Technological limits to forecasts of doom: Science,technology, and the sustainable economy

In this paper some of the catastrophist literature that was prevalent in the 1960s and 1970s is surveyed. It is still being published but now seems to have a diminished following. The focus is on two major areas, on food and population and on mineral resources. To the catastrophists, the various ills that allegedly plagued the world were attributed to technology. Their solution was a new appropriate technology that would allow us to live within limits. I counter with the argument that technology is the creator of resources which it uses, and that the data on food supply show that world development has been positive. The alternate technologies that were offered are found to be, in my judgment, self-limiting and therefore selfdefeating. I argue that life in general and human life in particular has not survived by living within limits but by devising means of transcending them. Technologies that allow us to live within limits lead to stagnation and inevitable decline. The sustainable economy is one that continually evolves in the use of science and technology to create new resources.