…the world has improved its ability not only to utilize resources more efficiently but also to locate many more. With today’s technology, it’s possible to find and exploit even low-quality iron ores, thereby expanding the supply for years to come. Likewise, as humans have become better at extracting oil, the world’s known oil reserves have increased significantly in recent years despite a considerable rise in energy consumption. Moreover, as nations have become more wealthy, the overall rate of population growth has declined. Today, the most grievous demographic problem in the West is not a burgeoning population competing for resources and producing waste but a fertility rate that is too low to sustain a vibrant workforce.

In short, there is no natural law dictating an exponential mounting pressure on Earth’s ecological resources. The limit of sustainability is not a static ceiling but is formed and expanded by human innovation and technological progress. This exponential dynamic seems to have outpaced any pressure on the limit. Thus, perhaps the most problematic assumption is the omission of technological progress and human innovation from the model. Only by ignoring these strong dynamic forces can one posit a fixed limit to growth. By contrast, Yale economist William Nordhaus has demonstrated that if the rate of technological progress is included in these calculations, the Earth’s collapse will be avoided by a large margin. Limits to Growth