Any activity requires the use of energy. Economic activity
is not possible without energy,
especially fossil fuels. An increase in economic activity necessarily
leads to an increase in the use fossil
fuels and greenhouse gas emissions. In addition there will be a commensurate increase in waste products,
pollution and heat. This is dictated by the laws of physics and unavoidable. A problem arise when the cost of this degeneration
caused by continual economic growth surpasses the benefit society derives from it. The ecological economist Professor Herman Daly (2014) explained that
when the impact on the ecosystem is correctly measured, global growth has reached
a point where the total private and social costs of economic growth outweigh
the private and social benefits. In other words, more economic growth is making global society worse off overall - growth has become uneconomic! The model
shows that eventually pressures will build up that counteract the perennial
belief that all social ills can be solved with economic growth.