Comment by fnord77
Stagnation is environmentally sustainable. Constant creation-destruction cycles will ultimately deplete the environment
Stagnation is environmentally sustainable. Constant creation-destruction cycles will ultimately deplete the environment
> Innovation is such that efficiency increase requires fewer resources and land.
...to produce the same output. Growth requires greater output though.
Just look at the timeline of energy consumption [0]. Either you're wrong and innovation requires more resources, or you're right and there's no direct relation between innovation and overall resource usage.
[0] https://ourworldindata.org/energy-production-consumption
The metric you’re looking for is energy intensity of GDP [1]. How much energy does each unit of GDP cost. It’s been going down, and it’s lower in rich countries than less developed ones. (Its material counterpart is material intensity of GDP.)
[1] https://yearbook.enerdata.net/total-energy/world-energy-inte...
Thanks, that's an interesting reference.
I'm not sure that's what I was looking for though. That's unit consumption per GDP, so it may look stable or even declining regardless of actual consumption of resources.
In a way, it indicates the potential for a more sustainable living but unless it goes down by greater amounts than GDP growth, it's still net positive environmental damage.
> unless it goes down by greater amounts than GDP growth, it's still net positive environmental damage
Sure. Link in population and living standards and you start to get a toy model that dispels the notion that all growth must be about consumption. (A palette of iPhones represents growth from mainframes of equal mass and energy consumption.)
> Stagnation is environmentally sustainable
We know this to be false given the number of civilisations that depleted their soil due because they didn’t know (or care) about crop rotation. Stable-state economies which nevertheless collapsed because they missed a key technology.