Of course you can have infinite growth on a finite planet

This assertion betrays a woeful lack of understanding of the the most basic economics:

On one side of the divide is a growing cadre of environmentalists and left-wing economists who argue you can’t have infinite growth on a finite planet and the crunch point is fast approaching. They claim the corporate and political imperative to continually expand the economy is pushing mankind to the brink of Armageddon.

It’s a ludicrous assertion.

Sure, there’re a limited number of atoms on the planet. We can’t, while staying here, use more than that number. No one doubts that. But that’s not what economic growth is.

GDP is not minerals - or anything else physical - processed. It’s value added. The limit to GDP is therefore in knowing how to add value. Therefore, while physical resources are obviously scarce - there’d be no subject called economics if that were not so - it is not physical resources which limit economic growth. It’s knowledge.

The assertion that we cannot have infinite growth on a finite plant fails at this most basic level of understanding therefore. For it’s simply not grasping what economic growth is - an increase in value add.

Of course, some take this even further, Jason Hickel seems to have said that we should have degrowth so that we can then have socialism which seems a bit absurd.

Even leaving that sort of thing aside the agreed finity of the size of the planet is not an argument for the finity of the size of the economy. Simply because the thing we measure as the economy, as economic growth - GDP - is not physical . It’s value, not stuff. So, how can a limit to the amount of stuff be the limitation?