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The Limits to Growth: A Report for the Club of… por Donella H. Meadows
To take two simple but self-evident pointers.World population grows exponentially, each new generation is an increase on the previous and then that increase is further increased by the next generation. Our economic regulating system depends on increased consumerism, if we stop buying we are in recession, if the fail to buy more than last time, we are in recession. Add that to the increasing population, that has to be fed, more mouths to feed, more food to be produced and they need to buy to survive, so more goods needed to made and the outcome is simple. Seen from space our planet is very finite. We take, extract, from our planet to make stuff and we dump back on/in our planet all the waste stuff that is not needed or not wanted or when it is no longer useful.
This book explores all the myriad reasoning's that resources are being depleted, or increasing means to extend them, delays to record or implement recovery, feedback loops and accumulating evidence that our broadly stable and favourable environment is tipping into a chaotic system which is unlikely to be favourable to humans. Balanced by sketching out mechanisms and our skill sets we could use to defer, or slow this progress towards that tipping point.
If you do nothing else, make sure you do read Chapters 7 and 8
En meget sober opdatering til "Grænser for vækst". Konturerne af problemet står meget klarere og diverse mirakel-løsninger er ikke vejen frem. Hvor er ålene og insekterne blevet af?
A été lu par le Gillou
Rendu par Julien le 19/05/24
Contents: Overshoot; The driving force - exponential growth; The limits - sources and sinks; World 3 - the dynamics of growth in a finite world; Back from beyond the limits - the ozone story; Technology, markets and overshoot; Transitions to a sustainable system; Tools for the transition to sustainability; Apendices.
There are many fine points he discusses, such as balancing exponential human growth with linear food output increases, the time lag between controlling CO2 and the dissipation of CO2 from the atmosphere.
I recommend this book for a reference frame of where global economies and culture will shift over the remainder of this century.
Et kvalificeret bud på hvor verden bevæger sig hen de næste 40 år. Meget, meget tankevækkende.
Væsentligt emne, men den engelske udgave er bedre.
And again, fifteen years old, the reason i bought it was because i had read about it in the woman’s magazine Margriet. It did some articles on environmental pollution and the world going down the drain. My motives being a mixture of interest in the possibilities of computer modeling and worry about the environment (mainly the first though, although my über-ich sticks to the second).
Now I reread it. So, is this a readable book? It is actually. It is well written and well composed; rhetoric means well used to make sure that its message hits the fan.
----------------------- Reporting on world dynamics ----------------------------------------------------
--> Exponential growth, feed-back loops and time delays
It begins by explaining the nature of exponential growth. The story of the water lily in a pond that doubles itself every day is central to this. After some time the pond is filled half by the water lily, how long will it be before it covers the whole of the pond?
Four variables like the world-population and industrial production, it is important to see that exponential growth is caused by positive feedback loops in the system. Population growth causes more population growth and industrial growth likewise. They also positively influence each other.
Another important aspect is time delay in the system. E.g. DDT put in the environment yesterday, will only show up in high levels in our food tomorrow, since it has to travel along the whole of the food chain first.
Uncontrolled growth breeds disaster.
Dennis Meadows and his team construct a ‘dynamic systems’ world model that takes five main variables as its focus: production, population, food, non renewable resources and pollution. In fact production is specified in industrial, services and agricultural production and available land for agriculture is an important variable too.
As input for the model they use real-life data and reasonably optimistic estimates to create a ‘standard run’ to see what happens to the variables for the period 1900 – 2100 under the assumption that no changes in policy are made.
The result is shown in diagram 35 of the book.
As non renewable resources are consumed, more investments are needed to exploit them. So less can be invested in future growth. At some point less can be invested than is needed because of deprecation. The system then collapses.
Now this needs some imagination: when industrial investments can no longer be supported, all that’s dependent on it will quickly melt into thin air. After the worst wars are fought, we will be living in wooden shacks again (if there is wood still).
--> Technology is not the answer
After this rather dramatic set-up there follows a section on possible ‘technological’ solutions for this outcome, using the model for ‘what-if’ scenario’s. What if resources are four times as big as the most optimistic predictions, industry gets cleaner and machines more durable, recycling is used? What if there’s a dramatic increase in the productivity of agriculture?
The model runs show that this all leads to basically the same diagrams as in figure 35; it’s the structure of the feed-back loops in the system that is more important than exact figure’s about available resources etc.
So we have to change are values and goals, and stop growing
Now it is time for the grand finale. If in the end technology cannot help us, we have to change ourselves, our values and goals. We have to be prepared to set controls on industrial- and population growth. In fact the growth has to be zero. Putting this in the model shows that it is (only) then that the world system will be in a sustainable situation. The diagram shows ‘flatliners’ for most variables, whereas the resources are only gradually diminishing.
--> And don’t wait too long please
So, only when industrial- and population growth will be zero, disasters like figure 35 won’t happen in the 21st century. But not only that, a further analysis shows that when the worlds waits too long to take these measures, the disasters will take place anyway. In fact, taking them in the year 2000 will already be too late!
• One of the main reasons this will happen is because of time delays; the population will keep growing for about thirty years after installment of the measures. Even having perfect birth control where no one is allowed to have more than two children. In this case, in the end there will be a death for every birth and the population will be stabilized. In the period before that a lot of children get born that will live longer. See also the Demographic Transition Model, which is not specifically about sudden birth control measures however.
--------------- Objective science to effective policies -------------------------------
If ever science was used to get a moral lesson home, it’s here. After all, the main ‘scientific’ message – there’s no way finite systems can support limitless growth – is almost a tautology. This leaves the ‘moral’ message – so stop growing – with some firm footage. And if we add if you don’t want to die, it’s just a matter of enlightened self-interest to do so.
No matter how simple this message, it is far from clear how to get there. The report – which includes a presentation and afterword by members of the Club of Rome itself, does not even begin to suggest this in any concrete way. It just states that we need fundamentally different philosophies for our lives. It also states that customary government systems are failing when confronted with such complex situations.
And the world itself? It would not be to cynical to say that it plunged headway in an orgasmic feast of growth and consumerism by opting for neoliberal economic politics, giving free way to all the forces of darkness that Limits to Growth identifies, not only in its practice but all the more in its ideology. The human being a rational animal? It’s just one more count on the dialectics of Enlightenment.
But to be somewhat less cynical; the report warns against just going after the negative feed-backs. Just fighting pollution, malnutrition and building longer lasting machines, will not get us anywhere in the end as long as industry and population are allowed to grow (exponentially). With all the ‘green’ parties, all effort put in climate conferences and cutting back on environmental pollution, we have just done the less half of what the report told us to do. The most central tenets of the report where disregarded: industry and population growing like never before.
So, do you keep your empty batteries in an old sock?
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freetrader | 9 reseñas más. | Jun 5, 2009 |
freetrader | 9 reseñas más. | Jun 5, 2009 | Many were upset by the forecast was that there would be a global collapse in the mid-21st century.
Others ignored the forecast, figuring new technologies would be developed to "save us".
This edition has an optional CD-ROM that provides the complete World3 model, which you can run on a PC or Macintosh computer to see the results.
“…This book was first written in the 1970s and predicts what will happen if the world population keeps rising. Now 30 years on, the updated version looks at how much they got right, such as the projections about carbon emissions. …”
The full interview is available here: http://fivebooks.com/interviews/rosamund-mcdougall-on-global-warming
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