I don’t think the internet has had the dematerializing effect that many people thought it would. Consumer spending hasn’t exactly decreased. If anything, the in

I don’t think the internet has had the dematerializing effect that many people thought it would. Consumer spending hasn’t exactly decreased. If anything, the internet has made it easier to purchase material goods and services. The assumption that there are limits to the growth of the material economy is only true if we think of Earth as a closed system. It doesn’t have to be that way. In fact, even if material growth stopped in its tracks this very day and never resumed, our current economic activity is more than enough to destroy the biosphere given enough time. We have to either put growth into reverse (which won’t happen—people won’t give up a modern lifestyle, and they’ll guillotine you if you try to make them) or we have to open up the closed system before it’s too late.