Half a century of dealing with Neoclassical economists has taught me to expect them to have zero comprehension of the bleedingly obvious, when the obvious conflicts with their established beliefs.
Hi @Steve Keen, would it be possible for you to recommend any academic textbook to read for Macro 101 student that teaches in the same heterodox way as yourself?
Can you say what was the reading on your recent curriculums for students at Kingston for instance?
I am looking to find an anti-Taylor & Mankiw book in other words.
Hi. I tended to work from original references rather than textbooks, so my curriculum had students reading Friedman (and Minsky!) in the original journal papers rather than textbooks. That said, this website collects some of the best heterodox texts currently available (there aren't many!):
My The New Economics: A Manifesto, and its free online technical companion book Modelling with Minsky (http://www.profstevekeen.com/minsky/) are also worth considering.
J. K. Galbraith talks about this in his excellent book "The Affluent Society" (published 1958!). The "conventional wisdom" is not characterized by being right but by being acceptable. He then goes on to say that:
"In some measure, the articulation of the conventional wisdom is a religious rite. It is an act of affirmation like reading aloud from the Scriptures or going to church. The business executive listening to a luncheon address on the immutable virtues of free enterprise is already persuaded, and so are his fellow listeners, and all are secure in their convictions. Indeed, although a display of rapt attention is required, the executive may not feel it necessary to listen. But he does placate the gods by participating in the ritual."
People will say anything to pretend their wealth, status, and privilege. Classical economics assumes natural resources to be infinite. This is a fairly significant error and invalidates everything else they say, as one "cannot eat more and shit less.". My solution to the problem can be found here: www.global-climate-compensation.org.
Natural resources are to all intents and purposes infinite, unless you go to absurd extents and talk about the entropy of the universe or the speed of light. The key point is exponential growth is not sustainable and that means at some point population must stabilize, as has already happened worldwide. We have already passed peak children and population will peak @ ~10-12B by end of the century barring calamities.
There are various limitations on the rate of growth of various resources but those are temporary constraints. Ultimately if you can achieve zero population growth, there are no resource limits. The only resource you need is energy, and with plentiful energy you can recycle everything including water. Just the uranium and thorium accessible on the Earth land mass would supply world energy demand for over 100Myrs. And fusion resources are much larger than that. And vast resources of all of those on the Moon, Mars and the Asteroids. Technology remains the key constraint by far.
The burden of proof lies with you, and you have not convinced me so far. Entropy of the Earth is the problem, and I am currently writing a paper about it. It is not at all absurd.
No the burden of proof lies with you because what you are saying is irrational. Entropy for the purpose of human activity is largely limited by the solar energy incident upon the Earth. Apart from solar energy there is vast fusion and fission sources of energy, far more than a non-expanding human civilization could ever use. And we can easily access resources on the Moon, Mars and the Asteroids. Possibly even the Outer planets will be viable sources of materials and energy. There is no big problem recycling all resources except energy for essentially forever, unless you want to talk ridiculous time frames that are likely dominated by things like asteroid impacts, supervolcanoes and astronomical events.
It's not about climate change, at this point that is a minor issue. It's all about rational effective mitigation strategies. So far virtually all the climate change alarmists (with a few exceptions like Jim Hansen) are advocating nutty scam solutions that have zero chance of significantly reducing emissions. Anyone who advocates wind & solar is advocating for worsening climate change.
Wind & solar are intermittent & seasonal so they require a mirroring fossil/biomass/nuclear/hydro energy source that supplies almost 100% of grid demand during the wind/solar lulls, which often occur when grid demand is highest, i.e. large stable high pressure cell in the winter. So the best wind & solar can do is theoretically replace some fuel when they are operating. But fuel cost is only about 1/10th the electricity price you pay. Most of the rest is grid costs. So to have that meager fuel savings you essentially have to have two parallel grids operational at all times. To add misery to madness induced cycling and economic inefficiencies in the buffering fossil/nuclear generators mean in reality negligible fuel is actually saved by the wind & solar. Even if the Wind Turbines or Solar Panels were free they would still be far too expensive to be practical except in areas on diesel generation (very expensive fuel) and with a large reservoir Hydro resource or for off-grid homes.
There is a linear price relationship between wind/solar grid penetration and price of electricity. See Ken Gregory, P.Eng, graph Euro/kwh by country 2019: Conclusion: European Wind Plus Solar Cost 6 Times Other Electrical Sources:
End result is after spending over $4 trillion worldwide on wind & solar total, World Primary energy supply is unchanged at 90% combustion fuel as it was 10yrs ago. In spite of improved efficiency of replacing conventional coal with supercritical coal, OCGT with extreme efficiency CCGT, coal/gas with hydro, LED lighting, substantial improvements in transportation efficiency, improved building insulation, heat pumps. Wind/solar hasn't even nearly been able to cover the growth in fossil consumption never mind actually replace fossil. Wind/solar has already been a dismal failure in Europe, leading to high energy prices, electricity & heat supply shortages and steep price increases, dependence on Russian energy & energy blackmail.
As further evidence, a survey of 68 nations over the past 52 years done by Environmental Progress and duplicated by the New York Times shows conventional hydro was quite successful at decarbonization, nuclear energy was also very successful and both wind and solar show no correlation between grid penetration and decarbonization. In other words wind & solar are not replacing fossil, they are a complete waste of money. They only succeed in increasing energy prices which does reduce emissions only by creating energy poverty.
If you really care about climate change that means advocating for a rapid expansion of nuclear energy. Otherwise forget about it. Don't even mention the subject.
I disagree vehemently with your first sentence, but I am aware of the need for nuclear to address energy needs, and the relative safety of modern reactors as well. Simon Michaux's work shows categorically that renewables can't provide the energy currently generated from fossil fuels. So I expect us to face energy rationing in the near future.
In other words we have no choice but to switch to nuclear from fossil. Just the readily accessible supplies of uranium & thorium can easily supply the energy needs of civilization for ~100Myrs, and then there is the Moon & Asteroids and Fusion. Happy coincidence the climate change problem (and air quality problem) is solved by switching to nuclear. So which is the real problem, climate change or rational climate change mitigation/energy transformation? Nuclear energy is and has been suppressed precisely because it can replace fossil fuels and at a lower cost than fossil. And the very people hyping the dangers of climate change are the pretty much the same ones who are stifling nuclear energy. Two of many ways this can be done:
Of course there is a choice. When considering nuclear, one has to factor in the huge lead time before reactors come on line, the huge resource requirement (and associated environmental impacts) to build and operate, say, another few thousand reactors (there are about 400 currently), the possible risk of reactors in countries that become unstable politically, and the multiplied risk globally of a, say, 5 to 10 fold increase in reactors, as well as waste storage problems. It is far quicker to reduce demand than go down avenues that are risky and may not work.
No, there is no choice. Wind & solar doesn't work that's already proven. Fastest 4yr nuclear power growth rate is 10X faster than the fastest solar growth rate and 4X faster than the fastest wind growth rate. That's an apples(nuclear) to rotten oranges(wind,solar) comparison. France achieved 100% of their domestic electricity consumption is 20yrs with nuclear 88% and 12% legacy hydro. And half of their primary energy consumption. That's using archaic one-at-a-time, PWR construction. PWRs was the wrong way to go with commercial nuclear power, forced by military cement heads in the USA.
Factory produced nuclear molten salt reactors can be expected to be 10X faster, 10x lower cost, no source of energy can compete with that. As well as ~100X lower risk deaths/twh which is already 100-1000X lower risk than fossil.
Reducing demand has been a total failure, has not happened, the exact opposite is happening. Reducing demand is good way to kill millions of people.
In fact by far and away the best way to reduce demand is to go to an all baseload power grid, no wind, no solar, and use BEV charging at nighttime for transportation. Low carbon baseload = nuclear and some hydro. You can't beat that.
I don't have time to check your growth rates but the quickest and most effective route to reducing emissions is to reduce demand. Almost all power production is fossil fuel based (i.e. require fossil fuels to build, fuel or operate), so any increase in power capacity is an increase in emissions. If some capacity is meant to replace fossil fuelled capacity, then emissions will rise even more in the short term, as the replacements are built.
I mentioned risk and we've just seen that the war in Ukraine is bringing the risk of nuclear in unstable regions (even though they may not seem unstable now) to the fore.
Saying reducing demand hasn't happened is not a reason for not promoting it. As the work of our host, in combination with Tim Garrett, has shown, there is simply no alternative to demand reduction (preceded by economic contraction) in the long term. Why do we keep hoping someone will come up with some way of avoiding utter catastrophe in ecosystems and resource shortages, in the future. It will be either a managed reduction or a reduction forced by circumstances. I know which I'd prefer.
"...quickest and most effective route to reducing emissions is to reduce demand..."
No it ain't. Not even close, not even remotely close. Almost all the demand now is in developing countries that are expanding their economies as they should and must, people want pensions, education, healthcare, military, legal system, ample food supply, heat & cooling, refrigeration, transportation, that all requires greatly expanded energy supply. That's what people want, energy and resource hog ultra-rich may not want that but they are the penultimate hypocrites. "Do as I say, not what I do".
"...any increase in power capacity is an increase in emissions. If some capacity is meant to replace fossil fuelled capacity, then emissions will rise even more in the short term, as the replacements are built...."
That's more nonsense. Just ordinary LWRs on a once-through fuel cycle are 75:1 full lifecycle EROI so it takes one month of investment for every 6yrs of fossil replacement. And closed cycle Molten Salt reactors are in the 300:1 EROI. Investment in that infrastructure is trivial.
"... war in Ukraine is bringing the risk of nuclear..."
That's Fear Porn MSM baloney. Go to see what real nuclear engineers say about that Ukraine nonsense, nothing has happened, not even close. Are you one of those silly children who believe modern commercial nuclear power plants can blow up, like Chernobyl? Sorry, they can't. A modern army with serious weaponry and deliberate hard effort could manage to force some mild radiation release which would only effect the local region, far, far easier to blow a hydro dam or set oil fields or gas pipelines on fire, or do a Bhopal, far, far more dangerous. Worry about bioweapons, why doesn't anyone care, after Covid? Those are the facts.
"... there is simply no alternative to demand reduction (preceded by economic contraction) in the long term.."
That is absolute nonsense, FUD of worse sort. You got ZERO evidence to back that up. Shortages? Of what? Be specific. Food? Land? Energy? Minerals? Which? When? How much?
I'll take the two most important, energy & food:
Energy from fission is for all intents and purposes unlimited, unless you want to talk in ridiculous terms like billions of years. Just the current supply of depleted uranium and spent nuclear fuel is worth $2600 trillion at the energy price of $100/bbl petroleum. In fact that supply of nuclear fuel waste has as much energy as 800 years of current world petroleum production which is ~35% of world energy supply. It is 14x total world oil reserves. That is without any mining whatsoever.
The energy density of ordinary rock is 42X that of coal in MJ/kg just from the uranium & thorium contained in it. One rare earth mine that makes materials for wind & solar power will produce enough waste thorium & uranium annually to supply all the energy needs of the entire planet every year burnt in Molten Salt Reactors. They will pay you to take the thorium and uranium away. And any metal mine you can extract the uranium & thorium by adding an additional flotation circuit. We will never run out of uranium & thorium to power our civilization. And then there is fusion. And asteroids. And the Moon.
Energy is unlimited with currently available tech and there will be much better tech in the future.
And Japan supplies 70% of their food on 13% of their land mass, with 157m people on a small resource poor island and very high living standard. Technology improvements are far more significant for wealth, food supply, environmental stewardship than the slow increases in the effects of climate change, which will also cause increased rainfall, increased growing season, increased crop yields due to higher CO2, increased arable land in Northern regions. Not all bad changes. In short, NOT going to put civilization at risk.
Holland dealt effectively with sinking land by using dikes. They now farm up to 7m below sea level and are a wealthy country. We are talking under a 1m rise in sea level this century. Holland is #2 agricultural exporter in the World @ $94B vs #1 USA @$150B. While Holland is #69 in population & #131 by area and not even a warm or sunny environment.
China, Israel are examples of countries who are rapidly expanding arable land by greening deserts and they use very little water, like 10% of traditional agriculture by covering fields with cheap plastic structures and other modern methods.
SpaceX is reducing materials inputs for Space industry by 1000X. That's how smart tech works. You guys make your arm-waving claims that the Earth can only sustain 1-2B people or 1/8th present population whereas basic tech improvements are often 10-100x more efficient. Human population limits are ALL ABOUT tech, NOT resource limits. Quit trying to kill people by imposing Malthusian Club-of-Rome dogma. These Malthusians sure are scared to debate Patrick Moore, Bjorn Lomborg, Steve Koonin, Alex Epstein or Michael Shellenberger for example. They know they will lose so they refuse to debate.
I suppose demand for things like water wings will grow but I'm pretty sure that's not going to be enough to offset climate related disruption and rising sea levels.
Hi @Steve Keen, would it be possible for you to recommend any academic textbook to read for Macro 101 student that teaches in the same heterodox way as yourself?
Can you say what was the reading on your recent curriculums for students at Kingston for instance?
I am looking to find an anti-Taylor & Mankiw book in other words.
Thanks in advance
Hi. I tended to work from original references rather than textbooks, so my curriculum had students reading Friedman (and Minsky!) in the original journal papers rather than textbooks. That said, this website collects some of the best heterodox texts currently available (there aren't many!):
http://heterodoxnews.com/hed/teaching-material.html
My The New Economics: A Manifesto, and its free online technical companion book Modelling with Minsky (http://www.profstevekeen.com/minsky/) are also worth considering.
thanks a lot!
J. K. Galbraith talks about this in his excellent book "The Affluent Society" (published 1958!). The "conventional wisdom" is not characterized by being right but by being acceptable. He then goes on to say that:
"In some measure, the articulation of the conventional wisdom is a religious rite. It is an act of affirmation like reading aloud from the Scriptures or going to church. The business executive listening to a luncheon address on the immutable virtues of free enterprise is already persuaded, and so are his fellow listeners, and all are secure in their convictions. Indeed, although a display of rapt attention is required, the executive may not feel it necessary to listen. But he does placate the gods by participating in the ritual."
People will say anything to pretend their wealth, status, and privilege. Classical economics assumes natural resources to be infinite. This is a fairly significant error and invalidates everything else they say, as one "cannot eat more and shit less.". My solution to the problem can be found here: www.global-climate-compensation.org.
Natural resources are to all intents and purposes infinite, unless you go to absurd extents and talk about the entropy of the universe or the speed of light. The key point is exponential growth is not sustainable and that means at some point population must stabilize, as has already happened worldwide. We have already passed peak children and population will peak @ ~10-12B by end of the century barring calamities.
There are various limitations on the rate of growth of various resources but those are temporary constraints. Ultimately if you can achieve zero population growth, there are no resource limits. The only resource you need is energy, and with plentiful energy you can recycle everything including water. Just the uranium and thorium accessible on the Earth land mass would supply world energy demand for over 100Myrs. And fusion resources are much larger than that. And vast resources of all of those on the Moon, Mars and the Asteroids. Technology remains the key constraint by far.
The burden of proof lies with you, and you have not convinced me so far. Entropy of the Earth is the problem, and I am currently writing a paper about it. It is not at all absurd.
No the burden of proof lies with you because what you are saying is irrational. Entropy for the purpose of human activity is largely limited by the solar energy incident upon the Earth. Apart from solar energy there is vast fusion and fission sources of energy, far more than a non-expanding human civilization could ever use. And we can easily access resources on the Moon, Mars and the Asteroids. Possibly even the Outer planets will be viable sources of materials and energy. There is no big problem recycling all resources except energy for essentially forever, unless you want to talk ridiculous time frames that are likely dominated by things like asteroid impacts, supervolcanoes and astronomical events.
It's not about climate change, at this point that is a minor issue. It's all about rational effective mitigation strategies. So far virtually all the climate change alarmists (with a few exceptions like Jim Hansen) are advocating nutty scam solutions that have zero chance of significantly reducing emissions. Anyone who advocates wind & solar is advocating for worsening climate change.
Wind & solar are intermittent & seasonal so they require a mirroring fossil/biomass/nuclear/hydro energy source that supplies almost 100% of grid demand during the wind/solar lulls, which often occur when grid demand is highest, i.e. large stable high pressure cell in the winter. So the best wind & solar can do is theoretically replace some fuel when they are operating. But fuel cost is only about 1/10th the electricity price you pay. Most of the rest is grid costs. So to have that meager fuel savings you essentially have to have two parallel grids operational at all times. To add misery to madness induced cycling and economic inefficiencies in the buffering fossil/nuclear generators mean in reality negligible fuel is actually saved by the wind & solar. Even if the Wind Turbines or Solar Panels were free they would still be far too expensive to be practical except in areas on diesel generation (very expensive fuel) and with a large reservoir Hydro resource or for off-grid homes.
There is a linear price relationship between wind/solar grid penetration and price of electricity. See Ken Gregory, P.Eng, graph Euro/kwh by country 2019: Conclusion: European Wind Plus Solar Cost 6 Times Other Electrical Sources:
friendsofscience.org/index.php?id=2550
End result is after spending over $4 trillion worldwide on wind & solar total, World Primary energy supply is unchanged at 90% combustion fuel as it was 10yrs ago. In spite of improved efficiency of replacing conventional coal with supercritical coal, OCGT with extreme efficiency CCGT, coal/gas with hydro, LED lighting, substantial improvements in transportation efficiency, improved building insulation, heat pumps. Wind/solar hasn't even nearly been able to cover the growth in fossil consumption never mind actually replace fossil. Wind/solar has already been a dismal failure in Europe, leading to high energy prices, electricity & heat supply shortages and steep price increases, dependence on Russian energy & energy blackmail.
As further evidence, a survey of 68 nations over the past 52 years done by Environmental Progress and duplicated by the New York Times shows conventional hydro was quite successful at decarbonization, nuclear energy was also very successful and both wind and solar show no correlation between grid penetration and decarbonization. In other words wind & solar are not replacing fossil, they are a complete waste of money. They only succeed in increasing energy prices which does reduce emissions only by creating energy poverty.
If you really care about climate change that means advocating for a rapid expansion of nuclear energy. Otherwise forget about it. Don't even mention the subject.
I disagree vehemently with your first sentence, but I am aware of the need for nuclear to address energy needs, and the relative safety of modern reactors as well. Simon Michaux's work shows categorically that renewables can't provide the energy currently generated from fossil fuels. So I expect us to face energy rationing in the near future.
In other words we have no choice but to switch to nuclear from fossil. Just the readily accessible supplies of uranium & thorium can easily supply the energy needs of civilization for ~100Myrs, and then there is the Moon & Asteroids and Fusion. Happy coincidence the climate change problem (and air quality problem) is solved by switching to nuclear. So which is the real problem, climate change or rational climate change mitigation/energy transformation? Nuclear energy is and has been suppressed precisely because it can replace fossil fuels and at a lower cost than fossil. And the very people hyping the dangers of climate change are the pretty much the same ones who are stifling nuclear energy. Two of many ways this can be done:
https://thorconpower.com/
https://www.elysiumindustries.com/
Of course there is a choice. When considering nuclear, one has to factor in the huge lead time before reactors come on line, the huge resource requirement (and associated environmental impacts) to build and operate, say, another few thousand reactors (there are about 400 currently), the possible risk of reactors in countries that become unstable politically, and the multiplied risk globally of a, say, 5 to 10 fold increase in reactors, as well as waste storage problems. It is far quicker to reduce demand than go down avenues that are risky and may not work.
No, there is no choice. Wind & solar doesn't work that's already proven. Fastest 4yr nuclear power growth rate is 10X faster than the fastest solar growth rate and 4X faster than the fastest wind growth rate. That's an apples(nuclear) to rotten oranges(wind,solar) comparison. France achieved 100% of their domestic electricity consumption is 20yrs with nuclear 88% and 12% legacy hydro. And half of their primary energy consumption. That's using archaic one-at-a-time, PWR construction. PWRs was the wrong way to go with commercial nuclear power, forced by military cement heads in the USA.
Factory produced nuclear molten salt reactors can be expected to be 10X faster, 10x lower cost, no source of energy can compete with that. As well as ~100X lower risk deaths/twh which is already 100-1000X lower risk than fossil.
Reducing demand has been a total failure, has not happened, the exact opposite is happening. Reducing demand is good way to kill millions of people.
In fact by far and away the best way to reduce demand is to go to an all baseload power grid, no wind, no solar, and use BEV charging at nighttime for transportation. Low carbon baseload = nuclear and some hydro. You can't beat that.
I don't have time to check your growth rates but the quickest and most effective route to reducing emissions is to reduce demand. Almost all power production is fossil fuel based (i.e. require fossil fuels to build, fuel or operate), so any increase in power capacity is an increase in emissions. If some capacity is meant to replace fossil fuelled capacity, then emissions will rise even more in the short term, as the replacements are built.
I mentioned risk and we've just seen that the war in Ukraine is bringing the risk of nuclear in unstable regions (even though they may not seem unstable now) to the fore.
Saying reducing demand hasn't happened is not a reason for not promoting it. As the work of our host, in combination with Tim Garrett, has shown, there is simply no alternative to demand reduction (preceded by economic contraction) in the long term. Why do we keep hoping someone will come up with some way of avoiding utter catastrophe in ecosystems and resource shortages, in the future. It will be either a managed reduction or a reduction forced by circumstances. I know which I'd prefer.
"...quickest and most effective route to reducing emissions is to reduce demand..."
No it ain't. Not even close, not even remotely close. Almost all the demand now is in developing countries that are expanding their economies as they should and must, people want pensions, education, healthcare, military, legal system, ample food supply, heat & cooling, refrigeration, transportation, that all requires greatly expanded energy supply. That's what people want, energy and resource hog ultra-rich may not want that but they are the penultimate hypocrites. "Do as I say, not what I do".
"...any increase in power capacity is an increase in emissions. If some capacity is meant to replace fossil fuelled capacity, then emissions will rise even more in the short term, as the replacements are built...."
That's more nonsense. Just ordinary LWRs on a once-through fuel cycle are 75:1 full lifecycle EROI so it takes one month of investment for every 6yrs of fossil replacement. And closed cycle Molten Salt reactors are in the 300:1 EROI. Investment in that infrastructure is trivial.
"... war in Ukraine is bringing the risk of nuclear..."
That's Fear Porn MSM baloney. Go to see what real nuclear engineers say about that Ukraine nonsense, nothing has happened, not even close. Are you one of those silly children who believe modern commercial nuclear power plants can blow up, like Chernobyl? Sorry, they can't. A modern army with serious weaponry and deliberate hard effort could manage to force some mild radiation release which would only effect the local region, far, far easier to blow a hydro dam or set oil fields or gas pipelines on fire, or do a Bhopal, far, far more dangerous. Worry about bioweapons, why doesn't anyone care, after Covid? Those are the facts.
"... there is simply no alternative to demand reduction (preceded by economic contraction) in the long term.."
That is absolute nonsense, FUD of worse sort. You got ZERO evidence to back that up. Shortages? Of what? Be specific. Food? Land? Energy? Minerals? Which? When? How much?
I'll take the two most important, energy & food:
Energy from fission is for all intents and purposes unlimited, unless you want to talk in ridiculous terms like billions of years. Just the current supply of depleted uranium and spent nuclear fuel is worth $2600 trillion at the energy price of $100/bbl petroleum. In fact that supply of nuclear fuel waste has as much energy as 800 years of current world petroleum production which is ~35% of world energy supply. It is 14x total world oil reserves. That is without any mining whatsoever.
The energy density of ordinary rock is 42X that of coal in MJ/kg just from the uranium & thorium contained in it. One rare earth mine that makes materials for wind & solar power will produce enough waste thorium & uranium annually to supply all the energy needs of the entire planet every year burnt in Molten Salt Reactors. They will pay you to take the thorium and uranium away. And any metal mine you can extract the uranium & thorium by adding an additional flotation circuit. We will never run out of uranium & thorium to power our civilization. And then there is fusion. And asteroids. And the Moon.
Energy is unlimited with currently available tech and there will be much better tech in the future.
And Japan supplies 70% of their food on 13% of their land mass, with 157m people on a small resource poor island and very high living standard. Technology improvements are far more significant for wealth, food supply, environmental stewardship than the slow increases in the effects of climate change, which will also cause increased rainfall, increased growing season, increased crop yields due to higher CO2, increased arable land in Northern regions. Not all bad changes. In short, NOT going to put civilization at risk.
Holland dealt effectively with sinking land by using dikes. They now farm up to 7m below sea level and are a wealthy country. We are talking under a 1m rise in sea level this century. Holland is #2 agricultural exporter in the World @ $94B vs #1 USA @$150B. While Holland is #69 in population & #131 by area and not even a warm or sunny environment.
China, Israel are examples of countries who are rapidly expanding arable land by greening deserts and they use very little water, like 10% of traditional agriculture by covering fields with cheap plastic structures and other modern methods.
SpaceX is reducing materials inputs for Space industry by 1000X. That's how smart tech works. You guys make your arm-waving claims that the Earth can only sustain 1-2B people or 1/8th present population whereas basic tech improvements are often 10-100x more efficient. Human population limits are ALL ABOUT tech, NOT resource limits. Quit trying to kill people by imposing Malthusian Club-of-Rome dogma. These Malthusians sure are scared to debate Patrick Moore, Bjorn Lomborg, Steve Koonin, Alex Epstein or Michael Shellenberger for example. They know they will lose so they refuse to debate.
I suppose demand for things like water wings will grow but I'm pretty sure that's not going to be enough to offset climate related disruption and rising sea levels.