Limits to Growth - 40th Anniversary

Cohete Rojo · Mar 3, 2012

I never read the book, but I have read enough books and other publications with sources and ideas based off the book Limits to Growth to know the gist of what it was trying to say. The book was a publication of the Club of Rome in 1972.

Limits to Growth is a study about the future of our planet. On behalf of the Club of Rome, Donnella Meadows, Dennis Meadows, Jorgen Randers and their team worked on systems analysis at Jay W. Forrester’s institute at MIT. They created a computing model which took into account the relations between various global developments and produced computer simulations for alternative scenarios. Part of the modelling were different amounts of possibly available resources, different levels of agricultural productivity, birth control or environmental protection.

12 million copies were distributed in 37 languages.

Most scenarios resulted in an ongoing growth of population and of the economy until to a turning point around 2030. Only drastic measures for environmental protection proved to be suitable to change this systems behaviour, and only under these circumstances, scenarios could be calculated in which both world population and wealth could remain at a constant level. However, so far the necessary political measures were not taken.

http://www.clubofrome.org/?p=326
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The Limits to Growth is a 1972 book modeling the consequences of a rapidly growing world population and finite resource supplies, commissioned by the Club of Rome and firstly presented at the 3. St. Gallen Symposium. Its authors were Donella H. Meadows, Dennis L. Meadows, Jørgen Randers, and William W. Behrens III. The book used the World3 model to simulate[1] the consequence of interactions between the Earth's and human systems. The book echoes some of the concerns and predictions of Thomas Malthus in An Essay on the Principle of Population (1798).

Five variables were examined in the original model, on the assumptions that exponential growth accurately described their patterns of increase, and that the ability of technology to increase the availability of resources grows only linearly. These variables are: world population, industrialization, pollution, food production and resource depletion. The authors intended to explore the possibility of a sustainable feedback pattern that would be achieved by altering growth trends among the five variables.

The most recent updated version was published on June 1, 2004 by Chelsea Green Publishing Company and Earthscan under the name Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update. Donnella Meadows, Jørgen Randers, and Dennis Meadows have updated and expanded the original version. They had previously published Beyond the Limits in 1993 as a 20 year update on the original material.[2][3][4]

In 2008 Graham Turner at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) in Australia published a paper called "A Comparison of `The Limits to Growth` with Thirty Years of Reality".[5][6] It examined the past thirty years of reality with the predictions made in 1972 and found that changes in industrial production, food production and pollution are all in line with the book's predictions of economic and societal collapse in the 21st century.[7] In 2010, Peet, Nørgård, and Ragnarsdóttir called the book a "pioneering report". They said that, "its approach remains useful and that its conclusions are still surprisingly valid... unfortunately the report has been largely dismissed by critics as a doomsday prophecy that has not held up to scrutiny."[8]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limits_to_Growth
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So, it has been 40 years since original publication and it looks like we are heading closer to the limits of cheap growth. Rising oil prices, dwindling oil production growth, dwindling global oil net exports, rapid Chindia growth and and increase in oil consumption amongst net exporting nations.

I find it relevant to discuss the 40th anniversary, especially with despotic sychophants like Gingrich telling us it's as easy as 1-2-3 Elect Me to get back to $2.50 per gallon gasoline. With ongoing disputes in Iran and South Sudan, increasing tar oil production, declining spare capacity in OPEC and a resurgence in U.S. crude and condensate production I think we are seeing the first true sign of peak conventional oil production.

Dubious · Mar 3, 2012

Carrying capacity does not indicate quality of life.

If you just want to eat green algae that recycles your poop, the Earth might support 100 billion people.

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