[pas]

The planet most definitely can.

We can borrow against our future cash flows, there is plenty of underutilized capacity that could be used to transform the world to carbon neutrality.

But so far we have not made this choice, because our power structure is too short sighted. Why? Well, naturally there are true ignorants, some selfish folks manipulating the former group, and so we have ugly inefficient compromises.

[boon]

Can you explain more in terms of the planet side of things? I get that you think the wealth can be generated, but I think the comment you are responding to is referring to how can the planet support that level of consumption?

[pas]

Sure.

There's nothing stopping us from using a lot more GHG-neutral energy. (Eg. nuclear, wind, solar.) We can then use the energy to power whatever processes we want (vertical farms are a lot more efficient than open fields and greenhouses, plus you can put them right next to population centers; beyond meat and impossible foods will be in no time better than the real thing; also if we really want we can simply put pastures under domes to capture the methane, we can put these pastures underground with artificial lights).

Look at how much unemployment there is around the world and how little inflation. This means we are nowhere near total economic output capacity. We can probably double our output if we want, especially if we start doing things on a big scale. (Big scale decarbonization, and eventual carbon capture to offset the remaining GHG emissions.)

Okay, so energy, food, transportation (full EV vehicles), what's next? Shelter. Prefab buildings. Arcologies preferably, because that leaves a lot of green space. After all instead of having an endless sprawl of 2-3 storey buildings it'd be quite better to have parks and ~100 storey ones. And affluent folks like high rises very much.

Standardization of processes drives down cost and increases quality. Yet, naturally, market players don't like that, because with fixed demanded quantity this simply shrinks the market, so they like to sell bespoke solution. (From power plants to housing.) But we are paying a lot more because we are not going big enough. (This applies veeery severely to transportation and other public works [eg power plants again]: https://pedestrianobservations.com/2019/07/22/new-report-on-... )

Furthermore, current UN/WHO predictions about the peak population is around 11-12 billion people, but most (I mean almost 99%) of the growth will happen in developing countries, in cities, and in particular in Africa. And we can make cities a lot more efficient than they are now.

See also: https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2019/07/29...

So all in all, currently what stands in the way of providing an affluent Western lifestyle to everyone is global coordination toward cooperation instead of a zero-sum competition. (Every country wants to have strategic reserves of food, fuel, knowhow and so on. Which leads to every country inventing their own shitty stuff - see public works above, and protecting those incumbent interests, see subsidies of oil industry and for agriculture.)

I hope this starts to answer your question. If not, I'd like to know why. Thanks!