Economic growth does not strictly require <i>specific</i> raw materials and natural resources. With ingenuity and time, it is almost always possible to utilize alternative resources or recycle&#x2F;reuse existing ones (e.g. seawater desalination).<p>The constraints seem to be our intelligence and perhaps energy. Energy could probably be solved with sufficient intelligence as well--e.g. nuclear fusion.<p>Negative externalities, such as anthropogenic climate change, are a real concern. We do not yet have good ways to neutralize all of those but it does not mean we never will. It is in some sense a race between consumption and invention.<p>John McCarthy, a father of AI, wrote a mini-site on this with some strong arguments: Progress and its Sustainability: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www-formal.stanford.edu&#x2F;jmc&#x2F;progress&#x2F;index.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www-formal.stanford.edu&#x2F;jmc&#x2F;progress&#x2F;index.html</a>