The limits to growth don't make economics irrelevant. Doing more with less has toned down the ill effects of the second law. Example: the use of electronics to calculate math. There were mechanical calculators not very long ago (my childhood 45 years ago) but now solar card-size calcs do it faster and cheaper.
Reminds me of
The Difference Engine by Gibson and Sterling about what if steam engines had powered giant mechanical calculators... but that's off topic.
It still doesn't eliminate the fact that limits may cause growth to stall. The limits of certain factors have caused all the shifts in factory production and the present-day quandry of outsourcing. The limits of investors' credibility is undermining confidence in the dollar as I write this. :eek:
But these arguments don't invalidate economics either. Uncomfortable facts instead help us to confront reality. Economics will change eventually from having a constant growth paradigm to one based upon sustainability.
Here's an article that has a similar spin to the one you posted, bmaestro:
http://www.alternet.org/envirohealth/20632/ Quote:
World Wildlife Fund issued its frightening Living Planet Report, which shows that humanity continues to consume resources and destroy ecosystems at a rate that overshoots Earth's ability to produce and restore. And the gap is widening.
This deficit spending cannot last; it will be brought to a halt either by self-restraint or by catastrophe.
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