How can the perceived imperative in market-economies for continuous open-ended economic growth, be reconciled with the need from a natural science perspective for the collective human impact on the biophysical Earth system to be stabilized or decreased in order to sustain human well-being indefinitely?

The conflict between economic and natural science perspectives addressed by this question is the ultimate driver behind the biophysical Earth System issues that are of concern and have led to the emergence of the idea of Earth System Science. Over the coming decade we can confidently expect socio-economic aspects to become much more strongly expressed in Earth System models. The reason that we expect ESS to attract community support is that we think it will help formulation of relevant actions & policies to address the ES issues. Unless the conflict between the socio-economic drivers of national and international policy can be reconciled with biophysical (environmental) drivers of policy, solutions to earth system probems at the whole-system level are doomed to failure. It will take a long time for the two world views to become reconciled into a single workable approach. So the sooner ESS starts addressing the issue the better.

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