90 seconds at 9 am: US prices tame, factories busy; Germany marks time; World Bank sees bright 2014; China stimulus more than US; Aussie bankers grumble; NZ$1 = US$0.835 TWI = 79.0

Small gains? Check out the map of Russia and Canada. There is an unbelievable quantity of currently uncultivated tundra in those two countries alone. And I did say it's a wild card.

Mike - fair point, but it won't be me, how long do you try when all your doing is presenting facts. Unfortunately after a year of such trying to debate with a couple on here I have thrown in the towel and I suspect others have as well before me because I know the knowledge of many on here is very good in the areas that focus me, but they don't bother to debate much of what they say either - another couple of lame factually incorrect posts from them again today but I, seemingly like the rest, have left them to debate and back slap each other in silence. 

Why the hell a flat city as a need for cars I do not know. Get a bicycle!

For someone who claims to only use facts and science the person abuse is amazingly loud.

Our little politically motivated cherry picker is busy again. When you sit there with an extremist libertarian/right wing / free market point of view and someone puts information in front of you that negates it all....of course its going to be utter denial.

If they accepted it they would have nothing left, so yes of course keep the masses in the dark, 6+billion really pissed people....going to go down well.

Canada, has little conventional oil,the bump up is where fools have converted the oil sands to "useable"....never economic, in fact if I recall correctly Shell a Private company is abandoning that play.  EROEI,  too expensive for business to do it.

Then he talks about oil and immediately switches to gas, as if they are the same thing when they are not.

Virtually all the non-Opec plays are privately operated, no state mis-management...etc etc.

Then of course there is peak oil which is about output and not reserves....if you cant get any more per day, which we cannot then the world's economy is going to stagger along as it is at best.

Depressing but well worth a read:

http://www.oftwominds.com/blogjan14/whos-got-time1-14.html

Fair call my points were muddled

My first point was along the lines of positive = selfish.   Not because of more jobs, kids being fed properly etc.  My point is focusing on the short term "good times" is selfish in the sense that it is easy to become complacent.  Has the world economy been fixed?  Has the debt issue been addressed? has inequality been addressed?  I think the answer is not really.  So all that has been done is the can has been kicked down the road.  Using the word selfish was emotive a better word would be short sighted.

In regards to my second point, economic growth requires destruction of the environment is spot on.  Now I here you say that is arbitary but I don't think it is.  Obviously some growth polices have less impact on the environment than others but there is always an effect. -- solar v coal engery production for example.  Most people would say Solar is better for the environment but to say there is no impact on the environment  in the production of solar panels is patently false.

There seems to be a perception that humans can decouple economic growth from environmental degredation.  This idea is just not factual. Sure you can outsource your production and make your economy seem like it has decoupled environmenal degredation from growth but the earth is a closed system so you can move the degredation where ever you want but it's a zero sum game.

Why is the idea of moving to a steady state economy so unpopular.  Obviously this will be happening soon.  World population is projected to level off at between 10-11 billion by the end of the century.  Once we have no more populaton growth continuing economic growth is going to be a lot harder.  I realise our current finacial system can't cope with a zero growth economy but we are going to have the face the issue sooner or later. 

You may really believe that economic growth will continue forever and we will be able to balance that with our environment.  If that is the case I would be interested to know how you see that happening.  From where I am looking at things this is just not realistic.

First off thanks for the links.

I note your conclusion is incorrect, replace countries with Switzerland.  Now I accept that Switzerland is doing really well but note that an index score of  "Arial","sans-serif";color:black">76.69 out of 100 is still causing environmental damage.  

color:black">So we have not decoupled growth and environmental damage.  As decoupling would show no environmental damage.  There has been a minimisation of damage which is good but it is not decoupled.

color:black">Over a long period of time any environmental damage adds up. The reality is even to keep Switzerland in a steady state would still have some damage to the environment. 

color:black">I don't really need to say this but one country of 7 million people that produces watches and pharmaceuticals does not prove that the earth as a whole will ever move close to being sustainable, before it has to.