Looking Back on the Limits of Growth, or: MIT Predicts That World Economy Will Collapse By 2030

[Xenocidebot]

[IMG]http://media.smithsonianmag.com/images/Futurism-Got-Corn-graph-631-thumb.jpg[/IMG]
[QUOTE]Recent research supports the conclusions of a controversial environmental study released 40 years ago: The world is on track for disaster. So says Australian physicist Graham Turner, who revisited perhaps the most groundbreaking academic work of the 1970s,The Limits to Growth.

Written by MIT researchers for an international think tank, the Club of Rome, the study used computers to model several possible future scenarios. The business-as-usual scenario estimated that if human beings continued to consume more than nature was capable of providing, global economic collapse and precipitous population decline could occur by 2030.

However, the study also noted that unlimited economic growth was possible, if governments forged policies and invested in technologies to regulate the expansion of humanity’s ecological footprint. Prominent economists disagreed with the report’s methodology and conclusions. Yale’s Henry Wallich opposed active intervention, declaring that limiting economic growth too soon would be “consigning billions to permanent poverty.”

Turner compared real-world data from 1970 to 2000 with the business-as-usual scenario. He found the predictions nearly matched the facts. “There is a very clear warning bell being rung here,” he says. “We are not on a sustainable trajectory.”[/QUOTE]
[url]http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/Looking-Back-on-the-Limits-of-Growth.html[/url]

This isn't really [I]new[/I] news, as the [URL="http://www.csiro.au/files/files/plje.pdf"]research in question[/URL] was done in 2008, but a few sites are..."celebrating" the anniversary of the original publication. And Turner is talking about it again because of that, which is new news, so bluh.

[gamefreek76]

Sounds about right.

[Kevinsevenalt]

Well...I guess all we can do is wait isn't it? Not like we'll ever change what we do.

[Awesomecaek]

This is how you do doomsday prediction. Not "hey this mayan slab says something I can interpret as dildos being inserted into eyes of everyone spontaneously".

Everyone with a bite of economic insight knows shit is going to hit the fan sooner or later, but this sums it up nicely.

[RedCzar]

What a world we get to inherit.

[Conely]

[QUOTE]However, the study also noted that unlimited economic growth was possible, if governments forged policies and invested in technologies to regulate the expansion of humanity’s ecological footprint[/QUOTE]

This isn't exactly news to most people. You can scarcely turn on the TV without something proclaiming the importance of minimizing our carbon footprint and such.

Not that anybody's actually doing anything, of course.

[Shiftyze]

I shed a manly tear for seeing how much shit is at a downfall by the time we are all in our 40s :(

We really were born at a terrible time. I can't get a job for the life of mine as soon as I turned 18.

[thisispain]

[img]http://www.messagefrommasters.com/Osho/osho/Osho-on-karl-marx.jpg[/img]

Come on, it's worth a try.

[Conely]

[QUOTE=thisispain;35450911][img]http://www.messagefrommasters.com/Osho/osho/Osho-on-karl-marx.jpg[/img]

Come on, it's worth a try.[/QUOTE]

we must store excess Co2 in the beards of the elderly

of course

[Awesomecaek]

[QUOTE=thisispain;35450911][img]http://www.messagefrommasters.com/Osho/osho/Osho-on-karl-marx.jpg[/img]

Come on, it's worth a try.[/QUOTE]

Who isn't with us is against us.

You get the hammers I get the beard conditioner.

[spacedooky]

We have 20 or so years to prevent economic meltdown. Excellent.

And we're gonna in the middle of our working years, too! Good luck, guys.

[Fhenexx]

[QUOTE=RedCzar;35450901]What a world we get to inherit.[/QUOTE]
To be fair, the world we're inheriting is many times better than the world our children are going to inherit. At least we get another 10 or 15 years of comfort before the economic collapse basically sends us back to the days of the mid-to-late 1700s.

Poor kids...

[ExplodingGuy]

Then there's going to be an outbreak of drug resistant spanish flu and tuberculosis.

Followed by the cure for AIDS.

Followed by even more drug resistant deseases.

[ewitwins]

Welp, time to build the bomb shelter and stock up on supplies.

[McGrimace]

And then a day later, everyone forgot about it.

[Ermac20]

[QUOTE=thisispain;35450911][img]http://www.messagefrommasters.com/Osho/osho/Osho-on-karl-marx.jpg[/img]

Come on, it's worth a try.[/QUOTE]

have fun getting brainwashed americans to believe this

[TehDoctorz]

[QUOTE=Cone;35450908]This isn't exactly news to most people. You can scarcely turn on the TV without something proclaiming the importance of minimizing our carbon footprint and such.

Not that anybody's actually doing anything, of course.[/QUOTE]

That is no offense, pretty naive. The government regulates so much more than you can imagine, and technologies by small companies are the future, and are bringing better and better ecological standards to everything.

I don't want to get into a whole discussion, but this article reports a linear graph with current constants. It isn't really accounting for change. I'm pretty sure there will be tough times ahead, but nothing to the scale of a "world of disaster".

[Dredile]

:( sucks, hopefully we will pull through, all evidence to the contrary, but i guess ill just have to hope for the best.

[IMG]http://image.lehmans.com/lehmans/Images/products/main/15673.jpg[/IMG]

Id prefer not having to do this.

[Sickle]

[QUOTE=Awesomecaek;35450867]This is how you do doomsday prediction. [B]Not "hey this mayan slab says something I can interpret as dildos being inserted into eyes of everyone spontaneously".[/B]

Everyone with a bite of economic insight knows shit is going to hit the fan sooner or later, but this sums it up nicely.[/QUOTE]

oh god

my lungs

[Lazor]

[QUOTE=Cone;35450908]This isn't exactly news to most people. You can scarcely turn on the TV without something proclaiming the importance of minimizing our carbon footprint and such.

Not that anybody's actually doing anything, of course.[/QUOTE]

conservation just creates room for more growth. not really an end all solution

[Last or First]

[quote]Written by MIT researchers for an international think tank, the Club of Rome, the study used computers to model [B]several[/B] possible future scenarios. The business-as-usual scenario estimated that if human beings continued to consume more than nature was capable of providing, global economic collapse and precipitous population decline could occur by 2030.

However, the study also noted that unlimited economic growth was possible, if governments forged policies and invested in technologies to regulate the expansion of humanity’s ecological footprint. [B]Prominent economists disagreed with the report’s methodology and conclusions. Yale’s Henry Wallich opposed active intervention, declaring that limiting economic growth too soon would be “consigning billions to permanent poverty.”[/B][/quote]

[quote]Turner compared real-world data from 1970 to 2000 with the business-as-usual scenario. He found the predictions nearly matched the facts. “There is a very clear warning bell being rung here,” he says. “We are not on a sustainable trajectory.”[/quote]
"Non-renewable resources are being used and not being renewed? Better technology leads to having more food per capita? More countries industrializing leads to more jobs? With more technology, there's more pollution? [I]People are fucking!?[/I] Everything is there! We're all going to die! Repent! Repent! The end is nigh!"
Yeah, trends that were occurring at that time, and that any reasonable person could predict, kept going in the same direction. Big fucking shock. That [I]must[/I] mean that [I]one[/I] theory that took those into account [I]must[/I] be right. [I]Surely.[/I]
Also, this is a minor point, but how exactly do you measure how many non-renewable resources are left if we haven't discovered them all?

[MIPS]

So I become a 40 year old virgin and the world goes to hell.
Cool.

[supertribute]

[QUOTE=ewitwins;35451135]Welp, time to build the bomb shelter and stock up on supplies.[/QUOTE]

私は、世界全体をしました、ボールでそれをつかむ。

[Angus725]

I'm probably going insane with excessive Calculus...

But those slopes and rates of change!, it all fits (almost) perfectly... D:!

[The Decoy]

better change my name to Max and become Mad

[Sector 7]

That's assuming that the technology of 2030 isn't vastly different from now

which it will most certainly be

[Mac2468]

[QUOTE=Ermac20;35451144]have fun getting brainwashed americans to believe this[/QUOTE]

I'm sure by 2030 there will be a fraction of the amount of brainwashed ignorant americans as there are today.
Although it could just get worse, time will tell.

[Xenocidebot]

[QUOTE=Last or First;35451383]"Non-renewable resources are being used and not being renewed? Better technology leads to having more food per capita? More countries industrializing leads to more jobs? With more technology, there's more pollution? [I]People are fucking!?[/I] Everything is there! We're all going to die! Repent! Repent! The end is nigh!"
Yeah, trends that were occurring at that time, and that any reasonable person could predict, kept going in the same direction. Big fucking shock. That [I]must[/I] mean that [I]one[/I] theory that took those into account [I]must[/I] be right. [I]Surely.[/I][/QUOTE]
I know you're trying to be skeptical but you bolded a word which had no impact on what you said (the several scenarios were talking about things we might change, not potential outcomes along the same course, hence the mention of the "business-as-usual scenario") and then cited a guy who believed inflation was an "extralegal form of redistribution" and wanted to increases taxes on any company daring to pay its workers a wage above a government set baseline, and assumed it would be more fun to let an economy die by way of free market than attempting to reign it in.
[QUOTE=Last or First;35451383]Also, this is a minor point, but how exactly do you measure how many non-renewable resources are left if we haven't discovered them all?[/QUOTE]
How is it that scientists know about how much gold is on the planet total, even though we haven't ripped the entirety of it from the land and sea?
[QUOTE=Sector 7;35451737]That's assuming that the technology of 2030 isn't vastly different from now

which it will most certainly be[/QUOTE]
You do not, when learning how to drive a manual transmission, hit the accelerator as hard as possible, under the assumption your understanding of vehicles will be vastly different when you attempt to shift.
Put another way, technology isn't fucking magic, don't assume it'll fix a problem in the future if there isn't already a visible solution in sight.

[cqbcat]

So awesome that it's a physics nerd that has to warn us of impending disaster.

[juGGa]

Yay for post-apocalyptic future!