While the developed world benefited greatly during the 20th C from Sci-tech in medicine, nutrition, sanitation, etc., there are billions alive today who have been largely untouched by those developments. Lomborg has been thoroughly countered. Best Summary link:
http://www.wri.org/press/mk_lomborg.html
Note particularly that Peter Raven, head of Amer Asoc for Adv of Sci (AAAS) is a strong critic.
The world cannot be "less finite" at different times. There are wholesystem linkages touching EVERY occurrance/action on earth. We might not know all the impacts of our technology (actually impossible to know all), but there is no free lunch.
A Moral Code for a Finite World
By HERSCHEL ELLIOTT and RICHARD D. LAMM"What if global warming is a reality, and expanding human activity is causing irreparable harm to the ecosystem? What if the demands of a growing human population and an expanding global economy are causing our oceans to warm up, our ice caps to melt, our supply of edible fish to decrease, our rain forests to disappear, our coral reefs to die, our soils to be eroded, our air and water to be polluted, and our weather to include a growing number of floods and droughts? What if it is sheer hubris to believe that our species can grow without limits? What if the finite nature of the earth's resources imposes limits on what human beings can morally do? What if our present moral code is ecologically unsustainable?" Read the complete article at: http://chronicle.com/free/v49/i12/12b00701.htm
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http://populationinstitute.ca
http://www.scientists4pr.org/ Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.Kenneth Boulding
