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efore? The answer seems to lie in the human tendency towards addiction anddenial.Driven by an uncritical worship of economicgrowth, it seems that consumption by humansthreatens to overwhelm the ecosphere fromwithin. This is clearly a pathological relationship.The continuous growth of any species in nature isan unnatural condition that can be purchased onlyat the expense of other species and the integrity ofthe ecosystem as a whole. (pg. 23, FatalConsumption, Woollard & Ostry)This is by definition a parasitic relationship. As such the current human conditionand systems of economics can be seen as a disease.The world cant be seen as an open system that can sustain unlimited growth. Innature, for instance, this can be seen as a cancer. Instead we need to turn to aclosed-system based economy that matches the limits of nature. On our space -shipearth, we all must learn to coexist in balance.Many biophysically oriented scientists agree thatthe full-world economics proposed by HermanDaly will be an economics based on principles ofecology and the second law of thermodynamics.While the second law is arguably the ultimategovernor of all economic activity, it is totallyignored in conventional economic models.Conventional economics are based on the first law of thermodynamics. This lawstates that energy can be transformed but never created or destroyed and that themass of the inputs will equal the mass of the outputs. This law has led economists tobelieve that we will never run out of anything as a simplified view o f our world.Unfortunately there are changes in the forms of energy that do impose limits. Thegrowing scale of economic production along with population growth now puts us ina position where weve exceeded natural limits. Our natural environment is beingdegraded. Non-renewable fossil fuels are being consumed at an increasing rate thatwill see some of them eliminated in our own lifetimes. We are increasing the speedat which we are exceeding these limits. We are on a crash course with one of themost fundamental laws of nature.64