[geoalchimista]

Just looking at Figure 1 on page 8 of the paper you mentioned, it can go either way because we haven't seen a reversal in any of the trends. That is hardly a prediction. For example, if one looks at the "Services per capita", is there any sign that it will meet an inflection point in the next few years?

I know it is always appealing to tell a story with a grand unifying narrative. But sound research must prop it up with empirical evidence. Could there be limits to growth? Probably. But a highly simplistic model not informed by appropriate data or economic understanding is not the way to tell such limits.

[baq]

> Could there be limits to growth? Probably.

that's what an economist would answer. ask a physicist.

for best results, get an economist and a physicist in the same room and ask them both.

[api]

There have to be limits to growth, but we won’t know where they are except in retrospect. We also may never hit them due to fertility decline which occurs in all wealthy societies. Fertility decline plus efficiency increase could cause consumption of some resources to fall.

Space migration doesn’t change the equation much on Earth unless you start mining and manufacturing off world and importing product, and that is pretty far off.

[teabee89]

"Could there be limits to growth?" Yes 100% (you cannot extract indefinitely more and more every year from finite resources), the debate is simply when we'll peak for a given ressource (20 years, 100 years, 1 million years) and the size of such an impact on the economy.