Are There Limits to Growth?

Perhaps the greatest debate in sustainability is whether there are limits to growth. Is it possible to achieve sustainability while continuously growing the economy, or is there a fundamental trade-off between these two objectives? Ever since the publication of the book the “Limits to Growth” in the 1970s, this question has been fiercely debated. In this lecture, I explore the arguments both for and against the continued pursuit of economic growth in wealthy nations. I discuss topics including poverty eradication, the Environmental Kuznets Curve hypothesis, decoupling, planetary boundaries, happiness, GDP, and the rebound effect.