It’s interesting, but I think there are a lot of mistakes on both sides. Here is one excerpt from a physicist:
Physicist: True enough. So we can probably agree that energy growth will not continue forever. But two points before we continue: First, I’ll just say that energy growth far outpaces population growth, so per capita energy consumption has increased dramatically over time—our energy lives today are much richer than those of our ancestors a century ago. [economist nods]. So even if the population stabilizes, we tend to increase the per-capita energy: the total energy will have to continue to grow to maintain such a trend. [another nod].
Second, thermodynamic limits limit the growth of energy lest we feed ourselves. I’m not talking about global warming, CO2 building, etc. I’m talking about getting used energy out of the atmosphere. I think you are happy to close our conversation on Earth, we are looking forward to the thought of going into space, colonizing planets, living the life of Star Trek, etc…
At that 2.3% growth rate, we will be using energy at a rate equivalent to the total amount of solar input affecting the Earth in just over 400 years. We will eat something similar to the whole day 1400 years from now. In 2,500 years, we will use energy on the scale of the entire Milky Way galaxy—a hundred billion stars! I think you see the folly of continuing to grow in power.
I think it’s easy enough for an economist to argue that energy, at some margin, has diminishing returns to creating a resource. So we’ve had reduced economic growth, not a constant population growth (oscillation back and forth?), and thus we’re not frying the planet, or for that matter the galaxy. The general lesson of national income statistics is that if you play exponentials long enough, over many centuries you’re talking about very different things, rather than simple growth in current conditions.
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