The questioner continues:
It seems like most of our demand-based economies don’t take into account the fact that many of the resources being used are finite. If the amount of money goes up (eg: through investments), then production goes up as if the monetary system exists in a vacuum disregarding ‘finiteness’ of resources.
My answer:
Yes, our current horse-race economics are irrelevant and even damaging to the endurance of the evolution of mankind. Our demise will be anthropogenic (meaning manmade) and is unlikely to come from a shortage of natural resources but instead of our inability to get along with each other.
Natural resources are renewable and so is mankind. But as the smartest animal on our planet we will live the shortest – so much for intelligence – for we use all our genius not to strengthen ourselves in our equilibrium with nature, but to suppress ourselves with systems that perpetuate and reward our stifling commonalities over our meaningful and evolutionary pertinent differences.
It appears animals without much of a brain are much better off on an evolutionary spectrum, living simply by the laws of nature imprinted on them. Insects have lived for about 450 million years. Humans, with our unique ability for foresight, will live no longer than 25 million years, with our expected lifespan to be at the tail-end, with about 1,000 more years to go (according to some).
So, while it is prudent to think about natural resources and the conservation of them, the most imminent problem is not their avail, but ours. Access to natural resources does not make us finite; we make ourselves finite with systems of humanity in conflict with the laws of nature that supersede ours.
