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Re:CO2 in the atmosphere just exceeded 415ppm for the first ... by ebalit on Monday May 13, 2019 @07:11PM (#19904990)
I don't like this argument as it misses the fact that the Earth is not a closed system.

Life on earth is only possible because we're receiving a constant flow of energy from the sun.

Surely, we should not expect exponential growth, but it doesn't mean we could not have unlimited growth.

Re:CO2 in the atmosphere just exceeded 415ppm for the first ... by crispinb on Monday May 13, 2019 @08:08PM (#19905414)
> it misses the fact that the Earth is not a closed system

How so? It's not an argument per se - it's just a description of the physical reality that what economists falsely describe as 'growth' is actually a transfer of matter and energy from complex evolved sustainable systems (ie. what some people call 'nature', which I find to be misleading) to simple cultural-technological unsustainable systems. This transfer process damages the former to build the latter, increasing entropy (because our early-stage human tech is less ordered than evolved systems are). It is not 'growth' in any meaningful sense of the term at all, whether limited or unlimited.