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Showing posts from June 16, 2013

The Ghost of Julian Simon

The essence of my unchanging argument is as follows: An exponential growth of human population can be supported for a while by a similarly exponential increase of production of power as primary energy per unit time and food we must eat each day. After a certain time interval , whose length depends on the rate of population growth and technology, both the population and the means of its survival must stabilize or collapse.  The elapsed time to collapse depends strongly on the rate of deterioration of environmental services of the Earth: abundance of clean air, water, good soil, large healthy forests, and biodiversity in general, as well as on the healthy oceans. Please note the two key phrases: "for a while" and "a certain time interval."  My argument is generally  rejected, because most people focus on the here and now, and forget that a few decades are less than a blink of an eye in history of humanity.  In the more sophisticated circles of "main-stream&