Sep 9, 2006 2:15:00 PM cite

Benson Venegas: This debate is taking place [since] a century. It's a complex issue. There's not a right answer, but opinions. Are we going to hit on the wall? It seems that this is the key question. Responses to tend to lay on technological advances to overcome limitations. Nevertheless, natural resources have limits. Can we move a world without water and oil? Biomass as a source of energy or a source of food, would only increase global warming because we are eliminating the last remaining forests to plant African Palm and other crops for this purpose. Maybe a first concrete step will be to change our old economic paradigm, where natural capital was not taken into account as most of the [world's] valuable asset. Nor its [deprisation]. This would force us to think, or to better analyze, what are we doing, in terms of our economic approach to the use of natural resources, and then we can find the right answers.

by Benson Venegas

Sep 9, 2006 2:15:00 PM cite

Bianca Jagger: Answertext will be available soon.

by Bianca Jagger

Sep 9, 2006 2:15:00 PM cite

Bill Joy: Certainly the first thing to say is that the way we’re growing economically right now is already hitting on limits. We’re hitting on limits in atmospheric change, we’re hitting on limits of water in areas, we’re hitting on resource limits, we’re seeing soil depletion. There’s lots of damaging things we’re doing. We’re seeing species extinction. These are consequences in the way we’re going about economic growth. And it’s fair to be depressed, pessimistic about this and press to action because I think there’s also cause for optimism because there are things we can do that are a lot smarter. A friend of mine, Avery Lovins wrote a book called “Factor Four.” He said we can create as much wealth and human happiness with one quarter the material imputs that we do today. We can use one quarter the amount of resources and produce the same amount of good for people. In fact other people have looked at this and said well he was actually pessimistic. More realistically, optimistically we can improve and decrease the amount of resources used by more like a factor of ten. And this is even just using today’s technologies, tomorrow’s technologies should be even better. There’s a lot of new things as we learn to engineer at the nanoscale, take full advantage of the computer evolution. We can use a lot less resources. We can provide a lot more wealth to bring everyone up to the level of the standard of living in the United States while also staying within a reasonable ecological footprint say for the atmosphere we might need a factor of twenty more wealth to be produced. We think that in this century there’s enough innovation possible that we could do that and stay well within the economic and ecological footprint. So I think there’s strong reason to be optimistic about what we can do, how much growth, how much happiness, basic needs, health we can provide for people without exceeding the ecological footprint if we innovate.

by Bill Joy

Sep 9, 2006 2:15:00 PM cite

Bora Cosic: Probably there is one, however it is being crossed on daily bases by technological, economical, and civilization development. Now it is already very difficult to control this. Don’t you see that sane human being is an insane existence in the universe? Human being is committing a sin not only towards the nature but also towards him/her self. However this is special and unique event of human existence in the universe.

by Bora Cosic

Sep 9, 2006 2:15:00 PM cite

Brian J. Weller: Very clearly there is. Back in the ‘70s when [Loomis Deworth] came out in the [not understood] it was noticed, but a lot of politicians just paid it lip service, and now there’s a renewal of that particular piece of work and it’s becoming more and more evident. In fact, there is indeed an ecological limit to economic growth. In a previous answer, I was talking about economics. If you look into the entomology, the origin of those words, [ecos-ecoi-oecos] and economics means the management of home, home is what? It’s our planet. So, what are the limits imposed by our planet? We live actually in a closed system. We get our sunlight; we get our energy from the sun obviously. But then we have really what amounts to a closed living system. That’s notwithstanding we get 10,000 tons pretty much every day from stardust. Vibrationally we’re not a closed system and that’s very evident when we look at the impacts of things like solar flares and magnetic inferences from other planets and sources. But basically, this limit is something that we’re coming up against right now. I think we’re already at that point of understanding that the human economy sits in tight the natural ecology. Since the human economy for its productive activity depends upon the sources or the resources from the natural world, we have to use those resources wisely and sustainably. For the moment, we actually create what we call waste material and this waste material is actually negatively harming the human economy and the natural world or ecology. So, really we have to eliminate this whole concept of waste. There is no such thing as waste in nature. The byproducts of one process become the inputs for the new process. We are truly interdependent with the natural world.

by Brian J. Weller

Sep 9, 2006 2:15:00 PM cite

Catherine David: The stake of many contemporary and future wars is water, after petrol. So, I believe this is not a fantasy or a prediction. There are limits, there are limits of natural resources and it seems to me this is not anything new. Thus, the question is when do we attain these limits? When does the attainment of the limits damage the populations and who are the populations that are the most privileged that is to say who are the populations that are supposed to have water and who are the populations that are supposed to do without it? I believe that the questions of limits are also questions of political order and that certain populations are designed to have more extensive limits than others. Once again, we have to refer to the law, in respect of the laws and to make people respect the law, even under threat of violence.

by Catherine David

Sep 9, 2006 2:15:00 PM cite

China Keitetsi: Answertext will be available soon.

by China Keitetsi

Sep 9, 2006 2:15:00 PM cite

Constantin von Barloewen: The ecological limits of economic growth have long been crossed already. You just need to think of the areas in the Amazon region in the rain forest, as well in Indonesia, which have the size of Switzerland and are being destroyed every year, of the dramatic changes in the climate. Countries like India and China are conducting massive depletion and robber economy with ecology as price for their economic rise. One can only support groups, e.g. in Brasil, like the NGO´s (?), the civil rights movements, the movement of the "Landlosen" (?), the various groups of natives of the Amazon who are being threatened and robbed of their lifes possibilities. President Lula has tried strongly to support the ecological movement, but has been held back by the economic interests and the investment possibilities of foreign companies and was not able to keep his promises about ecology he gave in the beginning of his term of office. And there is a lot to do left, not only in Brazil, as well in Indonesia, Africa. The total pecuniary reward, the profit maximisation is an enormous power and a threat for the ecological balance. This is true for both the industrialized countries and the Third world countries, where the industrialized world has already a bigger consciousness in this point.

by Constantin von Barloewen

Sep 9, 2006 2:15:00 PM cite

Dedi Baron: Answertext will be available soon.

by Dedi Baron

Sep 9, 2006 2:15:00 PM cite

Donato Bayu Bay Bumacas: Yes, there is really a limit, in fact especially on destruction of natural resources that is going on in the name of economic growth. It usually leads to an ecological limit where environment will be destroyed. So, I think we should promote an activity that would lead to economic growth in a decent time, promote biodiversity. So we need practices, initiatives and we have to support those initiatives that reduce poverty and promote biodiversity that is leading to economic growth. And those people who are engaged in businesses, who are extractive in nature, I think those people should reflect whether they are contributing to the destruction of our environment in the name of economic growth. In case those business people who engage themselves in extracting resources that can be replaced, like logging, they should see or design a mechanism where if they cut one tree, they should plant 10 trees as an alternative. And in that way we can have economic growth by not destroying our environment.

by Donato Bayu Bay Bumacas

Sep 9, 2006 2:15:00 PM cite

Dritëro Kasapi: Yes, of course, if the economy keeps growing on the premises of today by the current rate of exploiting our nature. Of course, there is limit. Actually it’ll mean the death of our planet at sometime. On the other hand, I think we cannot imagine our world without exploration, without development of economy, without economic growth. We have to explore economy because economy is rooted deeply in our human relation, as part of our human relations and the way for us to exist also. So, but what I am 100% sure is that, there should not be a conflict between economic growth and ecological sustainability. On contrary, I think we need to find alternative ways of finding energy and producing energy which is more friendly to our nature and that actually can, finding these alternative ways can actually induce further economic growth rather than stop it. So, I think, thinking ecologically is good for the economic growth in the long run.

by Dritëro Kasapi

Sep 9, 2006 2:15:00 PM cite

Eddie Glaude: Absolutely. Absolutely. It just seems to me that we can only consume so much without the world giving way. We understand the impending oil crisis; we know what is happening in terms of deforestation. It is certainly the case that continuous economic growth, a relentless pursuit of that growth without any attention to the circumstances of our world, the condition of our planet, can only result in tragedy. So, absolutely, absolutely there is an ecological limit to economic growth.

by Eddie Glaude

Sep 9, 2006 2:15:00 PM cite

Eliane Potiguara: We are living in an economical system that accumulates money and goods. And in reality this is our economy, independent of society. So all good things that we do our children will receive as well. When we destroy things we also destroy our planet. The economical growth has to be proportional to the level of the preservation of the planet, of the water and of all things of nature. Everything that passes the limits destroys also. The economical growth should be equilibrated to ecological aspects and to the ecology itself, to the environment and the human beings. The human being should have a balance between the economical growth and the environment by leading himself and participating on the economical growth without destruction of his environment. An economical growth, for example of an industry of petroleum, is not rentable if it destroyes at the same time the environment or the life of people. So it is necessary to have a blanance and no contradictions.

by Eliane Potiguara

Sep 9, 2006 2:15:00 PM cite

Eliot Weinberger: Yes, I think there obviously is. I think there is probably, since forms of alternate energy have barely been explored, there is probably not an ecological limit to things like energy produced by the wind and water and so forth. Where you do have the ecological limits of course is particularly in things like pollution and waste. What are we going to do with all that junk? So, clearly, there is a limit.

by Eliot Weinberger

Sep 9, 2006 2:15:00 PM cite

Elisabet Sahtouris: I believe it was 1973 when the Club of Rome first published it’s book, “Limits to Growth,” which clearly stated that there are economic limits, that there are ecological limits to economic growth. That book was published after the first big computer study that could predict where our economy is going if we continue to use resources the way we have been using them. And it was clear then, ’73, now it’s ’83, ’93, 2003, more, more than 30 years since and we haven’t stopped slowing, we haven’t started to really slow our economies down. And we have to do a tremendous amount of work to reduce economic growth and yet make life good for everybody. We all know that if China and India all wanted to live the way the United States does that it would take 5, 7 planets to supply us. So it’s completely impossible for us to do that. But there are many ways for us to grow. We can grow new technologies. We can grow cooperation with each other. We can grow in our inventiveness. We can grow in our caring and our ways of sharing on this planet. We can develop lifestyles of what I call elegant simplicity. Let’s only make things that are lasting and beautiful. We don’t need closets full of junk. And in the highly developed world as we call it there’s a huge amount of waste. Look at our production. We make a lot of things out of hydrocarbons, out of the fossil fuels that were buried in the earth. They were buried for good reason. We’re not supposed to be digging them up and polluting the atmosphere and causing global warming with them. So what do we do? We use heat, beat and treat methods, we actually waste 96% of those hydrocarbons that we dig out of the earth just in the production process. And then--

by Elisabet Sahtouris

Sep 9, 2006 2:15:00 PM cite

Ervin Laszlo: Yes, there certainly is, but what that limit is depends on what kind of growth. There is classical growth that reaches its limits much faster by using up resources very fast, by polluting very fast. There are alternative forms of growth. Those are more ecologically compatible where those can have a much greater limit of tolerance. So, the limits are certainly there. But whether they are growths already being reached or as yet in the distance future, depends on what kind of growth, what it is that is fueling growth.

by Ervin Laszlo

Sep 9, 2006 2:15:00 PM cite

Esther Mwaura-Muiru:

by Esther Mwaura-Muiru

Sep 9, 2006 2:15:00 PM cite

Fernando Solanas: There certainly must be a limit for economic growth, for economic growth and for the greed of gain, because economic growth is motivated by the ideology of business. Economic growth cannot change the continuity of the ecosystem, be it because of business or because of any other reason. The current generation cannot destroy the ecosystem, it cannot change the laws of nature because the generations to come also have the right to enjoy the benefits of nature. We are standing at a huge crossroads because what is changing the economic equilibrium is the excessive economic growth and the leading nations which are driving this growth and which are causing this ecological damage, and until this day they have not shown any intent to change their politics. Altogether, considering the situation of our world today, we are standing in front of the downright ecological destruction, spurred on by a growing economy, which is a vast irrationality.

by Fernando Solanas

Sep 9, 2006 2:15:00 PM cite

Fred Matser: In itself, I think there is a limit. I think already in many -- on many levels we have passed the limits and it's reflected in global warming. I think, again, we have to look back at the cyclical evolutionary laws of nature and you can see that there is certain power that is in the birth or the flowering, the decay and death. And if we really on a deep level connect our consciousness and our knowledge with what is happening in nature and mimic these laws, then that can lead to a different attitude and can really make changes. And so, if in our processes, our human processes, where we take away things of nature and bring them in other formations where we take elements away from nature, bring into other formations, we really have to use those elements in a sustainable way and help to recycle them back to nature of which they are an inherent part. And yes, there are what we already said in the beginning, there are limits and we have to not allow any more to be dictated by scarcity and by fear, because if we allow ourselves to be dictated by fear, we really lose our own clarity and our own sensitivity to those natural laws and we get lost.

by Fred Matser