Global Economic Collapse?

Frequent commenter Cameron Atwood called my attention to a report from MIT predicting ‘global economic collapse’ by 2030.

A new study from researchers at Jay W. Forrester’s institute at MIT says that the world could suffer from “global economic collapse” and “precipitous population decline” if people continue to consume the world’s resources at the current pace.

Smithsonian Magazine writes that Australian physicist Graham Turner says, “the world is on track for disaster” and that current evidence coincides with a famous, and in some quarters, infamous, academic report from 1972 entitled, “The Limits to Growth.”

Produced for a group called The Club of Rome, the study’s researchers created a computing model to forecast different scenarios based on the current models of population growth and global resource consumption. The study also took into account different levels of agricultural productivity, birth control and environmental protection efforts. Twelve million copies of the report were produced and distributed in 37 different languages.

Most of the computer scenarios found population and economic growth continuing at a steady rate until about 2030. But without “drastic measures for environmental protection,” the scenarios predict the likelihood of a population and economic crash.

However, the study said “unlimited economic growth” is still possible if world governments enact policies and invest in green technologies that help limit the expansion of our ecological footprint.

The Smithsonian notes that several experts strongly objected to “The Limit of Growth’s” findings, including the late Yale economist Henry Wallich, who for 12 years served as a governor of the Federal Research Board and was its chief international economics expert. At the time, Wallich said attempting to regulate economic growth would be equal to “consigning billions to permanent poverty.”

Turner says that perhaps the most startling find from the study is that the results of the computer scenarios were nearly identical to those predicted in similar computer scenarios used as the basis for “The Limits to Growth.”

“There is a very clear warning bell being rung here,” Turner said. “We are not on a sustainable trajectory.”

Cameron:

Thanks.  I come across a great deal of this, as summed up by Jared Diamond in his popular book of 2005: “Collapse.” In fact, it’s this very idea that was the impetus for the recent 2GreenEnergy survey in which I asked respondents to provide their level of agreement with various propositions, including apocalyptic notions like the one named above.

It seems to me that, as a race, we’re not well equipped to deal with ideas like this, and that there are several reasons for that:

∙ We’re not well endowed with long-term planning skills generally.

∙ Those with real concern about sustainability tend to be ridiculed as so many “Chicken Littles” (of “the sky is falling” fame).

∙ As we can see from our response to global climate change, we’re a million miles from any consensus as to what to do about an extremely clear and present danger.

∙ Those who are unfamiliar with Diamond’s book see collapse as unprecedented: it’s never happened before, therefore it never will in the future.

∙ Mankind is becoming more (not less) distrustful, individuated, and selfish; i.e., we’re moving in the direction that is opposed to the level of cooperation required to make the broad level of change required to achieve this sustainability.

Coincidentally, I point out that it’s the birthday of Thomas Hobbes, 16th Century British philosopher, who had an extremely pessimistic viewpoint on the nature of man. Hobbes believed that because man lacked any real moral compass, he needed to hand over his liberties to an authoritarian king who would enforce strict laws.

Not a good day for optimism. Maybe we should chat about it tomorrow.  🙂