Interesting post from Catallaxis on the limits to growth, the ecological dimension of economics, and the reconciliation of sustainable and physical growth.
As I see it (Figure 3), the physical dimension of the economy, which can be measured in terms of the scale of material, energy, chemical, and biological throughput, does indeed comprise an economic sub-system of the world’s physical biosphere, which includes the sources and sinks for the economic throughput. This is the partial truth in the ecological vision of the economy and it affirms the existence of certain physical limits to the scale of economic growth–but, strictly speaking, these limits only apply to physical economic growth.