You're roughly claiming that "Decoupling" (economic growth without resource consumption) is not only possible but has already occurred? Seriously? Global GDP is very highly correlated with energy use, fossil fuel use specifically.
You probably heard that some countries (the US, EU) are in the process of decoupling. Bullshit. Looking at this on a per-country basis is a deeply flawed analysis at best, a deceptive account trick. We have a global trade network and you can't outsource your fuel consumption to China, import their products, and call yourself green. If you extend the analysis globally, you will not find decoupling at all - energy is the economy.
I encourage you to read this paper by the European Environmental Bureau: https://eeb.org/library/decoupling-debunked/
So it is GDP. Also environmental impact, happiness an much more.
Yet you can find plenty of lists of countries by per capita income, QoL and so on and make comparisons.
> But if we take economic output as a proxy, it's your view that is demonstrably false.
Wrong.
> You're roughly claiming that ... is not only possible but has already occurred?
It's clearly shown if you compare QoL vs environmental impact across nothern european countries, japan and US for example.
US being pretty terrible at that, to no surprise.
> Bullshit.
You can do better.
> I encourage you to read this paper by the European Environmental Bureau: https://eeb.org/library/decoupling-debunked/
From the landing page: "Is it possible to enjoy both economic growth and environmental sustainability?"
...which is nowhere close to my initial point.
And for the record I'm actually going to finish reading the pdf instead of just calling things "Bullshit"
Sorry for the language but the argument that you can have economic growth without energy/resource consumption is just plain false. I'm deeply frustrated that people continue parroting that view without any credible evidence.
To be fair to you, your initial point only hinted at Decoupling and didn't claim it directly. My bad.
> "Is it possible to enjoy both economic growth and environmental sustainability?" ...which is nowhere close to my initial point
So in your view, quality of life and happiness are separate concerns from "the economy"? I truly hope you're right! We may never be able to decouple resource extraction from economic production - but we might have a shot at decoupling economic production from QoL if we can learn to collectively reduce our consumption and find more fulfilling ways to live on less. There's no historical precedent for a civilization ever willingly de-growing themselves and surviving (see the work of Joseph Tainter) let alone thriving, but one can hope.
It's product of thousands more variables and the most important ones are urban planning and social issues.