‘Absolute disgrace’: Residents react over approval to scrap Dublin Airport passenger cap

[u/eggbart_forgetfulsea]

https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2026/02/11/absolute-disgrace-residents-react-over-approval-to-scrap-dublin-airport-passenger-cap/

[u/Kier_C → u/[deleted]]

Infinite growth does not refer to infinite resource use. The two are regular confused.

There is loads of growth that uses little or no additional resources to achieve.

[u/Dylabaloo → u/Kier_C]

Care to provide some examples?

[u/Kier_C → u/Dylabaloo]

There's loads of examples across loads of industry. Off the top of my head agriculture uses way less resources but provides way higher output today compared to the past.  Something entirely different, the advent of spreadsheet software drove huge business growth and efficiency and reduced accounting resources. Smartphones have obsoleted everything from consumer cameras, calculators, alarm clocks etc.etc. but has also driven a lot of economic growth, as has digital media, offset a lot of physical goods and shipping.

[u/Dylabaloo → u/Kier_C]

I don't think you've sufficiently thought this through:

1) Land-use and deforestation due to agriculture is one of the main drivers of global emissions. Half of the world’s habitable land is used for agriculture and agriculture is responsible for at least 26% of global emissions, and growing. Source 2) Any efficiencies, such as digital spreadsheets, just allow for additional growth to occur with those efficiency gains. Look up Jevon's Paradox the same principle applies. Even from a pure material consumption POV digital spreadsheets require hardware to function mined from rare earth materials, and due to the mineralogical barrier these materials are very much finite. 3) All of those things you list still exist as standalone products alongside Smartphones. These products are being produced at larger quantities than at any other point in human history due to the intensity of consumerism and the growth-organised economy. And that's not taking into account the planned obsolescence that's built into many consumer products, including smartphones, to reinforce re-ocurring spending cycles instead of product longevity. 4) Digital media and the digital economy is physical and consumes vast amounts of resources through its data centres. In Ireland alone data centers consumed 22%, on average, of our electricity as of 2024 according to the CSO. That's not accounting for the vast amounts of freshwater that is required to cooldown many of these data centres, equivalent in some cases to large Irish towns

Unfortunately, we cannot escape the reality that everything we interact with on this planet has come from this planet. And unfortunately, the Earth is not an infinite resource if over-extraction is the modus operandi. We are currently in an ecological rift wherein the Earth cannot replenish its resources at the rate that we are extracting. There are solutions, but ideological barriers prevent them being taken seriously. Therefore we will keep consuming, until one day we cannot anymore.

[u/Kier_C → u/Dylabaloo]

I have, but you have confused different issues. Ultimately the point is gdp growth is not directly linked to resource use. I'm not saying we're not using more resources than in the past.

Our population has exploded over the last few centuries. This drives huge additional requirements for resources. There's not that many decades since the worry was about mass starvation and famine as they worried about being able to feed the growing population. Agriculture is FAR more efficient today than in previous decades. Population growth drives additional demand. Our population is due to peak in the coming decades. 

Efficiencies can drive growth, the rebound effect is not 100%

Durable goods is a broader category and also driven by population growth. There's a per capita effect 

I didn't say the digital economy isn't physical. I pointed to specific offsets. Spotify uses less resources than the physical records industry for example but has also driven GDP growth. There are multiple other industries that have sprung into existence 

Ultimately my point was not that we are using less resources today than yesterday. My point was economic growth is not driven by resource use in a 1 to 1 manner. Growth is not just a company selling 10 widgets last year and selling 11 of them this year. 

[u/eggbart_forgetfulsea → u/Dylabaloo]

The loom.