LETTER: The end is near!
The Earth is finite in size. Therefore, economic and population growth must cease in the future. To prove this, the Earth can never support a population of 100 trillion nor an economy 100 million times as large as the current economy.
New technologies will not convert the finite resources the planet provides into infinite resources such that either economic or population growth can continue forever. The only questions are: When and how will both of them cease?
The United Nation’s latest prediction is that human population will grow from the present 8 billion to between a low of 8.9 billion and a high of 12.4 billion by 2100 — a growth of between 30 percent and 55 percent. 7. A very strong argument can be made that civilization will start to collapse before 2100 — and even a stronger argument can be made that the collapse of civilization will certainly commence no later than 2200.
