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Dennis MeadowsUlm, Germany
24 May, 2019
47 Years After
Limits to Growth
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• What research did we do 47 years ago?
• What did we forecast in 1972?
• How accurate were our scenarios?
• What research would we do today?
• What do we forecast in 2019?
Five Questions
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Exercise
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What research did we do 47
years ago?
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• Prof. Jay Forrester developed a
simple, theoretical, global computer
model.
• At MIT I assembled and directed a
team of 17 analysts to gather actual
data and change the model to reflect
current science.
• For 18 months we refined the
computer model, and wrote 3 reports
to the Club of Rome.
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• We did not make predictions.
• We generated a scenario using the
best available data: 1900-2100.
• Then we tested the impact of 11
different sets of assumptions about
changes in starting assumptions and
technological change.
• We focused on five main variables -
population, food, industrial production,
resources, pollution.
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The 12 Scenarios for Population
1900
1972
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What did we forecast in 1972?
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• In 1972 we projected another 40-80 years of growth; All our scenarios showed growth ending in the period 2010-2050.
• The most common behavior pattern was overshoot and decline, not gradual slowing within a limit.
• Technology advance did delay the end of growth by a few years, but not eliminate it, and it did not avoid the decline.
• Social and economic changes were required to attain the most attractive futures.
• Today’s “problems” are not actually problems; they are symptoms. The real problem is physical growth in material and energy flows pressing against the limits of a finite planet.
Main Insights from the Scenarios
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How accurate were our
scenarios?
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Population - Scenarios & Data
1900
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Food Per Person -
Scenarios & Data
1900
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CSIRO Study
From: Growing within Limits, Netherlands Environmental
Assessment Agency, October 2009, page 23.
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What research
would we do today?
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• Separate energy from the other resources.
• Separate CO2 from other persistent
pollutants.
• Include the military as a separate category
of capital.
• Would not distinguish among countries.
• Would not introduce prices.
• Would not make technology autonomous.
Potential Changes
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These changes would not
raise the limits on physical
growth nor avoid overshoot!
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Overshoot is a Fact
1972
Report
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Other Indicators of Overshoot
Boundary
Not Yet
Quantified
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1. There is no possibility to avoid more
severe climate change
What do we forecast in 2019?
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One Temperature Forecast
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• More frequent heat waves
• Rising sea level
• More extreme weather - droughts,
floods, and winds
• Declining food production and
nutrition
• Simplifying biosphere - more pests
• More expensive energy
• Growing migration pressure
Some Impacts on Germany
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1. There is no possibility to avoid
more severe climate change.
2. Energy will soon become much
more expensive.
What do we forecast in 2019?
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Germany’s 2018 Energy Use
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Gap between Discovery and Use
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Germany’s Energy Use 1990 -2018
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• Rising political power of energy
exporters versus energy importers
• Slowing economic growth
• Rising prices for food, goods, and
services
• Domestic political change
• Changing structure of labor force
Impacts on Germany
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The Challenge of Man’s FutureWithin a period of time which is very short compared
with the total span of human history, supplies of fossil
fuels will almost certainly be exhausted. This loss will
make man completely dependent upon waterpower,
atomic energy, and solar energy for driving his
machines. ….it is a transition that will happen only
once during the lifetime of the human species. .. if
machine civilization should, because of some
catastrophe, stop functioning, it will probably never
again come into existence.
Harrison Brown, 1954, p.222
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• Most people assume that the major global difficulties would occur after the end to growth.
• This is not correct.
• The globe’s population would experience the most stress prior to the peak, as pressures mount high enough to neutralize the enormous political, demographic, and economic forces that now promote growth.
• We are in the early phases of that period now; you will experience more change over the next 20 years than occurred during the past 100 years.
The Time of Greatest Stress
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• Recognize that until physical growth is halted on this planet, there is no possibility of avoiding ever rising problems.
• Develop the government, corporate, and cultural capacity for sustained long-term action, even when the necessary solutions make the of short-term problems seem worse. Remember you do not have to develop these changes within precisely the current system; as that will change anyway.
• Expect the present market system to magnify problems, not avoid them.
• Remember there are enormous delays between action and response; so take action “before it is obviously needed.”
• Social and cultural policies will give better results than economic and technical policies. Focus on getting enough rather than on getting more.
Principles for action - 1
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• Do not use economic discounting methods to find
solutions for problems that produce irreversible
results
• Expect problems to appear suddenly and in
combination.
• Realize that no one fully understands these
systems.
• Realize that government will be overloaded and will
make mistakes.
• Forget about going back to the past conditions.
• Research and invest to increase resilience.
Principles for action - 2
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Exercise
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Four Factors Determine the
Amount of Oil Consumption
© Dennis Meadows
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Easy Problems
Now Future
Bet
ter
----
--->
Next Evaluation
Action #1
Actual Desired
Action #2
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Difficult Problems
Now Future
Bet
ter
----
--->
Next Evaluation
Action #1
Action #2
Actual
Desired
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Difficult Problems Become Easy
with Greater Time Horizon
Now Future
Bet
ter
----
--->
Next Evaluation
Action #1
Action #2
Actual
Desired
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• Most current political and market systems are quite effective at solving Easy Problems.
• Most current political and market systems are not solving the Difficult Problems.
• Unfortunately for us, climate change and fossil fuel depletion are Difficult Problems.
• We need to amend our governance systems, so that they can pursue effective solutions that cause short-term difficulties for voters and consumers.
Governance