Sublime

This suggests a general operating principle similar to the Leopoldian land ethic, often summarized as “what’s good is what’s good for the land.” In our current situation, the phrase can be usefully reworded as “what’s good is what’s good for the biosphere.” In light of that principle, many efficiencies are quickly seen to be profoundly destructive,

while “the absolute amount of various metal minerals in the earth’s

not vary.

Preliminary analyses have estimated quantitative planetary boundaries for seven of the nine processes or elements: climate change, stratospheric ozone, ocean acidification, the nitrogen and phosphorus cycles, biodiversity loss, land use change, and freshwater use.

Our Earth is a plentiful place – it generates an abundance of forests and fish and crops every year. It is also remarkably resilient, as it not only reproduces these things as we use them, it absorbs and processes our waste too: our emissions, our chemical run-off, and so on. But in order for the planet to maintain these capacities, we can only tak

Proponents of degrowth argue that economic growth is predicated on the continuous extraction of natural resources, and so infinite growth in a world in which resources are finite is, by definition, impossible. In fact, the pursuit of infinite growth is what led civilization down the path of climate change, ecological destruction, biodiversity loss,

“Our strategy must change,” Heinberg says, “from crisis prevention to crisis management.”