What can individual people do about global warming?

[wobs]

There is a huge difference between 3 degrees, and only if that extra energy comes from non-renewable sources, and your claim that we would boil the oceans and it doesn't matter if the energy is renewable or not. But in any case, atmospheric greenhouse gases play a much larger factor. Even that 3 degrees wouldn't happen if their amount in the atmosphere were lowered enough to reverse AGW and it would be much more if the greenhouse gases continue to rise.

As I said, the link uses different numbers, (eg. 2% rather than 2.3%, and 275 years instead of 400 years), but its the same maths. Note the charts above I posted, that after about 200 years, we would start to feel this effect, so its about in line with previous posts.

At the growth rate I quoted, and given our current energy use (taken as 14TW), extrapolating to 400 years we get 1.22*10^17W. You haven't answered what we will be doing with the waste heat from that quantity of consumption.

Again, I'll remind you that this is just illustrative, to show how unsustainable such growth is. That energy efficiency won't save us from this, and that we need a new economic model to acheive sustainability.

 

[macdoc]

The Earth has a cross section of about 127,400,000 km2, which means the total solar power intercepted by the Earth is about 1.7 x 1017 W. By comparison, the capacity of all the electric power generation stations in the world is about 3.7 terawatts (TW), or 3.7 x 1012 watts.
Thus, the Sun delivers nearly 46,000 times more energy than the world's electric power consumption.

So Wobs - what is waste heat???
Where is it coming from.....

This doesn't even factor in geo thermal.....or wind, or ocean current, or tides....as "in the box" sources of power

It does not factor in efficiency against growth in complexity.
Your smart phone has thousands of times the capability of the NASA computers that were used for the moon landing and use a tiny amount of power ...

Is that economic growth Wobs?

Is economic growth sellling a thousand times more books and movies and music with one millionth of the energy requirement.

You persist in looking foolish. I'll persist in pointing out.

 

[Trakar]

Everyone: the problem is, wobs is talking about an almost entirely different issue, and illustrating it in a confusing way.

Wobs is talking about how exponential growth must always be unsustainable in the long run. As an example, wobs is pointing to waste heat: even if there were no other limits to growth, eventually exponential growth in energy use produces too much waste heat for the planet to radiate into space without heating up to ridiculous temperatures. This is not meant to be (I hope) a realistic argument about an actual problem, but an extreme-case example akin to calculations showing how a breeding pair of rabbits, with no other constraints on their population, could fill up the entire solar system with rabbits in a few decades.

I think everyone can agree that except for locally (e.g. effluent into a river or bay), waste heat from industry is not a problem today, any more than rabbit overpopulation is. (Personally, I don't think it will ever be, because there are too many other constraints on exponential industrial growth for that one to ever come into play. I don't even think another doubling of industrial output is possible.)

But since everyone else is talking about greenhouse warming due to carbon emissions from industry, which is a real problem today in the real world, wobs' example is causing a lot of confusion and friction. It's as though everyone else is saying "the car's going too fast, we should slow down and steer more carefully before it goes off a curve" and wobs keeps pointing out "but in 400 miles the road ends so we're going to crash eventually anyhow."

The answer is, all of the above. Yes, we have to reconfigure our industry to minimize waste and harm, including carbon emissions. Yes, we have to conserve. Yes, we have to adjust our lifestyle expectations. Yes, exponential growth must inevitably stop. And even if we did all these things immediately, which we won't (judging by the fact that we haven't yet), we're still already well into overshoot with respect to natural resources, a situation from which even the best possible remedy will be a disaster of unprecedented scale.

So no, Cuba is not going to resume economic growth, not for very long anyhow. They might get a boost in the short term by re-connecting with the world economy, but eventually the world economy will be where Cuba is now.

So wobs discussion is offtopic to this thread's discussion, which is what several of us tried to rather politely mention a few pages ago when he first started talking about devolving civilization back to simple hunter/gather tribes of strictly controlled numbers to deal with his apparent concern regarding technological growth and economic development?

 

[Belz...]

What can individual people do about global warming?

As evidenced by recent history, they can ignore it.

 

[Frozenwolf150]

If I'm confusing people, I apologise.

I'm not saying you're wrong, or even necessarily off topic. I'm asking how this ties into my question, of what we can do to address and ameliorate the problem before it gets out of hand. To use Myriad's rabbit analogy, the rabbits would eventually run out of food, or they'd produce too much waste, or predators would eat them. Hell, in an environment where they're unlikely to survive, a pregnant rabbit mother will actually reabsorb her fetuses (or just eat them once they're born, rabbits do that too). So how does this work in terms of AGW and economic growth? What are the natural limits on it? And what can I do in the meantime?

 

[Trakar]

I'm not saying you're wrong, or even necessarily off topic. I'm asking how this ties into my question, of what we can do to address and ameliorate the problem before it gets out of hand. To use Myriad's rabbit analogy, the rabbits would eventually run out of food, or they'd produce too much waste, or predators would eat them...

Or they develop fossil fuels and base their economy and industry predominantly upon ever greater exploitation of these natural fuels without consideration or concern for all of the impacts created by the process, and cripple their economies and ability to adapt to the changes they are creating.

I keep waiting for a sound economic argument that it is better to wait until conditions get significantly worse before we begin to substantively address fossil fuel power and transportation issues.

 

[macdoc]

Lord Stern put paid to that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stern_Review

 

[wobs]

So Wobs - what is waste heat???
Where is it coming from.....

Already explained, but see below

This doesn't even factor in geo thermal.....or wind, or ocean current, or tides....as "in the box" sources of power

Inconsequential at the scales we are talking about for the future given exponential growth.

It does not factor in efficiency against growth in complexity.
Your smart phone has thousands of times the capability of the NASA computers that were used for the moon landing and use a tiny amount of power ...

An excellent example. Computing has been getting faster, and better. Now, has the total energy use for all computing in the world grew since the moon landings? Of course it has.
Consider why - the improvements have resulted in more applications opening up, as cost and performance become more attractive.
Also, there are limits to how fast computers can get:

A 2011 study in the journal Science showed that the peak of the rate of change of the world's capacity to compute information was in the year 1998, when the world's technological capacity to compute information on general-purpose computers grew at 88% per year.[114] Since then, technological change has clearly slowed. In recent times, every new year allowed mankind to carry out roughly 60% of the computations that could have possibly been executed by all existing general-purpose computers before that year.[114] This is still exponential, but shows the varying nature of technological change.[115]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore's_law
So while we have seen some incredible improvements, many innovation cycles do slow down. And we fully expect to run into the limit of what can be acheived (see "Ultimate limits of the Law" in link which gives a range of estimates)

As I said before, there are limits to energy efficiency, and as economic growth continues, we will lose that battle even more than we are now. Remember that energy demand is currently far outstripping our energy efficiency improvements, world wide.

Is that economic growth Wobs?

It has helped economic growth, as more computers have been sold, and performed to enhance other activities to further profit, but the computer market can be interesting (from same link):

The primary driving force of economic growth is the growth of productivity,[116] and Moore's law factors into productivity. Moore (1995) expected that “the rate of technological progress is going to be controlled from financial realities.”[26] However, the reverse could and did occur around the late-1990s, with economists reporting that "Productivity growth is the key economic indicator of innovation."[11] An acceleration in the rate of semiconductor progress contributed to a surge in US productivity growth[117][118][119] which reached 3.4% per year in 1997-2004, outpacing the 1.6% per year during both 1972-1996 and 2005-2013.[120] As economist Richard G. Anderson notes, “Numerous studies have traced the cause of the productivity acceleration to technological innovations in the production of semiconductors that sharply reduced the prices of such components and of the products that contain them (as well as expanding the capabilities of such products).”[121]

And here is an interesting Time article:

In his report, Mills estimates that the ICT system now uses 1,500 terawatt-hours of power per year. That’s about 10% of the world’s total electricity generation or roughly the combined power production of Germany and Japan.

http://science.time.com/2013/08/14/...al-cloud-is-using-more-energy-than-you-think/
As noted, things like iPhones use a lot of energy, as they rely on data processes elsewhere, so their total energy footprint is far more than you think.

Is economic growth sellling a thousand times more books and movies and music with one millionth of the energy requirement.

I can't wait to find out how your infinite economic growth will prevent a growth in energy.

Are cars going to be using a millionth of the energy they are today? How about planes? Or kettles? Or AirCon? Or just electric motors?

Do you not think there is a limit to what can be acheived with computer development? Yes we will probably see substitutions in technology, as current methods find their limits, but so to will any subsequent technology. There is always a physical limit as to what can be acheived with any technology

You persist in looking foolish. I'll persist in pointing out.

You still need to provide any evidence as to how we can have infinite economic growth on a finite planet. You haven't addressed how we get around the physical limits that all technology faces.


Try to remember that the energy charts I put up are illustrative.
You quoted:

The Earth has a cross section of about 127,400,000 km2, which means the total solar power intercepted by the Earth is about 1.7 x 1017 W. By comparison, the capacity of all the electric power generation stations in the world is about 3.7 terawatts (TW), or 3.7 x 1012 watts.
Thus, the Sun delivers nearly 46,000 times more energy than the world's electric power consumption.

174 petawatts (PW) hit the Earth, (which I think is what you are saying). However, much of that is reflected back to space before it even reaches the earth, so the only way to actually extract every last bit of energy is a space based solar power plant, and beam the energy to Earth (not worth it, even leaving aside the impracticalities).
According to this:
http://www.sandia.gov/~jytsao/Solar FAQs.pdf
We have a potential of 58,300 TW for solar electric, or 60,700 TW for solar fuel both on land.

Even leaving aside inefficiencies that I haven't included, we would still need copious amounts of fisson/fusion/some other unknown technology in the future to meet our growing energy demand, and the laws of thermodynamics will not go away. We will cook the Earth at some point if the economy grows at a fixed average % over time owing to exponential growth (see charts in previous posts). The exact numbers do not really matter, its the fact that its a % growth that will ultimately push us to this limiting factor on a finite planet. The charts use 2.3% energy growth, but it could be 5% or 1%, the result would be the same, just over a different time frame. Infact a previous post quoted 2% growth from a different source, and produced a similar result of 3C heating on a similar timescale that the chart predicts.

These scales of growth are not currently seen as our economy is not big enough, and so we struggle to envision this impact, but if we continue at the same rate, we will reach that point at some point owing to simple maths.

Its simply a limit to growth, and actually, I think its a positive thing, as it could bring us to consider what matters beyond such things as GDP, and the economy. If we were to reach that limit (or stop growing before that), we could develop in some other way, such as increase our knowledge, health, or well being. Compared to us just getting more wealthy for the sake of it (once the world population has been pulled out of poverty), I'd say that's a good thing.

But to put the breaks on growth at some point, in a postive way, would take planning, and a change in culture, which won't be easy. It would be worth it though.

 

[wobs]

I'm not saying you're wrong, or even necessarily off topic. I'm asking how this ties into my question, of what we can do to address and ameliorate the problem before it gets out of hand. To use Myriad's rabbit analogy, the rabbits would eventually run out of food, or they'd produce too much waste, or predators would eat them. Hell, in an environment where they're unlikely to survive, a pregnant rabbit mother will actually reabsorb her fetuses (or just eat them once they're born, rabbits do that too). So how does this work in terms of AGW and economic growth? What are the natural limits on it? And what can I do in the meantime?

The natural limits of AGW are often stated as an increase of 3C caused by our use of fossil fuels. However, if we stopped using fossil fuels, it would not give us an unlimited range of growth, as we would still use more energy as the economy grew, (albiet using renewables/nuclear fission/fusion/some yet undiscovered energy source).

The charts I have posted (latterly in post #148) show that with a 2.3% growth rate, we will heat the Earth from the waste heat from all that energy consumption, even if we use zero fossil fuels based upon the equation: (k/r^2)πR^2(1 – A) = (εσT^4)4πR^2. This puts a theoretical limit on energy growth, and by extension, economic growth. As GDP and energy use tend to follow each other (see chart in post #144), and as energy efficiency has limitations in every application, we can conclude that at a 2.3% energy growth rate, we would have less than 300 years before we reach that tipping point, and 400 years it gets stupidly hot. On this scale, it matter little which decade it is.

Any measure we make to counter that issue, at that scale of growth would only give us a few decades, as we live on a finite planet.

This is just an illustration to show that economic growth is not sustainable over the long term, no matter what we do, as we live on a finite planet.

Given that AGW from fossil fuels are a more immediate problem, we of course need to stop burning them, but just substituting to a cleaner source will not make the economy sustainable (although we still need to switch of course). It is still based upon energy. The more GDP increases, the more we see energy use going up.

Many say (quite rightly) that we should use a range of measures to tackle AGW, and this is just one of them.

Not everyone can or even wants to spend their working days tackling AGW or even environmental issues in general, and so my statement of working less hours, and avoiding excess wealth still stands.

I am not here to dictate to people what they should do. Yes if everyone spent a large portion of their income on tackling AGW, it would help (how much I wouldn't like to say), but people differ. They have different priorities.

By earning less, so they impact less on our growing GDP, buy less stuff, their money in the bank has less impact, and they contribute less to the problem. This isn't the only thing people can do. I am not saying we should not do those other things that help, but that we must recognise the impact that wealth has.

There are those that view GDP as a poor measure for the well being of a country or world, and this is something that needs to be developed - a measure of a population's well being beyond GDP, as there is a limit to how much wealth enhances our lives.

 

[wobs]

Or they develop fossil fuels and base their economy and industry predominantly upon ever greater exploitation of these natural fuels without consideration or concern for all of the impacts created by the process, and cripple their economies and ability to adapt to the changes they are creating.

I keep waiting for a sound economic argument that it is better to wait until conditions get significantly worse before we begin to substantively address fossil fuel power and transportation issues.

I am all for tackling a problem before it gets any worse. Infact, I like the quote here:

Think of some time company came over and you had to engage in a lot of (to you) completely unnecessary housecleaning. Or, for those with military experience, preparing for an inspection. Completely meaningless exercises.
On the other hand, the place was a mess, and lots of stuff that you had written off as lost turned up during the cleanup, and things are a whole lot easier to find now. So, even though the precipitating event seemed like a useless exercise, useful results still came out of it.

http://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/PSEUDOSC/GlobWarm.HTM

Even if by some bizarre finding, we find that AGW is wrong (unlikely), there are still benefits to moving away from fossils fuels. We still need to develop a sustainable society, and we are a long way from this. Living downwind of Drax, Eggborough and Ferrybridge power stations, certainly focuses the mind on this.

 

[macdoc]

Much officious looking wibble - then descends to reliance on nonsense of infinitely multiplying wabbits....look at the chart, look at the chart!!

In reality energy use is declining despite economic growth and in some cases even population is declining.
Thats the reality Wobs.

Just your dismissal of geothermal, wind and wave as inconsequential for instance shows your lack of understanding.
BTW Wind and wave are solar, geothermal is nuclear plus left over heat from planet formation while tidal taps the moon.
Moving some industrial processes to orbit also makes all sorts of sense which takes them outside the radiation budget.
It's a nonsense premise you are touting.

FYI
http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/52205/quantum-computing-power-advantages

We haven't even scratched the surface on computer efficiency,

 

[wobs]

ETA One thing I will add though. Not everything you said is flawed. You did say this: That goes back partly to what I noted earlier about changing the economic model so that society values more those sectors of the economy that don't increase AGW, while diminishing those that do increase AGW. Then growing the economy can actually be helpful.

Valuing those sectors that don't contribute to AGW may help with tackling AGW. Indeed, making the cost of coal reflect its actual impact would probably help to cut its use, but it wouldn't make the a growing economy sustainable in the long term. but I am all in favour of ensuring that we pay for externalities.

Take this to its logical conclusion - imagine that we have set up a system where we ensure that fossil fuels cost pays for their externalities, but other energy sources don't have that cost. All else being equal, we would still see a growth in energy (assuming those other sources are affordable), and GDP would still rise. If it is still the same economic model, we would still have a % growth in both energy consumption and GDP, making it unsustainable in the long term.

If we somehow de-couple GDP growth from the cost energy, then the cost of energy will become a smaller and smaller % of GDP, until it is inconsequential. On a planet with limited energy, this seems unlikely. And if it were to keep dropping, we would get to a point where someone very wealthy could afford to buy all the energy. This is clearly unrealistic, so there will be a floor to where the cost of energy can fall to in terms of % of GDP, meaning that it will still be tied to GDP.

Therefore, if the cost of energy reaches the minimum % of GDP to be practical, on a finite planet, with a finite amount of energy, we must have a limit to GDP.

And given that energy efficiency cannot continue to improve indefinitely, we cannot have infinite economic growth despite what Macdoc claims.

 

[wobs]

In reality energy use is declining despite economic growth and in some cases even population is declining.

World energy consumption is increasing. World population looks set to level off, as has already been explained.

Just your dismissal of geothermal, wind and wave as inconsequential for instance shows your lack of understanding.

You misunderstand the issue at hand. Those are finite resources. Some are very limited in their applcation.

BTW Wind and wave are solar, geothermal is nuclear plus left over heat from planet formation while tidal taps the moon.

Irrelevant. See above.

Moving some industrial processes to orbit also makes all sorts of sense which takes them outside the radiation budget.

Moving a solar plant into orbit would buy us a few decades when we get to such scales of development, so its not worth it.
Space based development is unrealistic though for other sectors. To really impact on GDP growth, space based industry would have to expand and use such huge amounts of material and energy, that it is unlikely we would do it (and its many magnitudes more difficult than anything we've done thus far). As a fan of space exploration, its kind of depressing to say, but we can't have everything.

FYI
http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/52205/quantum-computing-power-advantages

We haven't even scratched the surface on computer efficiency,

This doesn't alter the fact that there is a limit to how much computers can develop. As stated here:

Here I explore the physical limits of computation as determined by the speed of light c, the quantum scale and the gravitational constant G. As an example, I put quantitative bounds to the computational power of an 'ultimate laptop' with a mass of one kilogram confined to a volume of one litre.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v406/n6799/full/4061047a0.html
It doesn't matter what that limit is. What matters is that its finite.
In reality, we'll probably find the limit sooner rather than later, seeing how fast computing develops, but whether its decades or a few hundred years, there is still a limit.

Of course a faster computer has led to more of them being used, resulting in more energy use, so I'm slightly puzzled why you would push this issue.

 

[macdoc]

You are still leaning on rabitts multiplying .....get over it.

Of course a faster computer has led to more of them being used, resulting in more energy use, so I'm slightly puzzled why you would push this issue.

Because it's early and the market is not saturated.
You don't mention what resource savings in say books and music that entails just to mention one.
Movie attendance is hugely down ....another.
Road trips for vacationing...hugely down ....another.
Fuel economy 50 MPG in Europe and EV and hybrids in good technology space.

You should be puzzled by your own premise.

Here I explore the physical limits of computation as determined by the speed of light c, the quantum scale and the gravitational constant G. As an example, I put quantitative bounds to the computational power of an 'ultimate laptop' with a mass of one kilogram confined to a volume of one litre.

You have no idea what you are talking about - You could park a cloud based quantum computer in orbit and eliminate your entire dispersed computing energy cost thesis.

OCTOBER 05, 2012

"server-sky" concept could put millions of servers in orbit

During the past decade the amount of electricity used by data centers has steadily increased, and data centers now consume almost 3% of worldwide electricity. Despite continuing efforts to increase computing efficiency, power consumption by data centers is continuing to consume ever greater quantities of energy. Keith Lofstrom is an electrical engineer who believes that he may have found a long term solution to the data center problem. Lofstrom wants to put huge number of miniature, solar powered servers (called thinsats) in orbit. This concept, known as "server sky", would be facilitated by a low-cost launch system referred to as "Launch Loop". This loop could put many thousands of tons into space at a small fraction of the cost of using rockets. In an interview with Sander Olson for Next Big Future, Lofstrom describes how the server-sky concept could greatly reduce the need for ground-based data centers, and how Launch Loop might be the best solution to opening up space.

http://nextbigfuture.com/2012/10/server-sky-concept-could-put-millions.html


A server runnning on tidal power and ocean cooled

Google Floats A Data Center Patent: Offshore, Ocean-Cooled, Wave-Powered, And Modular

John Laumer
Business / Corporate Responsibility
September 20, 2008
Share on Facebook
Google seems to be positioning for a Water World-like scenario. That's hyperbole to get your attention to what Google has designed in the way of offshore data centers (see patent application filing here). What's Google designing for a non-apocalyptic future? Imagine a barge (as pictured) holding modular groupings of water-cooled servers, with all of them gobbling power from tethered wave generators. Save for the linked generators, all the component parts are off-the-shelf technology, including the cargo containers which comprise the 'modules'. Not so fantastic really. Combining free server-cooling with green energy gives real efficiency gains.

http://www.treehugger.com/corporate...re-ocean-cooled-wave-powered-and-modular.html

would tap the energy of the moon which you seem to want to discount....like geothermal.

On one hand you say population is falling - then the energy available to us is for practical purposes infinite...the life of the sun and the orbit of the planet and moon for a few humans.

The PROBLEM is fossil GHG followed closely by land use/habitat degradation.

 

[CapelDodger]

If I was promoting something like Launch Loop I would definitely keep the word "loop" out of its name.

 

[Red Baron Farms]

And what can I do in the meantime?

Here's a good start. The interesting thing about this interview is near the end. Salatin talks about externalized costs that derive directly from decisions we all make on a daily basis. AGW is just one part of the larger environmental degradation, which is just one of many externalised costs that we have tended to ignore in our daily decisions about what we eat. Ultimately those individual daily decisions we have made added up on a society level have caused what we see now. In other words, we have what we want as expressed by our purchasing dollar. So any real change must come from the individual in his daily purchasing decisions.

Of course I focus on the agricultural side of things, because that's what I know. However, it can be expanded to any decisions you make.

 

[macdoc]

Eat kangaroo...or no meat at all.

 

[Soapy Sam]

There's a lot of text been added since I last looked at this thread.
Does any of it, I wonder , add anything to my earlier post?
(1.Don't have kids. 2.Plant trees.)

 

[Frozenwolf150]

I made a small change today at my workplace, the cat rescue.

The director feeds the cats canned food 3 days out of the week. She has to throw the cans into the garbage, in sealed bags, because if she puts them in the recycle bin it will attract flies and wild animals. She lives next to a wooded area, after all. This means that all those cans don't get recycled, even though her town does have a recycling program, and she does recycle other items. I told her that at home, I rinse out the cat food cans before putting them in the recycle. I said that on the days when I'm working at the rescue, I would offer to do that for her. She said she once tried that, but it still wasn't enough. However, I could take the cans home with me. So this is exactly what I did today. After we were done feeding the cats their canned food, I rinsed out the cans, put them in a separate bag, and brought them home to be recycled.

I just hope it makes a difference.

 

[wobs]

Because it's early and the market is not saturated.

And when it does, the market will stop growing?

You don't mention what resource savings in say books and music that entails just to mention one.

Give me chance!
Resources saved are less than you might think for downloading goods:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/repo...ing-isnt-as-green-as-you-think/article556832/

You should be puzzled by your own premise.

Not at all. There are theories as to the limits of computing in terms of speed. This puts a limit to how much can be acheived. How long before we reach that?

You have no idea what you are talking about - You could park a cloud based quantum computer in orbit and eliminate your entire dispersed computing energy cost thesis.

A genuinely interesting link, but a few issues... We would need to solve:
1. How to make it self repairing
2. Make it immune to the rigors of the space environment in geostaionary orbit.
3. Engineer sufficient resistence to the radiation in the area, as its application will be long term data storage.
4. Ensure the geosynchronous regaion to be sufficiently free from debris. Currently a potential problem:
http://www.cnes.fr/web/CNES-en/5004-geostationary-orbit.php

Some of those can be solved, but the following, not so much:

But something I can't see being solved anytime soon would be the issue of speed. Its over 30,000 miles away, and so connection speed for all that data would be limited, meaning its application would be limited to archive storage of data, rather than acting as active servers for the internet.

A server runnning on tidal power and ocean cooled


http://www.treehugger.com/corporate...re-ocean-cooled-wave-powered-and-modular.html

would tap the energy of the moon which you seem to want to discount....like geothermal.

On the scale that we are talking about, such measures will not solve the problem, it is just moving the problem.

But this ignores that fact that the download market has a limit as people like physical stuff. Yes we enjoy downloading music/films/books, but we still live the real world. There are only so many songs you want. We still want to buy a house, travel to friends and family, buy gadgets (to play downloads or otherwise).

Not only is the virtual world limited by the limits of the speed of computers (finite), but so to is the physical world limited by the energy efficiency that we can acheive for each piece of technology.

Short of uploading our minds to a space based system (I can't see that being popular), we will still be limited by a finite planet.

On one hand you say population is falling

I said no such thing. I have said more than once that population is levelling off.

- then the energy available to us is for practical purposes infinite...the life of the sun and the orbit of the planet and moon for a few humans.

It is only (effectively) infinite (in time) if we limit our use. To rely on things like solar, other renewables, nuclear etc, we need to limit our economy at some stage, otherwise demand will outstrip what the planet can provide without significent impacts (as I have shown).

The PROBLEM is fossil GHG followed closely by land use/habitat degradation.

I have always said we need to get off fossil fuel use, but that is just an immediate problem, and a simplification of the issue.

We need to find a limit to where further economic growth should stop as it will only course further damage, and only drive consumerism, with no actual benefit other than adding wealth for the sake of it. You have advocated infinite growth, and this poses the obvious question: Why?

Why do you support the idea of almost infinite economic growth? What benefit does it bring?

http://www.pc.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0014/46031/subdr109.pdf

The other half of the picture is conservation, where people make do with less. That doesn’t mean we should become destitute. It means that we should strike a healthy balance (both environmentally and physically) between meagre and excessive consumption. Perhaps we should adopt Gross National Happiness, as was coined by Bhutan's King Jigme Singye Wangchuck, rather than Gross National Product.
Rees13 describes economic growth as a modern myth and that “[g]rowth has become the default solution to everything from our cumulative debt to nature to chronic poverty”. He later went on and wrote that:
“[T]he modern market model eschews moral and ethical considerations; ignores distributive equity; abolishes ‘the common good’; and undermines intangible values such as loyalty to person and place, community, self-reliance, and local cultural mores.”

And Concludes:

Conclusion
Energy efficiency alone will not reduce energy consumption over the long term. To make a real difference, the consumerist and economic growth mentality that pervades Australian society will have to be removed and replaced with development within ecological limits.

Note the charts in the link above showing wealth impact on footprints.

Also:
http://www.psi.org.uk/docs/2003/esrc-energy-Verbruggen-Europe.pdf

While people rightly want a good level of food, shelter, health and comfort, culture and leisure, mobility, etc. overloads leading to obesity, sick buildings, medical overshoot, free-time stress, traffic jams and accidents prove that there is room for positive conservation that will increase the well-being of society (although not GDP accounts).
The conservation discussion is a difficult one because directly linked to a curtailment of human aspirations, questions of distribution, reminiscence of deprivation and poverty, etc. Because the sovereignty of end-users in deciding how to meet their private preferences should be respected, the conservation discussion will have to focus on the distribution of income and wealth. In addition a more wide-scale debate on what type of public goods, amenities and values our societies want to preserve and extend should climb the priority agenda when sustainable development is taken serious.

Basically when people reach a certain level of living, we should look beyond GDP, and look to improve quality of life. Consumerism and increased consumption, beyond a certain level degrades this. What those levels are, are beyond the bounds of this discussion, but a measure beyond GDP is needed.

We ultimately need a steady state economy to curb that excess energy consumption. How we acheive that is open for debate.