Multiplied by the 9 billion people expected by 2050 this would mean a global material use of between 225 and 270 billion tonnes or three to four times the amounts of 2010. The investments needed to establish global extractive capacity adequate for such high levels of resource use would be huge and potentially unaffordable. Such quantities of resources are simply not available, and the absorptive capacity of the earth's ecosystems are already stretched at much lower global levels of resource use.