Limits to Growth--unorginal title

Am reading Herman Daly right now. His approach to economics is pretty good.

The key is that we are moving from an empty world, where resources seemed limitless and man's actions/pollution could be absorbed by ecosystem services. Now, we live in a full world. We are pushing the limits to which the ecosystem can survive. No matter how many substitutes we find to the resources that are becoming more and more scarce, we can't find them forever. Even if we can, those that we lose will be gone forever. We cannot rebuild a wetlands environment when basic species have become extinct. We need to build a sustainable economy.

This involves recognizing the need to cut back on consumption and maximize the services provided by resources while not depleted them at an irresponsible rate. The growth economy cannot continue forever. The growth economy relies on treating depleted natural resources as income when they should be treated as a loss of capital. The exact transformation is too complex to comprehend in total. But, that should not prevent us from abandoning our current system.

This was a horrible glossing over of the beauty of the theory. I just had to get this down so I could further explore it later.