Economic expansion cannot continue unchecked and physical limitations could soon end the current phase of development, according to a new analysis that looks back to the 1972 report The Limits to Growth, shared on Twitter by the scientific journal Nature.
Economic growth: how long? Investment and policy decisions are made on the assumption of continued economic expansion, Thomas Murphy Jr, said the author of the article. A finite world with finite resources will not support unlimited growth, he added.
The paper also warned of a significant collapse before 2100, most likely by the middle of the current century. This cannot be prevented by simultaneously doubling estimated resources, increasing technological substitutions and efficiencies, aggressive recycling and applying strict environmental protection measures, but by placing explicit limits on industrial production and requiring birth rates to match death rates, it said.
See also: Is Tesla the new Apple? Fund manager says Elon Musk’s company will be “much, much bigger”.
Musk’s opinion: Tesla, Inc. TSLA chairman Elon Muskwho promotes sustainable development with his electric vehicle company and other ventures, agreed with his views.
“Technically correct, but the economy of the earth is extremely far from physical limits,” said the billionaire.
“Energy is the basis of the economy, but we only use a very small amount of available energy even if we only use PV [Photovoltaic],” he added.
Technically correct, but the economy of the earth is extremely far from physical limits.
Energy is the basis of the economy, but we only use a very small amount of available energy even if we only use PV.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) 09/16/2022
One of Musk’s missions is also to make humans a multiplanetary species, and his SpaceX project is working toward that settle humans on Mars.
Photo: Courtesy of NVIDIA Corporation on flickr
