It may be a kind of 'race' between resource limits on the one hand, and technological solutions on the other hand.
Problem is: those resource limits are essentially fixed. There's only so much greenhouses gasses we can put in the atmosphere before wreaking havoc on the climate. No technology will give us a 2x or 10x GHG budget. Similar story with energy, minerals, metals & so on.
Technology solutions may come. Or not. But you can't be sure that for any problem x, some tech y will be developed to solve it.
And if it does: all you've done is move the goalposts, and a while later you're back at the same problem. For example the green revolution allowed this world to feed many more mouths. So population exploded, and now we're back to the same problem, except with 8..10 vs. 1..2B mouths to feed.
Techno-optimists lean too much on those technology fixes to appear (and in time!), imho. A more realistic approach is to start with what's currently possible (or what seems realistic near-future). Then if new technology appears, it'll make the problem easier. Just don't count on it.
Problem is: those resource limits are essentially fixed. There's only so much greenhouses gasses we can put in the atmosphere before wreaking havoc on the climate. No technology will give us a 2x or 10x GHG budget. Similar story with energy, minerals, metals & so on.
Technology solutions may come. Or not. But you can't be sure that for any problem x, some tech y will be developed to solve it.
And if it does: all you've done is move the goalposts, and a while later you're back at the same problem. For example the green revolution allowed this world to feed many more mouths. So population exploded, and now we're back to the same problem, except with 8..10 vs. 1..2B mouths to feed.
Techno-optimists lean too much on those technology fixes to appear (and in time!), imho. A more realistic approach is to start with what's currently possible (or what seems realistic near-future). Then if new technology appears, it'll make the problem easier. Just don't count on it.