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Recent recalibration of the limits of growth model has shown that collapse of industrial civilization is imminent [0]. Climate change is one of the most visible

Recent recalibration of the limits of growth model has shown that collapse of industrial civilization is imminent [0]. Climate change is one of the most visible symptoms of the limits of growth, but not the only symptom. 0. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jiec.13442?af=R https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jiec.13442?af=R

svara 3y ago
I tried for a bit to understand this paper since the result, if true, seems extremely significant. If I understand correctly they are saying that non renewable resources, specifically oil, will soon run out, leading to a collapse in industrial output which in turn leads to a loss of agricultural efficiency and thus famine. This seems like complete nonsense? You can make a model say literally anything...
- baq 3y ago
  Which part is nonsense? ‘Oil will soon run out’ is questionable only in the ‘soon’ part and the rest follows pretty easily: there is no modern farming without oil. Source: ask a farmer, or read some Wikipedia. One could hope for a transition to electric farming equipment and supply chains but you won’t be able to create artificial fertilizers without natural gas at scale.
  - svara 3y ago
    Look at their plots, they show it running out... Right about now. When in reality oil is most likely to last longer than us using it. If any of this was true you'd see commodity prices spiking across the board. And even if that happened, agriculture would be the last thing affected, since demand for food is completely inelastic.
    - baq 3y ago
      Read the article, they say upfront they have no idea how much is really left. What’s important is that exponential growth in consumption shifts the exhaustion a few decades at best even if there’s still a lot left.
      - svara 3y ago
        They have no idea, which is why the predicted dynamics are nonsense. They actually have dates on their x axes, you can't do that and then claim it's all just qualitative arguments. World oil consumption is not growing exponentially and in many advanced economies is decreasing.
        baq 3y ago
        1) again read the article, you're quoting charts but they're so aggregated it's a waste of time to discuss just them 2) 1%/year growth is most definitely exponential and we're not talking about 'many advanced economies' but the total world consumption, 'many advanced economies' are in a terrible demographic situation but the world added a billion people in the past couple decades
        svara 3y ago
        1) Please tell me what you want me to read that has any impact on the point I'm making. I've read enough to make clear arguments about the parts of the paper relevant to my comment. Reminder: The original comment that I reacted to was this: "Recent recalibration of the limits of growth model has shown that collapse of industrial civilization is imminent". I have pointed out how the paper does not support this conclusion and would appreciate specific pointers to improve my reasoning. (Besides, "don't look at this part" is one hell of a defense of a paper... Again, you can't show dynamics with a clear physical time axis and then claim that you don't actually mean it.) 2) It's not growing exponentially. Exponential growth, even at 1%, would be plainly visible in any long term plot. Take this one for example, but feel free to find you own: https://imageio.forbes.com/blogs-images/rrapier/files/2018/07/Global-Oil.jpg https://imageio.forbes.com/blogs-images/rrapier/files/2018/0... World consumption is what I was referring to. The reference to advanced economies is because it is specifically advanced economies that have the ability to increasingly decouple their growth from energy consumption; the fact that oil consumption is not increasing there anymore is therefore significant.
Geee 3y ago
The report doesn't say that collapse is 'imminent'; it says that it would eventually lead to collapse, with their assumptions, one of which is that population keeps growing exponentially. Population is already collapsing, so the whole model goes to trash bin with that in mind. Also, the model doesn't take account technological progress or mining resources from solar system etc. It's a very simple model with many faulty assumptions.
- subpixel 3y ago
  The date range they put forward is 2024-2030. Let’s hope that is wildly inaccurate.
  - netsharc 3y ago
    I'm a giant pessimist, and reading articles in August, September, October, November how the previous month was unprecedentedly hot and how scientists are flabbergasted when they see the charts, that range seems believable. I imagine Northern Hemipshere summer 2024 will even be more extreme because somewhere in there is a feedback loop that's driving things in an exponential way...
    - quickthrower2 3y ago
      I was wondering if anyone is working on residential AC tech that can cool your home to say 25C when it is 50+ C outside. Maybe to do so requires insane levels of insulation
- Amezarak 3y ago
  > Also, the model doesn't take account technological progress or mining resources from solar system etc. Technological progress is not a given or inevitability. There are real physical and material constraints affecting technological development. You can't simply handwave future problems away because "future technological development." For example, it seems very likely that extraterrestrial mining operations will never be technically and economically feasible. We have to disconnect what decades of scifi have taught us about the future from reality. In sixty years of human space travel, we've made very little progress and there's not much reason to hope for much more. > one of which is that population keeps growing exponentially. Population is already collapsing, so the whole model goes to trash bin with that in mind. It's true that exponential population growth is very obviously unsustainable. Unfortunately, the population collapse is another symptom of our problems that will ultimately lead to a systems collapse and likely ecological collapse. People are animals, however much we want to deny it. When animals stop breeding, it's because something is wrong. TFR is collapsing because of poisoned social environments, not because enlightened rational humanity saw the perils of exponential growth and took action. This in turn means that increasing proportions of our economic surpluses will be dedicated to attempted containment and control of our social problems, rather than technological development. That all said, to paraphrase Adam Smith, there's a lot of ruin in a nation. Technology, mass surveillance, and huge economic surpluses have permitted and will permit unprecedented levels of social control that may stave off a systems collapse for longer than anyone expects, even if the resulting society is dystopian by our former standards. And our understanding of our ecological system is miniscule: we can see where doing tremendous amounts of damage at almost every known point (even ignoring global warming), but it's hard to say what it takes to really send us down the drain. It will probably happen slowly, then all at once.
sanderjd 3y ago
Whenever I read something like this I really struggle to gain an intuition about how the model functions. That is, what inputs is it most sensitive to, or what kinds of projections of the variables cause which kinds of behavior, etc.? I feel like what I need in order to really internalize something like this is a game based on the model, where I can play with different variables and see how things play out over time. Otherwise it's just a bunch of figures and conclusions that I am unable to build any intuitive connection to.
RecycledEle 3y ago
LOL. The original "Limits to Growth" made predictions. Almost none of them came true. If you disagree, please quote a prediction from the original "Limits to Growth" and tell me what page it was on. As Dr. Robert Zubrin says in "Merchants of Despair," a scientists first duty is to see if his hypothesis agrees with the facts. Any other answer is trolling.
- jiveturkey 3y ago
  Well, to be fair, this paper opens very early (sec 1.3) with > As described in the review section, the debate around the actuality of the LtG is still ongoing. translating: "the LtG is pure fantasy, but deserves to be retold in the manner of a lie repeated".
- FrustratedMonky 3y ago
  Do you think nobody has thought to compare? "" n 2020, an analysis by Gaya Herrington, then Director of Sustainability Services of KPMG US,[52] was published in Yale University's Journal of Industrial Ecology.[53] 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, non-renewable 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.[53] 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.[54][55] In 2023, the parameters of the World3 model were recalibrated using empirical data up to 2022. [56] 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. ""
baq 3y ago
Didn’t know about https://earth4all.life/ https://earth4all.life/ referenced in the paper, thanks

svara 3y ago

I tried for a bit to understand this paper since the result, if true, seems extremely significant. If I understand correctly they are saying that non renewable resources, specifically oil, will soon run out, leading to a collapse in industrial output which in turn leads to a loss of agricultural efficiency and thus famine. This seems like complete nonsense? You can make a model say literally anything...

baq 3y ago
Which part is nonsense? ‘Oil will soon run out’ is questionable only in the ‘soon’ part and the rest follows pretty easily: there is no modern farming without oil. Source: ask a farmer, or read some Wikipedia. One could hope for a transition to electric farming equipment and supply chains but you won’t be able to create artificial fertilizers without natural gas at scale.
- svara 3y ago
  Look at their plots, they show it running out... Right about now. When in reality oil is most likely to last longer than us using it. If any of this was true you'd see commodity prices spiking across the board. And even if that happened, agriculture would be the last thing affected, since demand for food is completely inelastic.
  - baq 3y ago
    Read the article, they say upfront they have no idea how much is really left. What’s important is that exponential growth in consumption shifts the exhaustion a few decades at best even if there’s still a lot left.
    - svara 3y ago
      They have no idea, which is why the predicted dynamics are nonsense. They actually have dates on their x axes, you can't do that and then claim it's all just qualitative arguments. World oil consumption is not growing exponentially and in many advanced economies is decreasing.
      - baq 3y ago
        1) again read the article, you're quoting charts but they're so aggregated it's a waste of time to discuss just them 2) 1%/year growth is most definitely exponential and we're not talking about 'many advanced economies' but the total world consumption, 'many advanced economies' are in a terrible demographic situation but the world added a billion people in the past couple decades
        svara 3y ago
        1) Please tell me what you want me to read that has any impact on the point I'm making. I've read enough to make clear arguments about the parts of the paper relevant to my comment. Reminder: The original comment that I reacted to was this: "Recent recalibration of the limits of growth model has shown that collapse of industrial civilization is imminent". I have pointed out how the paper does not support this conclusion and would appreciate specific pointers to improve my reasoning. (Besides, "don't look at this part" is one hell of a defense of a paper... Again, you can't show dynamics with a clear physical time axis and then claim that you don't actually mean it.) 2) It's not growing exponentially. Exponential growth, even at 1%, would be plainly visible in any long term plot. Take this one for example, but feel free to find you own: https://imageio.forbes.com/blogs-images/rrapier/files/2018/07/Global-Oil.jpg https://imageio.forbes.com/blogs-images/rrapier/files/2018/0... World consumption is what I was referring to. The reference to advanced economies is because it is specifically advanced economies that have the ability to increasingly decouple their growth from energy consumption; the fact that oil consumption is not increasing there anymore is therefore significant.

Geee 3y ago

The report doesn't say that collapse is 'imminent'; it says that it would eventually lead to collapse, with their assumptions, one of which is that population keeps growing exponentially. Population is already collapsing, so the whole model goes to trash bin with that in mind. Also, the model doesn't take account technological progress or mining resources from solar system etc. It's a very simple model with many faulty assumptions.

subpixel 3y ago
The date range they put forward is 2024-2030. Let’s hope that is wildly inaccurate.
- netsharc 3y ago
  I'm a giant pessimist, and reading articles in August, September, October, November how the previous month was unprecedentedly hot and how scientists are flabbergasted when they see the charts, that range seems believable. I imagine Northern Hemipshere summer 2024 will even be more extreme because somewhere in there is a feedback loop that's driving things in an exponential way...
  - quickthrower2 3y ago
    I was wondering if anyone is working on residential AC tech that can cool your home to say 25C when it is 50+ C outside. Maybe to do so requires insane levels of insulation
Amezarak 3y ago
> Also, the model doesn't take account technological progress or mining resources from solar system etc. Technological progress is not a given or inevitability. There are real physical and material constraints affecting technological development. You can't simply handwave future problems away because "future technological development." For example, it seems very likely that extraterrestrial mining operations will never be technically and economically feasible. We have to disconnect what decades of scifi have taught us about the future from reality. In sixty years of human space travel, we've made very little progress and there's not much reason to hope for much more. > one of which is that population keeps growing exponentially. Population is already collapsing, so the whole model goes to trash bin with that in mind. It's true that exponential population growth is very obviously unsustainable. Unfortunately, the population collapse is another symptom of our problems that will ultimately lead to a systems collapse and likely ecological collapse. People are animals, however much we want to deny it. When animals stop breeding, it's because something is wrong. TFR is collapsing because of poisoned social environments, not because enlightened rational humanity saw the perils of exponential growth and took action. This in turn means that increasing proportions of our economic surpluses will be dedicated to attempted containment and control of our social problems, rather than technological development. That all said, to paraphrase Adam Smith, there's a lot of ruin in a nation. Technology, mass surveillance, and huge economic surpluses have permitted and will permit unprecedented levels of social control that may stave off a systems collapse for longer than anyone expects, even if the resulting society is dystopian by our former standards. And our understanding of our ecological system is miniscule: we can see where doing tremendous amounts of damage at almost every known point (even ignoring global warming), but it's hard to say what it takes to really send us down the drain. It will probably happen slowly, then all at once.

sanderjd 3y ago

Whenever I read something like this I really struggle to gain an intuition about how the model functions. That is, what inputs is it most sensitive to, or what kinds of projections of the variables cause which kinds of behavior, etc.? I feel like what I need in order to really internalize something like this is a game based on the model, where I can play with different variables and see how things play out over time. Otherwise it's just a bunch of figures and conclusions that I am unable to build any intuitive connection to.

RecycledEle 3y ago

LOL. The original "Limits to Growth" made predictions. Almost none of them came true. If you disagree, please quote a prediction from the original "Limits to Growth" and tell me what page it was on. As Dr. Robert Zubrin says in "Merchants of Despair," a scientists first duty is to see if his hypothesis agrees with the facts. Any other answer is trolling.

jiveturkey 3y ago
Well, to be fair, this paper opens very early (sec 1.3) with > As described in the review section, the debate around the actuality of the LtG is still ongoing. translating: "the LtG is pure fantasy, but deserves to be retold in the manner of a lie repeated".
FrustratedMonky 3y ago
Do you think nobody has thought to compare? "" n 2020, an analysis by Gaya Herrington, then Director of Sustainability Services of KPMG US,[52] was published in Yale University's Journal of Industrial Ecology.[53] 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, non-renewable 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.[53] 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.[54][55] In 2023, the parameters of the World3 model were recalibrated using empirical data up to 2022. [56] 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. ""

baq 3y ago

Didn’t know about https://earth4all.life/ https://earth4all.life/ referenced in the paper, thanks