Limits to Growth was right. New research shows we're nearing collapse

[magical thyme]

In a nutshell, researchers at University of Melbourne compared what's happening with what was predicted back in '72, in terms of economy, population growth, agriculture, etc. The results are chilling.


http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/02/limits-to-growth-was-right-new-research-shows-were-nearing-collapse

Limits to Growth was commissioned by a think tank called the Club of Rome. Researchers working out of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, including husband-and-wife team Donella and Dennis Meadows, built a computer model to track the world’s economy and environment. Called World3, this computer model was cutting edge....

The task was very ambitious. The team tracked industrialisation, population, food, use of resources, and pollution. They modelled data up to 1970, then developed a range of scenarios out to 2100, depending on whether humanity took serious action on environmental and resource issues. If that didn’t happen, the model predicted “overshoot and collapse” – in the economy, environment and population – before 2070. This was called the “business-as-usual” scenario....

So were they right? We decided to check in with those scenarios after 40 years. Dr Graham Turner gathered data from the UN (its department of economic and social affairs, Unesco, the food and agriculture organisation, and the UN statistics yearbook). He also checked in with the US national oceanic and atmospheric administration, the BP statistical review, and elsewhere. That data was plotted alongside the Limits to Growth scenarios.

The results show that the world is tracking pretty closely to the Limits to Growth “business-as-usual” scenario. The data doesn’t match up with other scenarios.

Solid line: MIT, with new research in bold. Dotted line: Limits to Growth ‘business-as-usual’ scenario.

[cantbeserious]

1. For Very Good Discourse And Discussion On Life In Post-Industrial America Read

Last edited Sat Sep 6, 2014, 04:27 PM - Edit history (1)

The Arch Druid Report.

http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/

[magical thyme]

3. I think you mean for very "good" discourse, no?

Comments to your link is where I noticed the article!

[Spider Jerusalem]

2. Extrapolating from that...we're fucked in 30 to 40 years at the outside.

Possibly sooner when certain other things are factored in.

[hifiguy]

8. Yep.

They're not accounting at all for the world's incredible oversupply of stupidity, which makes everything worse geometrically rather than arithmetically. Mother nature will not be mocked and always wins in the end.

[Major Hogwash]

13. If we don't slow down the trends, within 40 years.

But, new technologies are being explored today that weren't even dreamt of 20 years ago, so there is hope that these trends can be slowed down, and even reversed, given the chance to implement them.

Most of that depends on Democrats taking back control of the House this year.
That's where it begins.

[magical thyme]

4. here is a link to a free .pdf of Limits to Growth

http://www.donellameadows.org/the-limits-to-growth-now-available-to-read-online/

[JaneyVee]

5. Yup, you can't have infinite growth on a finite planet.

[ChisolmTrailDem]

6. Remember the old tome: "We're saving our oil until we use up everyone else's", or variances?

Hmmmmmm....

[alterfurz]

7. "We'll keep doing what we do until we can't...

...and then we won't." -- James Kunstler

The Earth is an organism, and that organism has a skin; that skin has diseases, and one of these diseases is Mankind. -- Friedrich Nietzsche

[airplaneman]

9. I too believe we are nearing our top in

population overshoot. We have degraded the planets carrying capacity.
In the next 10 years we will see the beginning of a serious decline in our numbers.
My prediction would be:
5-10 years major uptick in starvation planet wide including insufficient water.
10-20 years significant collapse of society worldwide.
20-50 years - the next extinction event including us (90-99 % of humans gone).
Have a nice day.
-Airplane

[AverageJoe90]

12. I doubt it. It would take a HELL of a lot of things going wrong to make this possible, truthfully.

And this is coming from a guy whom, several years ago, used to spend so much time fantasizing about global civilizational collapse scenarios(I blame it on the fact I was an avid B-movie watcher). At least I didn't take it all that seriously, but I might as well put that out there.

In any case, humans won't even come close to extinction unless a comet smacks us head on or a nearby star goes supernova, or whatever.

[airplaneman]

14. Hi AverageJoe

I appreciate feedback from my fellow DU members. I do understand conspiracy theorists and believe no one really can predict the future BUT things I have read that make me believe we can be in a lot of trouble in short order.

NASA scientists prediction of society collapse in as little as 20 years.

1250now.org including the AMEG site - if you are not already familiar with them.

Artic News has a lot of good data too.

Methane concentrations and ocean rise appear to be going logarithmic.

If all appears to be OK in the next 20 years I would no longer be worried.

I am old enough that I may never really know.

-Airplane

[AnalystInParadise]

15. Not likely

Global warming leads to greater crop yields.

What I worry about is the continued rapid cooling of the planet. That is far more dangerous than heat.

[airplaneman]

17. Hi AnalystInParadise

I thought global warming (I think climate change is a better term) leads to more drought like in California. Where are your reading about "continued rapid cooling of the planet". I understand that clime change causes stagnant weather - cooler spells that last unusually long along with warmer spells and drought like spells also lasting unusually long.
Cheers
-Airplane

[Quantess]

10. Interesting.

[AverageJoe90]

11. Sorry, but I'm not counting my chickens just yet.

We are not nearing global collapse at all. Those graphs you posted, btw.....ever heard of a thing called "coincidence"? It does happen, you know.

We have real things to worry about in the short term. Global collapse is not amongst them.

[raouldukelives]

16. So true. We are on the brink of losing thousands of species of wildlife.

They must take precedence. Humans will find a way, I'm not too worried about them.

[FLPanhandle]

18. This planet cannot sustain 7 billion people

It's inevitable there will be an environmental collapse.

[A HERETIC I AM]

20. Nonsense.

It isn't the number of people (up to a point, obviously and 7 billion is not
It) but the distribution of wealth and resources.

You could fit 7 billion people in land area the size of Texas and each would have around 1200 square feet.

[tritsofme]

19. Paging Dr Malthus, Thomas Malthus.