment admits those aren’t terribly accurate predictions and most of them are a ways out — with huge error bars.
They also don’t attempt to address factors we know are going to happen, like increased technical prowess that come with a larger population.
If you have an actual quantitative source and model with that prediction, then post it. But you haven’t.
> I read "the limits to growth", the IPCC report summary, and various authors on the topic and that's what they say based on actual data.
Then you should cite that — because you haven’t so far.
> 1. I don't think the world is ending, just that current growth will stop one way or another, because it's not sustainable and limits are within sight
“The world (as you know it) is ending!”
I’d find you more credible if you owned what you were saying.
Only if you consider resources are unlimited, and the environment has no value.
If you put available non-renewable resources and the environment on the balance sheet, the result is different.