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| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Limits to Growth | 5/6 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Limits_to_Growth | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T08:56:47.468680+00:00 | kb-cron |
=== Comparisons and updated models === In 2008, physicist Graham Turner at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) in Australia published a paper called "A Comparison of 'The Limits to Growth' with Thirty Years of Reality." It compared the past thirty years of data with the eleven scenarios laid out in the 1972 book and found that changes in industrial production, food production, and pollution are all congruent with one of the book's eleven scenarios—that of "business as usual." This scenario in Limits points to economic and societal collapse in the 21st century. In 2010, Nørgård, Peet, and Ragnarsdóttir called the book a "pioneering report." They said that "its approach remains useful and that its conclusions are still surprisingly valid ... unfortunately the report has been largely dismissed by critics as a doomsday prophecy that has not held up to scrutiny." Also in 2008, researcher Peter A. Victor wrote that even though the Limits team probably underestimated the price mechanism's role in adjusting outcomes, their critics have overestimated it. He states that Limits to Growth has had a significant impact on the conception of environmental issues and notes that (in his view) the models in the book were meant to be taken as predictions "only in the most limited sense of the word". In a 2009 article published in American Scientist entitled Revisiting the Limits to Growth After Peak Oil, Hall and Day noted that "the values predicted by the limits-to-growth model and actual data for 2008 are very close." These findings are consistent with the 2008 CSIRO study, which concluded, "The analysis shows that 30 years of historical data compares favorably with key features ... [of the Limits to Growth] "standard run" scenario, which results in collapse of the global system midway through the 21st Century." In 2011, Ugo Bardi published a book-length academic study of The Limits to Growth, its methods, and historical reception and concluded that "The warnings that we received in 1972 ... are becoming increasingly more worrisome as reality seems to be following closely the curves that the ... scenario had generated." A popular analysis of the accuracy of the report by science writer Richard Heinberg was also published. In 2012, writing in American Scientist, Brian Hayes stated that the model is "more a polemical tool than a scientific instrument". He went on to say that the graphs generated by the computer program should not, as the authors note, be used as predictions. In 2014, Turner concluded that "preparing for a collapsing global system could be even more important than trying to avoid collapse." Another 2014 study from the University of Melbourne confirmed that data closely tracked the World3 BAU model. In 2015, researchers undertook a calibration of the updated World3-03 model using historical data from 1995 to 2012 to better understand the dynamics of today's economic and resource system. The results showed that human society has invested more to abate persistent pollution, increase food productivity, and have a more productive service sector; however, the broad trends within Limits to Growth still held true. In 2016, a group of MPs in the UK established an all-party parliamentary group on limits to growth. Its initial report concluded that "there is unsettling evidence that society is still following the 'standard run' of the original study—in which overshoot leads to an eventual collapse of production and living standards." The report also points out that some issues not fully addressed in the original 1972 report, such as climate change, present additional challenges for human development. In 2020, an analysis by Gaya Herrington, then Director of Sustainability Services of KPMG US, was published in Yale University's Journal of Industrial Ecology. The study assessed whether, given key data known in 2020 about factors important for the "Limits to Growth" report, the original report's conclusions are supported. In particular, the 2020 study examined updated quantitative information about ten factors, namely population, fertility rates, mortality rates, industrial output, food production, services, nonrenewable resources, persistent pollution, human welfare, and ecological footprint, and concluded that the "Limits to Growth" prediction is essentially correct in that continued economic growth is unsustainable under a "business as usual" model. The study found that current empirical data is broadly consistent with the 1972 projections and that if major changes to the consumption of resources are not undertaken, economic growth will peak and then rapidly decline by around 2040. In 2023, the parameters of the World3 model were recalibrated using empirical data up to 2022. This improved parameter set results in a World3 simulation that shows the same overshoot and collapse mode in the coming decade as the original business-as-usual scenario of the Limits to Growth standard run. The main effect of the recalibration update is to raise the peaks of most variables and move them a few years into the future.
== Further reading == Books discussing humanity's challenges and uncertain future have been consistently published over the years. The more notable of these, including the books mentioned above for reference, include: