It doesn’t cost us anything in that we don’t have to give up anything we currently have (provided that we execute the right policies to maintain current levels of prosperity without expanding into nature even more). You’re talking about an imagined future cost, and that gets pretty tricky. Who’s to say that it doesn’t cost us to keep the Milky Way running, since in a billion years we could conquer it all?
It doesn’t cost us anything in that we don’t have to give up anything we currently have (provided that we execute the right policies to maintain current levels of prosperity without expanding into nature even more). You’re talking about an imagined future cost, and that gets pretty tricky. Who’s to say that it doesn’t cost us to keep the Milky Way running, since in a billion years we could conquer it all?