Prophesy of economic collapse 'coming true' (NewScientist)

[Dogmudgeon]

A short, but sobering, article. The report -- a PDF file I also link to -- is over 50 pages, but will be extremely interesting to those of us who follow system theory in relation to the problems we are facing (in particular, GliderGuider).

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16058-prophesy-of-economic-collapse-coming-true.html">Prophesy of economic collapse 'coming true' (NewScientist)

...

In 1972, the seminal book Limits to Growth by a group called the Club of Rome claimed that exponential growth would eventually lead to economic and environmental collapse.

...

Most economists rubbished the book and its recommendations have been ignored by governments, although a growing band of experts today continues to argue that we need to reshape our economy to become more sustainable.

Now Graham Turner at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) in Australia has compared the book's predictions with data from the intervening years.

...

Changes in industrial production, food production and pollution are all in line with the book's predictions of collapse in the 21st century, says Turner. According to the book, the path we have taken will cause decreasing resource availability and an escalating cost of extraction that triggers a slowdown of industry, which eventually results in economic collapse some time after 2020.

...

http://www.csiro.au/files/files/plje.pdf">Link to report (PDF, 700k)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2008.05.001">Journal reference -- Global Environmental Change, vol 18, p397

So, in the "Golden Sunset Years" of their lives, the Boomers will get to watch their world fall to pieces, and die cold and hungry -- like most of the rest of the world.

Well, maybe. I think we can avoid that fate. But we don't do "difficult" very well anymore, and the prospects for science aren't quite as good as they once were, either.

--p!

[lostnotforgotten]

1. Thanks For Sharing - That Was Worth the Time!

[Strelnikov_]

2. Thanks n/t

[phantom power]

3. I admit that I was hoping the prophecy wouldn't come true.

I can haz new prophecy?

[XemaSab]

7. Here:

The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches..... born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies....and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have the power the Dark Lord knows not ... and either must die at the hands of the other for neither can live while the other survives ....

:hide:

[IrateCitizen]

4. K&R!

Thanks for the link, I'll have to look at it later.

[GliderGuider]

5. The Parable of the Engineers

Four engineers were sitting in their living room one afternoon drinking brown pops. Suddenly there was a crash from the front hall. They all jumped up and ran to see what had happened. The window beside the front door was smashed, and a gray leathery tube about six feet long was hanging through it into the hallway.

Well, being engineers, they knew a problem when they saw one, and they knew that Problems Need Fixing, so they set about doing that. One got a tape measure and figured out how big the tube was. The second ran for a kitchen scale and weighed the tube as carefully as he could. The third examined the material it was made of, to determine its texture and plasticity. The fourth kept an eye on the beer.

When they were all done their analysis, they agreed that the tube could be easily cut with a knife, and was light and small enough to carry out the back door to the trash. The Problem would be Solved!

The fourth engineer had just turned to go get a knife when the elephant walked through the front wall of the house.

[Bigmack]

6. Ah the elephant

that was/is also a Black Swan......Ms Bigmack

[happyslug]

8. I first heard of this report in Collage, in a Management course.

The Professor was much impressed by the report and the computer modeling program that came out of the research (I took the class about 1981 as the Steel Industry was collapsing). One of the fastest and largest computer of that time period (Which is small by today's standards) was programed to evaluate a huge database of data from various sources and then make predictions based on that data. The scientist involved tried to provide the computer as much information as they could. The scientist then had the computer run its program using the data and produce what, based on that data base, what will happen in the Future.

My professor made a comment about the program, it had been used to determined where would be the best place for the City of Pittsburgh to built an Olympic site for the 1980 Olympics (If Pittsburgh made a bid and if Pittsburgh won). Remember this was done in the EARLY 1970s or late 1960s, and the computer first choice was to build it on the rivers, since no one would be using them for any industrial, residential or commercial use in 1980. The programmers realized their had an error and corrected for that era (i.e. NO building on the rivers). The computer then proposed building it on the South Side of Pittsburgh where Jones and Laughlin Steel Mill was, and to build on other sites at various other Steel mills along the Monongahela, Allegheny and Ohio Rivers. At that point every body laughed about the program and this was used to attack the program and the Club of Rome Report which had some basis in the same computer prediction. The problem was come 1982 those Steel Mill had closed down and those areas were open for development including an Olympic sites. While the computer had pre-dated that collapse (i.e. 1980 instead of 1982) it was close when you considered the computer capability at that time and how far in the future the program was looking into (Through I might be wrong as to the Olympic year, it may have been 1976, but my point is simple the program did WORK and make reasonable accurate predictions, not dead on, but close enough to be usable).

Another factor that come out of that program was that they would be a substantial drop in world population in 2025. This was such a shock to the scientist that they re-did not only the program but database, and the computer again showed a huge population decline in 2025. No reason given for the drop, could be just a computer error (We are talking about a 1970 computer, remember the building on the Rivers for 1980) or something more fundamental like the collapse of the Steel Industry in 1982 (Which I should note, had been predicted by US Steel as early as the 1960s, it was the primary reason US Steel agreed to a No Strike Clause with the USW in the 1960s and 1970s, to get as much out of those mills as possible before the collapse would set in, 1960s and 1970s were good years for the Steel Workers, but then the bad years of the 1980s kicked in).

Please note I was told of this in a management class for the Professor wanted us to realized the current energy (remember this was the 1970s) was just the start of bad times and we should plan for it. One of the job of Management was NOT only to foresee what was happening five years from now, but also 20-50 years. The professor point was simple, you MUST plan for the long term and that is 20-50 years NOT 1-5 years as had been the practice in most business. I know most businesses have rejected that view, staying with and in some cases bring back to life that long term planning in only one to five years, but your better companies do look 20-50 years ahead, and those are the companies that will be around in 20-50 years. That was the point my Preofessor was trying to teach us, hopefully some of my fellow students learn the lesson, but obviously most did not (as can be seen in the business communtiy over the last 30 years).