Limits to Growth (again)

Read these. Do it now. You can skim read them as long as you grok the conclusions.

http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/09/discovering-limits-to-growth/
http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.com/2011/09/cassandra-and-limits-to-growth.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limits_to_growth

If it's still TL;DR. then here's the precis.

1) We live in a closed system although it is one with a very high solar energy input.
2) Thus there are finite resources and finite limits on by-products such as pollution.
3) Growth in resource usage is exponential. Human thought models things linearly.
4) There are delays in feedback.
5) Thus there is a lag in between our perception and the current resource usage and any actions we might take to mitigate it.
6) This lag is the source of the instability which makes overshoot and catastrophic collapse inevitable.

The thing that makes our current growth an existential threat is the fraction of planetary resources that are being controlled by humans at this point. There really aren’t the spare resources to provide a cushion to the shock.

Now for the tinfoil hat problem.

Imagine that there are some wealthy and/or politically influential people out there who understand this existential threat. If they wanted themselves and their descendants (ie their genes) to survive the instability what would they do? And would the policies and actions they take with this goal increase or decrease the threat? These people are not just in the West.