

Limits to Growth was right. New research shows we're nearing collapse - phowat
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/02/limits-to-growth-was-right-new-research-shows-were-nearing-collapse

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tokenadult
I read this article back on Monday 1 September 2014 when it was first
published. I didn't choose to submit here to Hacker News, as now has been
kindly done, because I noted that most of the graphs of trends in the articles
show that the confirmed trends are favorable trends (death rates down, birth
rates down, population growth rates down, food per capita up, and so on) while
the predicted unfavorable trends are still off in the unknown future. My
personal prediction: Julian Simon, Matt Ridley, and a host of more optimistic
projectors of trends will be more accurate in predicting further technological
progress, further improvement of well being of most people in most places
around the world, and sufficient natural resources (used more effectively with
improved technology) to bring about rising prosperity in per-capita terms for
the world as a whole and especially for the poorest parts of the world as we
know the world today. Responses to the earlier MIT follow-up study[1] and the
current University of Melbourne follow-up study[2] may not be definitive
either (we are talking about the future, after all), but they have higher
plausiblity for me as someone who has grown up with a lot of predictions of
gloom and doom since the 1950s that have turned out to be wrong.

[1] [http://reason.com/archives/2012/04/18/the-limits-to-
growth-4...](http://reason.com/archives/2012/04/18/the-limits-to-
growth-40-year-update)

[http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2012/04/09/the-
club-...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2012/04/09/the-club-of-
romes-limits-to-growth-updated-entirely-bizarre/)

[2] [http://www.adamsmith.org/blog/energy-environment/yes-the-
clu...](http://www.adamsmith.org/blog/energy-environment/yes-the-club-of-rome-
and-limits-to-growth-is-still-piffle-why-do-you-ask/)

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sp332
The graphs don't seem to back up the text. Industrial output and pollution are
well below the predicted value, and the death rate is far lower. "Resources"
(whatever that means) is way higher than predicted, and food and services per
capita are up.

------
gretful
If the Earth was a closed system it could be indetified as having finite
resources. Unfortunately for the authors of the story, that basic premise is
false. ET solar radiation is 1367 watts per square meter [1]. Added to that
the (current) high interest in space exploration/exploitation and I think we
can put this theory to bed.

[1][http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunlight](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunlight)

