[skybrian]

Here's an interesting theoretical argument that growth can't continue forever (not saying this applies now):

"[I]f energy became arbitrarily cheap, someone could buy all of it, and suddenly the activities that comprise the economy would grind to a halt. Food would stop arriving at the plate without energy for purchase, so people would pay attention to this. Someone would be willing to pay more for it. Everyone would. There will be a floor to how low energy prices can go as a fraction of GDP."

http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2012

It seems like a similar argument could be made for land.

[tome]

That doesn't seem to have anything to say about growth.

[skybrian]

Well, it does. If there is a limit on how small X can be as a percentage of the total economy (because we value it), and the amount of X that can be produced is finite, this puts a limit on the size of the total economy.