Perhaps there is a way to have continued economic growth for awhile, but even at 1 or 2%, the music has to stop somewhere, sometime.

The key, regardless, is that total material production and consumption must stabilize and decrease soon because we do not have enough planets for our current level of consumption, much less increases in our current level of consumption.

In any event, economic growth, as represented by GDP, has become an increasingly flawed parameter to even approximate well being. We need to focus on other measures of well being, which may or may not be reflected in changes in GDP.

Even within the strict context of GDP, the number is not a good guide to economic well being since most of the increase s in GDP over the last couple of decades has gone to the very rich. At least in the U.S. the level of inequality just increases year by year. To focus on the gross overall GDP or even the per capita GDP is a terribly distorted way of looking at the economy.

And then we have this perverted way of looking at greenhouse gases. The Bush administration prefers to focus on intensity as if the overall level doesn't matter as long as we are becoming more efficient. Well, efficiency isn't getting us where we need to be. Whether it could ever result in the overall reduction of GHG is a matter of debate, but in any event, the overall level needs to be capped. If, within those constraints, economic growth continue for awhile, perhaps that is acceptable.

A further related note. As more and more of us economize,localize, and produce, our efforts will larely not be reflected in GDP. But our well being will increase. The religion of economic growth is a curse.

NO, there is not "a way to have continuing growth with a finite, fixed resource base."

Growth is growth. Any increase in resource use beyond its capacity to replace itself means collapse.

We are not going to think ourselves out of this. This is the first canard that must go away. If you go to the Sudan and tell the starving there to just think about food and everything will be all right, you will be beaten to death. Then, if they are smart, they will eat you.

Do not tell me that people will grow an economy based on art. That is specious at best. Have you heard of the Tulip bubble?

What all Westerners and much of the rest of the world must come to realize is that a growth economy is a poisonous illogical, cancerous, waste of time and resources designed to enrich a tiny minority and screw the rest. Give up this paradigm. Live outside the patriarchy, escape the mean daddy paradigm.

No one really knows for sure. At best these are all educated guesses. I'd really like to see an IPCC-style panel address global energy/water issues.

Do the best to prepare at whatever level you deem is reasonable.

If worst case scenarios do come to pass (not saying they will), it may be that any preparation (short of a Vault) could be fairly worthless anyway. :)

If you don't want to study the science, then you must accept an "Argument from Authority". Internet blogs run the Gamut - from those who think the earth is 7,000 years old or don't believe in thermodynamics, to very knowledgeable Phds with years of experience.

The best way to sort out the silly stuff is just reject those who don't believe in the basic laws of physics (or evolution etc) or those who have a political philosophy so set on some agenda (like avoiding government taxation or control) that they are willing to bend all facts.

I would recommend reading "Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update" It does a good job explaining how exponential growth crashes into a wide variety of limits and tends toward collapse. Unthinking creatures follow population booms and busts. And so do thinking creatures that refuse to think (or act). It may be a tough book to get into, but it will pay back far more understanding than reading hundreds of posts.

If that book is too technical, then try "Plan B 2.0" by Lester Brown. It does not do as good a job of explaining the theory behind why systems collapse, but it does have a great list of all the limits the human race is crashing into. And it has helpful ideas of what can be done to act smarter.

There are also a bunch of "state of the planet" type books from reputable sources like Science magazine.

What we want to know, is: How much of any of this, from any side or expert, is bullshit, and how much is something we ought to worry about?

That's a very good question, but really unanswerable. If we are frank, there is an awful lot of BS written about PO (and everything else) - that applies to both sides of the argument. Anyone claiming to be able to predict the future with such accuracy is obviously a charlatan or a fool.

If you can't decide on the evidence yourself, then you would have to ask someone you trust to give a verdict. Personally, I trust the scientific method to eventually come up with the truth, but science is poor at predicting one-off events. Observation of events as they happen will be the only way to know for sure.

In the event that there is something to worry about, if you decide there is nothing that you can personally do that will make any significant difference, either to your own future or anyone elses, then the best thing is to ignore it, and get on with your life. Worrying about stuff you cannot change will only cause stress, to no useful end.

Okay, let's pull some things out of my arse. I view myself as an optimist at TOD, compared to many of the viewpoints here.

Supervolcanoes, Meteors, and Gamma Rays(I think you mean supernovas within a few parsecs) have a fraction of a percent chance of killing off, say, half the population of a continent of people in the 21st century.

Global warming is the next most likely event, but it is quite difficult to predict the weather next week, much less accurate atmospheric forcing over the course of a century. All we really KNOW is that Northern Hemisphere average temperatures in the last decade are scary(read: beyond all reasonable models we were using), and the steadily(read: reversal of trend is the hardest task humanity as a whole has ever faced) climbing atmospheric CO2 is scary. 60% confidence level of beginning to melt Greenland and wiping out most of the arctic glaciers in the next hundred years, flooding most sealevel islands and coastlines gradually. 75% confidence level of causing over 10% of the earth's population to relocate their home through agricultural or flooding problems.

Ecological problems and 'The peaks' are the only virtually assured disasters. Ocean fisheries, forests, topsoil, aquifers, and accessible hydrocarbons are all being depleted at rates that simply can't mathematically continue for another 93 years.

Ecology
Invasive species are destroying previously isolated flora and fauna, and WILL continue to, for lack of ability and more often, lack of caring(we're annihilated stronger hazards than the wild boar): 100% confidence. Industrial pollution WILL continue to sterilize or contaminate riverwater: 100% confidence. Desertification WILL cause large food shortages(and accompanying wars, which we can see in Africa now) and shifts over to less nutritious foods: 95% confidence. Fresh water WILL become a semiprecious commodity in much of the world that now takes it for granted by basically mining it: 95% confidence.

Hydrocarbons
Oil, gas, and coal WILL become the most important strategic assets in the world, the subject of numerous wars: 95% confidence. That one of those wars will be of the same scale as WW1/WW2: 30% chance. Whether the first world can replace most of their use without cascading collapses of industrial infrastructure (and eventual dieoff) is up for debate. I give it 90% chance we can do it, but 80% chance that it will be looked back on as at least as dark a period as the Great Depression. Partially because if there ever was a trigger for the fiscal problems of the United States to explode(the housing market hasn't done it yet), it's peak oil, which would put our trade imbalance so much deeper in the red than it already is, it threatens our credit rating, and thus, our status as an anchor currency. Chance of hyperinflation in the US after a global peak is discerned: 60%.

After that, there's the matter of the 'true' price for oil. Exports will dry up much faster than total supply when a peak becomes apparent, as countries nationalize, strategically reserve, and in general tighten their supplies(aside from rising internal consumption, which is what the much-repeated 'exportland' term refers to). Call it a 1-5% decline rate, paired with a 5-15% decline rate in exports. The 'true price' is a very subjective matter, masked partly because oil becomes the anchor currency in the short term.

Alternative energy is poised to grow to large-proportion-of-most-economy sized proportions, at least for a while. Regardless of what romantic environmentalists like to think, 'Powerdown' is not an option. 6.5 billion people living at 18th century levels of industrialization is simple not possible, preferable, or something they will accept. Nor is mass genocide acceptable so that the few survivors can 'live off the land'. Whether it can take hold fast enough is a big question. I have a lot of optimism - thus far alternative energy is a hobby. There is every reason to believe that it is possible to bring up the level of innovation if we take it as seriously as we do major wars.

I appreciate all the comments and opinions, I really do. But ya' know what? I've yet to hear from "Professor Goose", who was the author if I'm not mistaken.

And I did mean Super [i]Volcanoes[/i] - eg: Yellowstone. Although Super Novae (or the Super Flu ) are yet more "things we should fear". Sorry, y'all. I don't scare easily. Which really pisses off politicians, preachers, and certain special interests. Sometimes people need their ricebowls kicked over, and I'm an equal opportunity rice bowl kicker. They can deal with it. Or bite me. Don't much care which.