Global Socio-Economic Overshoot Running Out Of Steam

[cronus]

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre ... g-collapse

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

The 1972 book Limits to Growth, which predicted our civilisation would probably collapse some time this century, has been criticised as doomsday fantasy since it was published. Back in 2002, self-styled environmental expert Bjorn Lomborg consigned it to the “dustbin of history”.

It doesn’t belong there. Research from the University of Melbourne has found the book’s forecasts are accurate, 40 years on. If we continue to track in line with the book’s scenario, expect the early stages of global collapse to start appearing soon.

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.

The book’s central point, much criticised since, is that “the earth is finite” and the quest for unlimited growth in population, material goods etc would eventually lead to a crash.

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.

(continued, light aircraft on fire - got my parachute and I'm out of here....see you after the next dark ages guys...)

[JimC]

Throw more coal into the furnace, let's get that steam level ramped up!

[cronus]

Throw more coal into the furnace, let's get that steam level ramped up!

If only it was that simple. I've noticed we've been pumping water out of the passenger cabins for a while. Hate to think the condition of them engines below.

[pErvinalia]

I was wondering how long it would take you to stumble onto this article. It's a pathetic case of hyperbolic headlines and misunderstanding of statistics. Until there's a downturn matching or thereabouts the downturns predicted by the Club of Rome, then it's a total beat up of a story. Not that I doubt that the Club of Rome was wrong in a qualitative sense.

[cronus]

I guess you'll sleep safe in your cabin tonight then?

[pErvinalia]

I guess the hope that you would one day proffer a coherent post was misplaced..

[cronus]

I guess the hope that you would one day proffer a coherent post was misplaced..

2+2=5

The times rEv...even you are subject to them.

[pErvinalia]

Yoghurt.

[cronus]

Yoghurt.

I know it hurts but modern civilization is rubbish. It'll fall apart but something better will replace it in about five hundred years.....

[pErvinalia]

You don't have to tell me that. But if you want to convince others, you need to try and sound less kooky.

[cronus]

You don't have to tell me that. But if you want to convince others, you need to try and sound less kooky.

I don't actually believe that. You know my doomsayer side is all front don't you?

[pErvinalia]

I don't know what to believe about you.

[cronus]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-29063111

Snapshot: The mounting problems facing the world

In 2010, Cambridge professor Nicholas Boyle said "a great event" in the year 2014 would be pivotal in determining whether the 21st Century would bring peace and prosperity or war and poverty.

With the loss of two Malaysia Airlines flights, the kidnapping of 200 schoolgirls in Nigeria, war in Gaza and Israel, the emergence of militant group Islamic State in the Middle East, tensions in Europe over Ukraine and the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, his prediction may seem prescient.

BBC News takes a look at some of the crises facing world leaders, as Nato members gather in the Welsh city of Newport for a summit.

(continued, time to edge slowly without risking panic towards that door with EXIT written on it...)

[Clinton Huxley]

Have you considered a career at the Daily Mail?

[cronus]

Have you considered a career at the Daily Mail?

I'm not that good and spelling.