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

[Perry E. Metzger]

"space nookie" <spacenookie at gmail.com> writes:
> 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."

They claim it isn't a prediction, and then you yourself quote them saying:

>  "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.

That sounds like a prediction to me.

> The most probable result will be a rather sudden and uncontrollable
> decline in both population and industrial capacity."

That also sounds like a prediction to me. It is a ridiculous
prediction, but it is a prediction. They can say it isn't a
prediction, but when you use words like that, we all know what you're
actually doing.

Now, here's the really great part: they claimed the catastrophe would
be held off only by fairly radical reductions in consumption and in
population growth along with radical exploitation of new
resources. (They even assumed we'd run out of many resources like oil
by now and need nuclear power.)

The real world, however, did not actually reduce consumption at all,
and population has continued to grow in the decades since. We have not
been following the "optimal" scenario -- not even remotely, we've been
following one of the more pessimal scenarios. None the less, we
haven't had any real problems.

> "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"

And this part is also utterly ridiculous. The "not a prediction"
prediction (because they try to have it both ways) is clearly out of
line with reality. There is enough accessible energy for a long time
to come -- the sun produces far more energy than the human race could
use for quite some time, and there are enormous reserves of nuclear
fuel, enough for billions of years.

Material resources are around in abundance, too -- matter is neither
created nor destroyed by ordinary processes, so there is no reason to
believe that we'll run out of as much as we need for as much economic
growth as we could desire. (Those skeptics that think this is silly
should contemplate how large a fraction of our steel comes from
recycling these days.)

Of course, more and more of our economy doesn't even involve
transforming matter.

Lastly, Julian Simon has (as I've noted) also argued quite
persuasively that population growth is an opportunity rather than a
problem.

The amazing thing is, all this was well understood at the time of the
"report".

> "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."

Another so-called "not a prediction", eh? Again, of course, we haven't
been following their "most optimistic" curve at all. We've followed
one of their more "pessimistic" scenarios, but we're just fine. The
irony, of course, is that if we had been following their most
"optimistic" scenarios, we'd be in horrible trouble now.

Perry
-- 
Perry E. Metzger		perry at piermont.com