ABSTRACT
Homo sapiens has lived on Earth for 100,000 years. Humans have culti-vated the land and organized themselves into cities for about 10,000 years. They have experienced rapid exponential growth of population and capital for about 300 years. During those last few centuries, spectacular technical and institutional innovations-the steam engine, the computer, the corporation, international trade agreements, and many other changeshave allowed the human economy to transcend apparent physical and managerial limits and keep on growing. Especially over the past few decades, the expanding industrial culture has instilled into nearly every community on earth the desire for and the expectation of ever-continuing material growth.
