> Not only life, but the good life. 90% of people today live a much better life than lords and kings lived 500 years ago.
Indeed, but lets not forget that this luxury lifestyle is possible only by exploiting non-renewable resources, i.e. by stealing from future generations. I doubt history (if there will be one) will look kindly on us.
But we are moving quite fast towards using renewable resources.
For example the top 6 materials produced by the world industries are: coal, oil, natural gas, concrete, steel and fertilizers. By 2050 the first 3 will be a tiny fraction of what we are consuming today. Concrete is not made of renewable materials, it's made primarily of sand, gravel and cement, which in turn is made out of limestone. All those can be considered as essentially infinite resources. Steel is one of the most recycled materials (in the US more than two thirds of all manufactured steel is recycled). Fertilizers are currently made primarily out of fossil fuels (natural gas), but that's a historical accident (fossil fuels only contain carbon and hydrogen, not nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus; they are simply the feedstock for hydrogen). Once we can produce green hydrogen, we'll remove fossil fuels from the fertilizer manufacturing process.
Bonus: next most produced material is plastics. Produced from fossil fuels today, can be produced from green hydrogen and carbon captured from CO2.
Considering how cheap fossil fuels are it's a miracle that 37% of electricity generated globally is done so without using fossil fuels and there is nothing but progress on this front.
Nelson used to plant acorns because he was worried that Britain would not have enough oak trees to build ships. It turned out that we learnt how to build metal ships.
Indeed, but lets not forget that this luxury lifestyle is possible only by exploiting non-renewable resources, i.e. by stealing from future generations. I doubt history (if there will be one) will look kindly on us.