[tt] [ExI] [wta-talk] Meme 128: What Have You Changed Your Mind about?

[space nookie]

Ok, I am looking at the short version at <
http://www.clubofrome.org/docs/limits.rtf>.

Some sentences that jump out at me:

"We shall emphasize just one more time that none of these computer outputs
is a prediction.
We would not expect the real world to behave like the world model in any of
the graphs we have
shown, especially in the collapse modes."

 "1. If the present growth trends in world population, industrialization,
pollution, food production,
and resource depletion continue unchanged, the limits to growth on this
planet will be
reached sometime within the next one hundred years. The most probable result
will be a rather
sudden and uncontrollable decline in both population and industrial
capacity."

"It is possible to alter these growth trends and to establish a condition of
ecological and economic
stability that is sustainable far into the future."

  "The model system is producing nuclear power, recycling resources,and
mining the most remote
reserves; withholding as many pollutants as possible; pushing yields from
the land to undreamed-of
heights; and producing only children who are actively wanted by their
parents. The result is still an
end to growth before the year 2100"


"Our attempts to use even the most optimistic estimates of the benefits of
technology in the model did
not prevent the ultimate decline of population and industry, and in fact did
not in any case postpone the
collapse beyond the year 2100."


Please explain what document you are reading that gives hard predictions of
collapse before 2008.


On Jan 12, 2008 10:07 PM, Perry E. Metzger <perry at piermont.com> wrote:

>
> "space nookie" <spacenookie at gmail.com> writes:
> > The Club of Rome Report didn't make specific predictions.
>
> Yes, it did.
>
> > They built a computer model of the economy and ran it multiple
> > times, using different assumptions each time.  They found that all
> > runs of their model EVENTUALLY reached a peak of resource use, with
> > resource use falling off after that point (thus the title, "Limits
> > to Growth").
>
> In *every* scenario they ran, the results claimed that things went
> downhill before where we are now (which is nearly 2010).
>
> > Changing assumptions about technology and recycling altered the
> > timing of this peak, but not by as much as you would think because
> > of exponential growth.
>
> Actually, for the reasons that that Julian Simon has explained far
> more eloquently than I can, the entire idea that we're resource
> limited is nuts. Increased human population, for example, only
> improves productivity, and as Simon's famous bets with Erlich showed,
> we aren't running out of natural resources.
>
> (I won't argue that when the sun stops shining we'll lack for energy
> inputs, but before that it is going to swell to red giant and
> incinerate the earth anyway. Before that, we don't have much to worry
> about, and by that time I imagine we'll be long gone.)
>
> > All they really talk about in the report is this model, the multiple
> > scenarios they put it through, and the observations they made about
> > the scenario outcomes.  They strongly suggested there were real
> > limits to growth but did not say what they were or when they would
> > be reached.
>
> Their most optimistic scenarios were substantially worse than
> reality. Their whole model was counterfactual -- it implicitly
> assumed, for example, that the economy doesn't respond to changes in
> supply, which is nuts. (When prices rise, demand falls.)
>
> The report was garbage from the start.
>
>
> --
> Perry E. Metzger                perry at piermont.com
>
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