ABSTRACT
Concern over rising throughput of material and energy stocks and flows and the resulting consequences for the global ecosystem gave rise to the term Anthropocene. The human dilemma in the Anthropocene is being caught between the dominant growth-insistent narrative and an emerging limits-insistent narrative. In the now dominant narrative, economic growth is necessary to provide for well-being and environmental protection. In the limits-insistent narrative, infinite economic growth drives the social metabolism that has created the current ecological and social crisis and so alternatives that give primacy to ecological limits are needed. Scientific evidence strongly supports a transition from insistence on perpetual economic growth to living within Earth’s finite ecological limits. Ecological law is situated within the limits-insistent narrative.
