The Limits to Growth

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The Limits to Growth
File:Cover first edition Limits to growth.jpg
The Limits to Growth first edition cover.
Author(s) Donella H. Meadows
Dennis L. Meadows
Jørgen Randers
William W. Behrens III
Language English
Publisher Universe Books
Publication date 1972
Pages 205
ISBN 0-87663-165-0
OCLC Number 307838

The Limits to Growth is a 1972 book about the computer modeling of unchecked economic and population growth with finite resource supplies.[1] It was commissioned by the Club of Rome and was first presented at the 3. St. Gallen Symposium. Its authors were Donella H. Meadows, Dennis L. Meadows, Jørgen Randers, and William W. Behrens III. The book used the World3 model to simulate[2] the consequence of interactions between the Earth's and human systems. The book echoes some of the concerns and predictions of Thomas Malthus in An Essay on the Principle of Population (1798).

Five variables were examined in the original model, on the assumptions that exponential growth accurately described their patterns of increase, and that the ability of technology to increase the availability of resources grows only linearly. These variables are: world population, industrialization, pollution, food production and resource depletion. The authors intended to explore the possibility of a sustainable feedback pattern that would be achieved by altering growth trends among the five variables under three scenarios. They noted that their projections for the values of the variables in each scenario were predictions "only in the most limited sense of the word," and were only indications of the system's behavioral tendencies.[3] Two of the scenarios saw "overshoot and collapse" of the global system by the mid to latter part of the 21st century, while a third scenario resulted in a "stabilized world."[4]

The most recent updated version was published on June 1, 2004 by Chelsea Green Publishing Company and Earthscan under the name Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update. Donnella Meadows, Jørgen Randers, and Dennis Meadows have updated and expanded the original version. They had previously published Beyond the Limits in 1993 as a 20 year update on the original material.[5][6][7]

In 2008 Graham Turner at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) in Australia published a paper called "A Comparison of `The Limits to Growth` with Thirty Years of Reality".[8][9] It examined the past thirty years of reality with the predictions made in 1972 and found that changes in industrial production, food production and pollution are all in line with the book's predictions of economic and societal collapse in the 21st century.[10] In 2010, Peet, Nørgård, and Ragnarsdóttir called the book a "pioneering report". They said that, "its approach remains useful and that its conclusions are still surprisingly valid... unfortunately the report has been largely dismissed by critics as a doomsday prophecy that has not held up to scrutiny."[11]

Purpose

The purpose of The Limits to Growth was not to make specific predictions, but to explore how exponential growth interacts with finite resources. Because the size of resources is not known, only the general behavior can be explored. The authors state in a subsection titled The Purpose of the World Model[12]:

In this first simple world model, we are interested only in the broad behavior modes of the population-capital system. By behavior modes we mean the tendencies of the variables in the system (population or pollution, for example) to change as time progresses. A variable may increase, decrease, remain constant, oscillate, or combine several of these characteristic modes. For example, a population growing in a limited environment can approach the ultimate carrying capacity of that environment in several possible ways. It can adjust smoothly to an equilibrium below the environmental limit by means of a gradual decrease in growth rate, as shown below. It can overshoot the limit and then die back again in either a smooth or an oscillatory way, also as shown below. Or it can overshoot the limit and in the process decrease the ultimate carrying capacity by consuming some necessary nonrenewable resource, as diagrammed below. This behavior has been noted in many natural systems. For instance, deer or goats, when natural enemies are absent, often overgraze their range and cause erosion or destruction of the vegetation.

A major purpose in constructing the world model has been to determine which, if any, of these behavior modes will be most characteristic of the world system as it reaches the limits to growth. This process of determining behavior modes is "prediction" only in the most limited sense of the word. The output graphs reproduced later in this book show values for world population, capital, and other variables on a time scale that begins in the year 1900 and continues until 2100. These graphs are not exact predictions of the values of the variables at any particular year in the future. They are indications of the system's behavioral tendencies only.

The difference between the various degrees of "prediction" might be best illustrated by a simple example. If you throw a ball straight up into the air, you can predict with certainty what its general behavior will be. It will rise with decreasing velocity, then reverse direction and fall down with increasing velocity until it hits the ground. You know that it will not continue rising forever, nor begin to orbit the earth, nor loop three times before landing. It is this sort of elemental understanding of behavior modes that we are seeking with the present world model. If one wanted to predict exactly how high a thrown ball would rise or exactly where and when it would hit the ground, it would be necessary to make a detailed calculation based on precise information about the ball, the altitude, the wind, and the force of the initial throw. Similarly, if we wanted to predict the size of the earth's population in 1993 within a few percent, we would need a very much more complicated model than the one described here. We would also need information about the world system more precise and comprehensive than is currently available.

Exponential reserve index

One key idea within the The Limits to Growth is the notion that if the rate of resource use is increasing, the amount of reserves cannot be calculated by simply taking the current known reserves and dividing by the current yearly usage, as is typically done to obtain a static index. For example, in 1972, the amount of chromium reserves was 775 million metric tons, of which 1.85 million metric tons were mined annually (see exponential growth). The static index is \(775/1.85=418\text{ years}\), but the rate of chromium consumption was growing at \(2.6%\) annually (Limits to Growth, pp 54–71). If instead of assuming a constant rate of usage, the assumption of a constant rate of growth of \(2.6%\) annually is made, the resource will instead last \[\frac{\ln(1+0.026\times 418)}{0.026} \approx \text{95 years}\] (note that the book rounded off numbers).

In general, the formula for calculating the amount of time left for a resource with constant consumption growth is [13]: \[y = \frac{\ln((r \times s) + 1)}{r}\] where:

y = years left;
r = 0.026, the continous compounding growth rate (2.6%).
s = R/C or static reserve.
R = reserve;
C = (annual) consumption.

The authors list a number of similar exponential indices comparing current reserves to current reserves multiplied by a factor of five:

Years
Resource Consumption growth rate, annual Static index Exponential index 5 times reserves exponential index
Chromium 2.6% 420 95 154
Gold 4.1% 11 9 29
Iron 1.8% 240 93 173
Petroleum 3.9% 31 20 50

The static reserve numbers assume that the usage is constant, and the exponential reserve assumes that the growth rate is constant.

The exponential index has been interpreted as a prediction of the number of years until the world would "run out" of various resources, both by environmentalist groups calling for greater conservation and restrictions on use, and by skeptics criticizing the index when supplies failed to run out.[14][15][16][17] What The Limits to Growth actually has is the above table, which has the current reserves (that is no new sources of oil are found) for oil running out in 1992 assuming constant exponential growth. In Limits to Growth: The Thirty Year Update there are several pages explaining that new resources are found over time and that the current reserves therefore change but that ultimately resources are finite. (Earlier editions did explain this as well, but not in as much detail.) The standard model includes a resource base of double that of what they have calculated, but the book includes model runs where the assumed resources are infinite, but those model runs still result in overshoot and collapse from other factors.

Related books

Many books about humanity’s uncertain future have appeared regularly over the years. Precursors to Limits to Growth included Harrison Brown’s The Challenge of Man’s Future (1956), Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (1962) and Paul Ehrlich’s The Population Bomb (1968).[18]

The most notable books to be published after 1972 and up to the end of the millennium included the State of the World reports issued by the Worldwatch Institute (produced annually since 1984); the influential Our Common Future, published by the UN’s World Commission on Environment and Development (1987); Earth in the Balance, written by then-US senator Al Gore (1992); and Earth Odyssey (ISBN 978-0767900591) by journalist Mark Hertsgaard (1999), which "reported on eight years of travel all over the globe to observe the demise of Nature and the degradation of the World".[18]

Since that time, the number of similar titles published and copies sold has itself grown significantly, all documenting evidence that the world is "growing dangerously and spinning out of control".[18]

Reception

Soon after publication prominent economists, scientists and political figures criticized the Limits to Growth. They attacked the methodology, the computer, the conclusions, the rhetoric and the people behind the project.[19] Yale economist Henry C. Wallich agreed that growth could not continue indefinitely, but that a natural end to growth was preferable to intervention. Wallich stated that technology could solve all the problems the Meadows were concerned about, but only if growth continued apace. By stopping growth too soon, Wallich warned, the world would be "consigning billions to permanent poverty".[19]

Robert M. Solow from MIT, argued that prediction in The Limit to Growth was based on a weak foundation of the data (Newsweek, March 13, 1972, page 103). Dr. Allen Kneese and Dr. Ronald Riker of Resources for the Future (RFF) stated:
"The authors load their case by letting some things grow exponentially and others not. Population, capital and pollution grow exponentially in all models, but technologies for expanding resources and controlling pollution are permitted to grow, if at all, only in discrete increments." [20]

Critics also argue that the authors of the report claimed to accept that the then-known resources of minerals and energy could, and would, grow in the future, and consumption growth rates could also decline. The theoretical expiry time for each resource would therefore need to be updated as new discoveries, technologies and trends came to light. To overcome this uncertainty, they offered an upper value for the expiry time, calculated as if the known resources were multiplied by two. Even in that case, assuming continuation of the average rate of consumption growth, virtually all major minerals and energy resources would expire within 100 years of publication (i.e., by 2070). Even if reserves were two times larger than expected, they state, ongoing growth in the consumption rate would still lead to the relatively rapid exhaustion of those reserves.[21]

In 2008 researcher Peter A. Victor wrote, that even though D.H. Meadows et al. probably underestimated price-mechanism's role in adjusting, their critics have overestimated it. He states that Limits to Growth has had a significant impact on the conception of environmental issues and notes that the models in the book were meant to be taken as predictions "only in the most limited sense of the word" as they wrote.[22]

In a 2009 article published in American Scientist titled "Revisiting the Limits to Growth After Peak Oil," Hall and Day noted that "the values predicted by the limits-to-growth model and actual data for 2008 are very close." [23] These findings are consistent with a 2010 study titled "A Comparison of the Limits of Growth with Thirty Years of Reality" which concluded: "The analysis shows that 30 years of historical data compares favorably with key features… [of the Limits to Growth] ‘standard run’ scenario, which results in collapse of the global system midway through the 21st Century." [24]

In 2011 Ugo Bardi analyzed the The Limits to Growth, its methods and historical reception and concluded that "The warnings that we received in 1972 ... are becoming increasingly more worrisome as reality seems to be following closely the curves that the ... scenario had generated." [25]

See also

Books

References

  1. ↑ MacKenzie, Debora (10 January 2012). "Boom and doom: Revisiting prophecies of collapse". New Scientist. http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21328462.100-boom-and-doom-revisiting-prophecies-of-collapse.html. Retrieved 1 April 2012.
  2. ↑ The models were run on DYNAMO, a simulation programming language.
  3. ↑ Peter A. Victor (2008). Managing Without Growth, Edward Elgar Publishing, pp. 92-93, ISBN 978-1-84720-078-5
  4. ↑ Graham Turner (2008). "A Comparison of `The Limits to Growth` with Thirty Years of Reality". Page 11. Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO).
  5. ↑ "To Grow or not to Grow", Newsweek, March 13, 1972, pages 102–103
  6. ↑ Donella H. Meadows, Dennis L. Meadows, Jorgen Randers, and William W. Behrens III. (1972).
    The Limits to Growth. New York: Universe Books. ISBN 0-87663-165-0
  7. ↑ Henry C. Wallich, "More on Growth", NewsWeek, March 13, 1972, page 86.
  8. ↑ Graham Turner (2008). "A Comparison of `The Limits to Growth` with Thirty Years of Reality". Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO).
  9. ↑ Graham Turner (2008). "A Comparison of `The Limits to Growth` with Thirty Years of Reality". Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO).
  10. ↑ "Prophesy of economic collapse 'coming true'", by Jeff Hecht, NewScientist, 17 November 2008
  11. ↑ http://www.thesolutionsjournal.com/node/569
  12. ↑ Meadows, D. (1974). The Limits to Growth, Second Edition Revised, Signet. ISBN 73-187907, pages 99-101
  13. ↑ Limits To Growth, pg 60, Derivation\[ R = \int_0^y C e^{\rho t}\ dt = \frac{C}{\rho} \left(e^{\rho y} - 1\right) \] reverts to \(y = \frac{\ln \left( 1 + \rho \frac{R}{C}\right)}{\rho}.\)
  14. ↑ The Skeptical Environmentalist, p. 121
  15. ↑ Chapter 17: Growth and Productivity-The Long-Run Possibilities
  16. ↑ "Treading lightly". The Economist. 19 September 2002. http://www.economist.com/finance/displaystory.cfm?story_id=E1_TPPSNVT.
  17. ↑ Reason Magazine - Science and Public Policy
  18. ↑ 18.0 18.1 18.2 Alan Atkisson (2010). Believing Cassandra: How to be an Optimist in a Pessimist's World, Earthscan, pp. 17-18.
  19. ↑ 19.0 19.1 Alan Atkisson (2010). Believing Cassandra: How to be an Optimist in a Pessimist's World, Earthscan, p. 13.
  20. ↑ Newsweek, March 13, 1972, page 103.
  21. ↑ http://www.clubofrome.org/docs/limits.rtf
  22. ↑ Peter A. Victor (2008). Managing Without Growth, Edward Elgar Publishing, pp. 92-93, ISBN 978-1-84720-078-5
  23. ↑ Hall, C. & Day, J. Revisiting the Limits to Growth After Peak Oil. American Scientist, 97 (2009): 230 -238.
  24. ↑ Turner, Graham. A Comparison of the Limits of Growth with Thirty Years of Reality. CSIRO Working Paper Series, (2010). Available at: http://www.csiro.au/files/files/plje.pdf
  25. ↑ Ugo Bardi. The Limits to Growth Revisited. Springer 2011 doi:10.1007/978-1-4419-9416-5 p.3

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