resources

Exponential growth: From optimism to absurdity

In the last article, I made the claim that economic growth is necessarily finite, and that an economic system that requires continuous growth is, over the long term, impossible. This is obvious; unchecked growth with finite resources is impossible. It is instructive, nevertheless, to quantify this. What does, say, 2.5% annual growth mean in tangible terms? And, more importantly, how close are we to hitting- or overshooting- the limits?

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