I'm glad you linked to that article, which I had not seen before.
I think I agree with the author about degrowth as a goal being a political nonstarter. But I'm pretty skeptical about the notion that future growth can consist of ever increasing amounts of "dematerialized" goods and services without ceasing to be real, meaningful growth (however it might be defined).
I also think the political and physical challenges inherent in technological or "pro-growth" (I need a better word) solutions for getting out of overshoot are widely underappreciated. This [1] article runs some numbers to show that, for our global civilization to satisfy its current level of energy consumption without emitting significant amounts of greenhouse gases in 2050, we will have to bring online clean energy generation capacity equivalent to one nuclear power station every day between now and then. Given that, I'd be extremely surprised to see us get there by 2150, or maybe at all.
I think I agree with the author about degrowth as a goal being a political nonstarter. But I'm pretty skeptical about the notion that future growth can consist of ever increasing amounts of "dematerialized" goods and services without ceasing to be real, meaningful growth (however it might be defined).
I also think the political and physical challenges inherent in technological or "pro-growth" (I need a better word) solutions for getting out of overshoot are widely underappreciated. This [1] article runs some numbers to show that, for our global civilization to satisfy its current level of energy consumption without emitting significant amounts of greenhouse gases in 2050, we will have to bring online clean energy generation capacity equivalent to one nuclear power station every day between now and then. Given that, I'd be extremely surprised to see us get there by 2150, or maybe at all.
[1]: https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogerpielke/2019/09/30/net-zero...