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You mention fixed resources as if we're getting close to the limits of those resources. The premise here is that we are currently capable of fully exploiting th

You mention fixed resources as if we're getting close to the limits of those resources. The premise here is that we are currently capable of fully exploiting the resources of the earth, which is provably false. A good example of this is the technology cycle of the oil industry. In the 20th century, the primary extraction method for oil was tapping shallow, high pressure oil reservoirs. Oil riggers would drill down less than 1000 feet and oil would come gushing out. As the shallow pockets ran out, the oil industry lamented because they approached a perceived resource constraint. Shortly thereafter, it was found that there was an order of magnitude more proven oil reserves deeper down. I think society is at a similar nexus today. We're at an inflection point between the end of a lot of steep growth curves (oil and gas production, population growth, [possibly] economic development in the West) and the beginning of a lot of new ones (replacing oil with sustainable energy sources, material science, bioengineering, nanotechnology, space exploration). In all of those realms, it's painfully clear that we're a far ways away from the extent of available resources. Let's consider artificial energy consumption by humans today. In total, humanity consumed ~500 PWh in 2019 [1]. Power flux of the earth is 173 PW; annualized, earth's energy flux is ~15 million PWh. That means that we consume 0.003% of the energy that is incident the earth. Clearly we're not getting close to the fixed resources of the earth. In this view, global warming and resource consumption are still existential concerns, but we are working against perceived limits rather than today's physical limits. Humans are really good at making technology that increases the exploitable resources at our disposal. I'm relatively confident that we'll build technology to save us from extinction, but perhaps not from societal collapse. [1] I summed the consumption from 2019 in the spreadsheet available here: https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/energy?country=USA~GBR~CHN~OWID_WRL~IND~BRA~ZAF&Total+or+Breakdown=Total&Energy+or+Electricity=Primary+energy&Metric=Annual+consumption https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/energy?country=USA~GBR~...

Daishiman 5y ago
Oil extraction and the extraction of rare metals mined for solar panels are still limited by the basic laws of thermodynamics. In that context, oil extraction is become ever more inefficient and there is nothing we can do about it. And in the context of resource extraction, it comes at the cost of a reduction in biomass and biodiversity. It is a laughable claim that we are anywhere remotely close to working towards, let alone reverse, the damage we've done to the biosphere.
regularfry 5y ago
The problem with this argument is that it puts us in a very tenuous position: humans need to get over every resource squeeze. Any critical limit that we don't find a technological workaround for in time becomes an extinction threat. In other words: you need to be right every time, I only need to be right once.

Daishiman 5y ago

Oil extraction and the extraction of rare metals mined for solar panels are still limited by the basic laws of thermodynamics. In that context, oil extraction is become ever more inefficient and there is nothing we can do about it. And in the context of resource extraction, it comes at the cost of a reduction in biomass and biodiversity. It is a laughable claim that we are anywhere remotely close to working towards, let alone reverse, the damage we've done to the biosphere.

regularfry 5y ago

The problem with this argument is that it puts us in a very tenuous position: humans need to get over every resource squeeze. Any critical limit that we don't find a technological workaround for in time becomes an extinction threat. In other words: you need to be right every time, I only need to be right once.