Is Global Collapse Imminent? An Updated Comparison of The Limits to Growth with Historical Data

[GliderGuider]

These are excerpts from the most recent publication by Dr. Graham Turner from CSIRO. More evidence of just how deep the hole is.

Is Global Collapse Imminent? An Updated Comparison of The Limits to Growth with Historical Data (pdf)

Abstract

The Limits to Growth “standard run” (or business-as-usual, BAU) scenario produced about forty years ago aligns well with historical data that has been updated in this paper. The BAU scenario results in collapse of the global economy and environment (where standards of living fall at rates faster than they have historically risen due to disruption of normal economic functions), subsequently forcing population down. Although the modelled fall in population occurs after about 2030—with death rates rising from 2020 onward, reversing contemporary trends—the general onset of collapse first appears at about 2015 when per capita industrial output begins a sharp decline. Given this imminent timing, a further issue this paper raises is whether the current economic difficulties of the global financial crisis are potentially related to mechanisms of breakdown in the Limits to Growth BAU scenario. In particular, contemporary peak oil issues and analysis of net energy, or energy return on (energy) invested, support the Limits to Growth modelling of resource constraints underlying the collapse.

Checking on the Limits to Growth

This paper presents an update on the prior data comparison by Turner (2008). An update is especially pertinent now because of questions raised about how the current economic downturn—commonly associated with the GFC—may relate to the onset of collapse in the LTG BAU scenario. Is it possible that aspects leading to the collapse in the LTG BAU scenario have contributed to the GFC-related economic downturn? Could it be that this downturn is therefore a harbinger of global collapse as modelled in the LTG?

The implications of the BAU scenario are stark: Figure 1 depicts global collapse of the economic system and population. Essentially this collapse is caused by resource constraints (Meadows et al., 1972), following the dynamics and interactions described above. The calibrated dynamics reflect observed responses within the economy to changing levels of abundance or scarcity (Meadows et al., 1974), obviating the need for modelling prices as the communication channel of the economic responses.

The LTG ‘Business As Usual’ scenario tracks reality

With forty years passing since the original LTG modelling, it is opportune to examine how well the scenarios reflect reality. In this section a graphical comparison is presented of the historical data with the BAU scenario described above (Figure 1). It is evident from Figure 1 that the data generally aligns strongly with the BAU scenario (for most of the variables); while the data does not align with the other two scenarios (Turner, 2012, Turner, 2008) (see Appendix 1).

The limited role of alternative energy innovation

Given that the key mechanism underlying collapse in the BAU scenario is evidently the diversion of capital toward extracting depleting resources, it is pertinent to examine the sensitivity of the scenario to changes in this factor. In the case of oil (and gas) resources in particular, could it be that the current expansion of unconventional resources (tight oil, shale oil and gas, tar sands, etc.) is sufficient to offset the decline in production of conventional oil? Critics of unconventional resources point toward decreasing net energy due to the difficulty of extraction. In terms of the LTG modelling, this relates to the fraction of capital allocated to obtaining resources (FOCAR) increasing as the resource stock reduces (such as in the BAU setting). However, it is early days in the new play of unconventional resources, so it would be reasonable to anticipate that cumulating experience and new technologies will ease the extraction task and hence reduce the energy/capital required for each barrel of oil. This possibility has been tested in the World3 model, using the setting (testFOCAR) shown in Figure 3.

The role of social response

In terms of social changes, it is pertinent to note that while the authors of the LTG caution that the dynamics in the World3 model continue to operate throughout any breakdown, different social dynamics might come to prominence that either exaggerate or ameliorate the collapse (eg. reform through global leadership, regional or global wars). Other researchers have contemplated how society might respond to serious resource constraints (eg. Friedrichs, 2010, Fantazzini et al., 2011, Heinberg, 2007, Orlov, 2008, Heinberg, 2011). Various degrees of hostility are foreshadowed, as well as lifestyles in developed countries that revert to greater self-reliance.

The dynamics in the World3 model leading to collapse resonate with aspects of other conceptual accounts of failed civilizations (Tainter, 1988, Diamond, 2005, Greer, 2008, Greer, 2005). Tainter’s proposition of diminishing returns from growing complexity relates to the increasing inefficiency of extracting depleting resources in the World3 response. It also aligns with a more general observation in the LTG that successive attempts to solve the sustainability challenges in the World3 model, which lead to the comprehensive technology scenario, result in even more substantial collapse. The existence in World3 of delays in recognising and responding to environmental problems resonates with key elements in Diamond’s characterisation of societies that have failed. And Greer’s mechanism of “catabolic collapse” - ie. increases in capital production outstripping maintenance, coupled with serious depletion of key resources - describes in a slower mode the core driver of breakdown in the LTG BAU.

Unfortunately, scientific evidence of severe environmental or natural resource problems has been met with considerable resistance from powerful societal forces, as the long history of the LTG and international UN initiatives on environmental/climate-change issues clearly demonstrate. Somewhat ironically, the apparent corroboration here of the LTG BAU implies that the scientific and public attention given to climate change, whilst tremendously important in its own right, may have deleteriously distracted from the issue of resource constraints, particularly that of oil supply. Indeed, if global collapse occurs as in this LTG scenario then pollution impacts will naturally be resolved—though not in any ideal sense! A challenging lesson from the LTG scenarios is that global environmental issues are typically intertwined and should not be treated as isolated problems. Another lesson is the importance of taking pre-emptive action well ahead of problems becoming entrenched.

Regrettably, the alignment of data trends with the LTG dynamics indicates that the early stages of collapse could occur within a decade, or might even be underway. This suggests, from a rational risk-based perspective, that we have squandered the past decades, and that preparing for a collapsing global system could be even more important than trying to avoid collapse.

And the beat goes on. This is why, despite my enthusiasm for Papa Frankie's encyclical, I still think that our interaction with the physical world rules the cultural roost. Our interaction with that world shapes our belief systems far more strongly that our belief systems change the way we do business with the planet (thanks for that insight, Marvin Harris).

IMO the main reason the encyclical is resonating so strongly throughout the world is because the average man is beginning to see the truth of the situation as reflected here in Turner's paper.

[Warpy]

1. The problem is that there is no way to prepare for a near total financial collapse

No one knew what the right thing to do after the Great Depression was until the mid 40s when the dust was clearing and the remains counted up. Some investment companies had seen it coming and divested quietly during the summer of 1929. They were the biggest winners. Small fry like my grandmother who owned their investments outright instead of on margin stood pat, had a few very hard years, then saw the companies that still existed gain in value greatly. People who had bought everything on margin and people who had panicked a little too late were the big losers, they'd lost everything.

This time, I think the collapse of the derivatives casino is what will do it, and worldwide; it will be like 1929, when people said money simply disappeared overnight.

I just hope I'm dead and gone to dust by the time it happens. It will take the young to make sure when it's rebuilt this time, laws against letting the thieves set up shop in the banks are set into stone, not repealable by bought men in Congress.