Anti-growth lefties have most certainly painted themselves into an idealogical corner. Growth is the most powerful metaphor humans have. Without plant growth we are nothing, a non-start, an impossibility. So economists have leveraged this metaphor to its fullest tilt making well meaning environmentalists whip themselves into a reactive frenzy.
The emotional froth is fully understandable. As a global industrial civilization we have converted 75% of the earths terrestrial habitat into a glut of petty conveniences and status fetishism (barfitecture). The economic apologists wail endlessly of human progress indicators yet probably couldn’t identify an endangered species if it smashed into the windshield of their lexus.
What of infinite technological growth? Let’s reframe: how about infinite biocentric technological growth? Yes, yes and yes. Let’s try a thought experiment: if we packed all modern humans into one city at the density of Singapore, 8358 per Km2, we would fit into an area a tad bigger than Texas. Now imagine this megalopolis as a floating archipelago of self-contained floating cities. All of the technology to make this possible is readily available, a lot of it already scaled in Singapore, closed loop water systems, vertical farming, multi-trophic marine permaculture, renewable energy etc. The subaquatic surfaces could accrete a coralline biofilm and grow complex reef habitats. It would become the first anthropogenic mega-biodiversity hotspot (though many argue the Amazon rainforest qualifies for this honorific). The 75% of the earths terrestrial surface that we have domesticated could be fully rewilded, and all the indigenous peoples living under constant pressure from mining, agriculture, forestry, mega-dams and refugee colonization could continue to symbiotically steward their lands and waters as they have for millennia.
So if this eco-dream is technologically feasible whats stopping us from immediately implementing some variation of it? The roadblocks are 100% social. The aggregate complacency of everyones job security translated into unchangeable institutional inertia and legions of economic fortunetellers frantically virtue signalling the social benefit of their bosses dogma.
The antidote to this stiff-necked quagmire is held within the artistic imagination. It is the job of the artist to interpret the science of the possible. It is the job of every human to stop stifling the inner artist in exchange for the pseudo-comforts of job security. The science of abundance is clearly present. If we can avert our gazes from our devices for long enough to focus on this truth, we may just emancipate all life from the chains of human vice.