The right answer. Economic growth maps almost exactly to the expansion of available energy inputs. As fossil fuel flow rates peak and growth in energy availability falters, so wil GDP growth. We have an economic system designed to function in a world of perpetual growth and perpetual growth in energy / natural resource availability. Our system and its underlying economic theories are not designed nor tested for environments of perpetual contraction of either.
It explains through many articles how the law of physics put terminal limits on what we can achieve, and kills a lot of misconceptions, like "a service economy needs less energy", "we could replace nuclear/coal/oil with wind/solar/hydro", etc.
Comments
The right answer. Economic growth maps almost exactly to the expansion of available energy inputs. As fossil fuel flow rates peak and growth in energy availability falters, so wil GDP growth. We have an economic system designed to function in a world of perpetual growth and perpetual growth in energy / natural resource availability. Our system and its underlying economic theories are not designed nor tested for environments of perpetual contraction of either.
Absolutely. For those interested by this, an excellent blog is "Do the math": http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/
It explains through many articles how the law of physics put terminal limits on what we can achieve, and kills a lot of misconceptions, like "a service economy needs less energy", "we could replace nuclear/coal/oil with wind/solar/hydro", etc.
Cheers for the link