> Or they would buy fewer things that they actually needed, and that would probably last longer.
Unfortunately that's a recipe for economic disaster.
> Not an idle consideration on a planet with finite resources and an ecosystem being pushed beyond its limits.
Not really. The resources are effectively infinite because they are never destroyed, they only get changed into various different forms. We can keep making things, then remaking them into different things basically forever.
And the ecosystem is not anywhere near its limits (not that making less things would help it even if it was). There are definitely areas where things are bad, but the good areas far outweigh the bad.
> "We can keep making things, then remaking them into different things basically forever."
Woah, since when?
For one thing, making things (and remaking them) takes a tremendous amount of energy, which uses fuel, of which as of yet we are still running on finite reserves (disregarding the environmental angle completely, even).
Secondly, when you chop down a tree and make it into paper, that paper may be recyclable, but never in the exact same form (there's a reason recycled paper is not used in many applications of paper). Not only that, many items that we make are not practically recyclable, or dangerously so - see: recovery of precious metals from electronics. Nigh impossibility unless you want to burn the rest of it away, spewing toxic chemicals into the atmosphere and causing skyrocketing cancer rates.
Until we have infinite, free energy and the ability to transmute matter at will, we cannot keep remaking things forever, not even close. No amount of recycling will even come close to the environmental and resource savings of simply not making something in the first place.
We have plenty of fuel in the form of nuclear power. Just because we aren't using it today doesn't mean we can't.
I never mentioned the word recycle. I don't expect anyone to recycle paper. Instead you compost or burn the paper, and grow a new tree. The elements that make up paper are infinity reusable.
The same for the precious elements in electronics. True, we do a poor job of recovering them today, but we could change that easily, and keep making and destroying electronics forever without running out.
We don't even need to recover them, we have plenty in mines. We could store the electronics in a big hole in the ground (for example in an old mine) and only use them much later when we need to. The only reason we do try to recover them is for money, not because we are going to run out.
By far the majority of the stuff we build is made of just a few elements: silicon (in concrete), carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen, oxygen (those four make up plastics, wood, and lots more) and iron. We are not going to ever run out of those - the planet is made of them.
We could keep making and destroying things forever without running out. All we need is energy. (There is no need to transmute elements.)
The ecosystem is not anywhere near its limits? You're kidding right?
Scientific consensus for CO2 atmospheric levels to limit warming to 2 degrees C in the next century: 350ppm. Current levels: 390ppm
Massive over-fishing of ocean fish-stocks? Yep, happening right now.
And that's just two examples I can think of now.
Claiming that we're nowhere near the ecosystem's limits is naive, delusional and dangerous. The laws of nature, despite the beliefs of most economists, don't worry about what causes "economic disaster".
We could easily fix the CO2 issues by switching to nuclear power, and I expect we will eventually.
And over-fishing is a problem, I agree. I did say there were areas with trouble. But there is a solution: farmed fish. Meaning we are not at the limit, we just need to be smarter about what we do, which was my point.
Unfortunately that's a recipe for economic disaster.
> Not an idle consideration on a planet with finite resources and an ecosystem being pushed beyond its limits.
Not really. The resources are effectively infinite because they are never destroyed, they only get changed into various different forms. We can keep making things, then remaking them into different things basically forever.
And the ecosystem is not anywhere near its limits (not that making less things would help it even if it was). There are definitely areas where things are bad, but the good areas far outweigh the bad.