[jerf]

Growth does not imply the use of more resources. Economic wealth comes from knowledge and command of atoms. Software is wealth, books are wealth, and so on. Such wealth clearly requires a baseline of control over resources and energy, but we get more efficient with it over time so it's not the linear relationship that so many seem to think.

There's a lot of growth left to do, and all precluding our growth now will do is make damn sure we never actually build a sustainable society, because it's not possible with our current technology.

We'll worry about how to manage a non-growing economy when we get there. That situation is so unlike the current situation that even speculation has rather limited value.

(See also: http://www.jerf.org/iri/post/2417 , which is too long to put here and not entirely on topic, but is fleshed out a bit more.)