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If having economic growth go on forever is impossible, just as traveling faster than the speed of light is impossible, and if we don't need any government laws to prevent people from travelling faster than the speed of, because, after all, travelling faster than the speed of light is impossible, then, WHY do we need any government laws to prevent economic growth from going on forever?
Your article said:
"it is impossible for the world economy to grow its way out of poverty and environmental degradation."
That's what Paul Ehrlich said 35 years ago about South Korea and Taiwan. He said it would be impossible for South Korea and Taiwan to reduce their problems of poverty as their populations got bigger. He was wrong. Today, both of these countries are much richer than they were 35 years ago.
Ehrlich said that as the world's population doubled from 3 billion to 6 billion, worldwide famine would get worse. He said it was impossible to prevent worldwide famine from getting worse. He was wrong. Today, the average person in the world eats more calories of food per day than at any other time in the history of the human race, and the percentage of people in the world who are malnourished is lower than it has ever been.
Ehrlich said that by the year 2000, 90% of the United States's population would starve to death. He said it was impossible to avoid this disaster. He was wrong.
The Club of Rome said that it would be impossible for the world's GNP to grow past 1975 levels. They were wrong. Since then, world GNP has more than doubled.
The long term trend of the environment in every country all over the world is this: in the early stages of industrialization, there's lots of pollution, and lots of damage to the environment. But, once per capita GNP in a country reaches about $4,000, the environment starts to get better. And the richer the country gets, the better its environment becomes.
That statement from your article that I quoted is just as irrational as anything that Paul Ehrlich ever said.
I would think that 1,000 years ago there were probably many people who believed that vaccinations and heart transplants were "impossible." But today, we have these things.
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