Curmudgeon,

If you are blind to the limits of growth in situations like this: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4994590.stm

then, so be it.....

(In addition, the land is now degraded and the water table depleted.)

Curmudgeon (Mark),

Certainly there are limits - it's a closed system, and the system is already under great stress from over-exploitation of land, sea, forests, wildlife, fossil-fuels, fertiliser resources and water resources (particularly ground water and aquifers).

Pollution, soil-salinity and acidity, ocean acidity and fish stock depletion, ecosystem-change favouring detrimental (non-food) species, and loss of natural soil fertility and microbial balance are all contributing to a shrinking banquet from which there is no identifiable recovery (genetic-modification and evolutionary adaptation included).

Past highly-developed civilisations have demised from localised over-exploitation of their natural and developed environments (and resultant famine, pestilence and war) - and the world is heading down a similar track, just on a far grander scale.

All around, harvests are shrinking, with ever-increasing use of synthetic fertilisers, insecticides and herbicides; rainforests are being cleared to produce only one or two years of viable crops (at cost of essential oxygen producing and climate stabilising ecosystems); food crops are being converted to bio-fuel production; antibiotic-resistant disease and deadly viruses are on the rise; and species are going extinct at an alarming rate.

Are we immune from the dictates of the natural environment in this finite system? I think not. In the end result, the full recycling of all human waste will succumb to the law of diminishing returns, and a more sustainable, though far-diminished world will eventuate. Or do you think food can be made from nuclear energy or the 'God' particle?

Millions are starving and conflict is reaching epidemic proportions - but it's full steam ahead? Perhaps we need a new 'mage'.

The pursuit of growth is not going to end in disaster, no matter how many times it may be prophecised.
Curmudgeon,
Again, it all depends on perspective. The islamic fundamentalists who believe that only after you're dead things will be ok for you is no different to the growth advocates. Please explain how on a finite planet you can sustain growth such as business & consumerism understand it ? Growth means just that, getting bigger, more etc.. Doesn't that also mean growth of pollution ? When you keep taking minerals don't they eventually start a growth in decline ?
Many might think ah well, let the following generations worry about it. The real problem with this mentality is that we may not have to wait for the next generation before things go ar$e-up. I am already coping with the consequences of this growth now. I only hope I can make it through the next twenty or so years without having to exist like a rat amongst cockroaches or vice versa.

Come to think of it, I wonder if the past great civilisations like Atlantis, Egypt, central America etc all depended on growth ? I'm sure England did & look at it now ?

individual

Okay, quite a number of misconceptions. I can only deal with a few. the probloem is, as has been pointed out many times now, the earth is a bounteous place. One point often made is that if land deposits of metals run out there are still enormous undersea deposits. Then there is the question of adaption and substitution. If oil does run out (which it won't do for a very long time) then there are electric cars. You want to read the book The Rationalist Optimist by Matt Ridley which deals with a lot of this. the rate of population increase is declining everywhere, incidentally.

As for the civilisation anaology no they didn't depend on growth. the Minoean civilisaiton sometimes considered to be the model for the fictional Atlantis was knocked over by a tidal wave, for example. The Egyptian civilisation never changed; it ossified. A victim of its own bureaucracy. The Central American civilisations that vanished - Mayan? - it is thought were a victim of climate change of the time.

Puzzled over the reference to England.

adaption and substitution. If oil does run out (which it won't do for a very long time) then there are electric cars.
Carmudgeon,
Yes, it'll be a long time yet before natural resources run out, if indeed they ever will. It's quite possible that there a renewable processes going under our feet.
What concerns me about newer & newer technology is that most of the environmentally friendly technology is actually highly polluting in its manufacture.
re the Labour Party in England I'd have thought it self-explanatory.