Can the economy grow forever on a finite planet?: The Story

Two answers at once

In 2023, solar photovoltaic electricity became the cheapest new power source in every major market on Earth. The same year, global material extraction — every ton of ore, grain, fossil fuel, and mineral hauled from the ground — hit 100 billion tons, up from 27 billion in 1970. The price of energy fell. The appetite for everything else rose. The species heard the question and answered both ways at once.

Malthus warned about food in 1798. The Club of Rome warned about resources in 1972. Ehrlich bet Simon in 1980 that five metals would become scarcer. Ehrlich lost. The cornucopians have watched every scarcity prediction fail for half a century and consider pessimism a cognitive error with a perfect losing record. But is the record a guide to the future, or a survivor’s bias written by a species that has not yet hit the wall?

The wall’s address

If the wall exists, it has specific coordinates. The Ogallala Aquifer irrigates a quarter of American agriculture and depletes faster than rainfall recharges it. Topsoil erodes at ten to forty times the rate it forms. Phosphorus has no synthetic substitute and finite reserves. These are measurements, not projections. The degrowth camp has been reading the meters and watching the needle.

Between the cornucopians and the degrowthers, two camps hold the middle. The green growth position: the UK grew GDP 30 percent between 2005 and 2022 while cutting territorial emissions 40 percent. Deploy solar and batteries at scale and the economy keeps running. The decouplers want more — not just clean energy but a redesigned material relationship. Direct air capture. Synthetic biology. Vertical farms. They find the green growth agenda necessary and radically insufficient, like switching to organic cigarettes.

Every economic system rests on physical foundations. No serious participant denies the Ogallala is draining. The fracture begins at therefore — whether the physical facts mean we must grow differently, grow less, grow through substitution, or keep growing because the doomsayers have been wrong every time. The EU’s circular economy regulations take effect by 2030. If Europe grows its economy while its absolute material footprint shrinks, the green growthers have their proof. If the footprint holds steady even as emissions fall, the degrowthers have Jevons in real time. Five years. One continent. What does the experiment show?

Every scarcity forecast since Malthus has failed. Track record or survivor bias?

Perspectives:
- Green growth
- Degrowth
- Decouplers
- Cornucopians