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The original Limits To Growth (LTG) study published in 1972 1 , the “Report for The Club of Rome‘s Project on the Predicament of Mankind”, insistently urged humanity to act. Its vivid and almost haunting description of the consequences of exponential growth which is confronted with finite resources, is still as perspicuous as it was back then: continuous economic and demographical growth will hit the limits of naturally provided resources and very likely lead to overshoot, collapse, and radical decrease of most people’s standard of living, accompanied by international crises, conflicts and catastrophes.
The study was supported by the German Volkswagen Foundation
Catégorie Science et technologie 35 commentaires
Transcription
00:00 ecological disasters climate change hunger overpopulation shortage of
resources can Planet Earth still be saved or is it too late scientist Dennis
L meadows already asked this question forty years ago I came back to MIT
walked into the office on Monday and it was announced that a group I never heard
about before the Club of Rome would be coming to MIT to learn about our
computer modeling methods because they were interested in doing some kind of
global study what is the Club of Rome the Club of Rome members are politicians
scientists economists financial experts and writers from around the world their
common aim concern and responsibility for humanity's future the Club of Rome
00:59 is trying to find out how our life on Earth will develop and how to ensure a
future worth living in in 1972 then his Meadows was the first to be assigned
with such future studies financed by Fox wagon foundation then I put together a
team of 16 people and we work for almost two years and produced the work limits
to growth was not the goal of the project the goal was a very big
scientific report and limits was written as a afterthought what is limits to
growth limits to growth is the summary of a complex study on the key question
what will our future look like if the world population keeps growing and
industrialization pollution food production and exploitation of natural
resources continue unabated
02:03 a completely novel question in 1972 following economic growth and increasing
prosperity in the 50s and 60s the upward trend seemed unlimited Meadows team
simulated the seemingly limitless growth in a complicated computer model with
revolutionary results what we said is that exponential growth will take us to
the limits very soon actually if you look at our book our 1972 book although we showed many different scenarios all of them show that growth stops sometime in the period
02:47 of 2022 let's say 2060 so soon where does growth reach its limit
suddenly it was obvious the planets wealth is limited the unabated use of
03:03 oil and natural resources clearing of forests and overfishing will result in
the extinction of species and the disappearance of landscapes our planet
can only take so much harmful emissions like co2 without any long-term damage so
there are limits to what our planet can endure without grave consequences all
ecological movements founded in the 70s used limits to growth as the basis of
their reasoning at that time Meadows felt the limit hadn't yet been reached
but we have long since exceeded it as global warming and rising sea levels
show so now what will the current ideas about green industry and qualitative
growth avoid collapse no possibility absolutely no possibility of that why
not why won't we avoid collapse well many reasons but one of them is
04:09 that globally we are something like 60 or 70% above
sustainable levels even making very optimistic calculations about what is
sustainable have we learned nothing since the 70s
we have people's awareness has changed sustainability is the slogan of modern
development and environmental policies the Western industrial nations promotion
of environment friendly production is a step in the right direction but
according to Meadows it won't suffice to prevent the collapse so what else can we
do mr. meadows will it be possible here in Germany to continue this level of
energy consumption and this degree of material welfare absolutely not not in
05:04 the United States not in other countries either could you change your cultural
and your social norms in a way that gave a attractive future yes you could it
will be in a future which much lower energy and material use but of course
most of the important things in life don't require energy material their
knowledge learning music these are things which can be done with much lower
levels of energy material flow will you choose to do that I don't see any reason
to think that you will it seems to me the leaders of the west of the
industrials are desperately trying to do everything they can to maintain the
current situation so that means there you won't avoid the collapse