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I'm sorry but I cannot take this article seriously. Limits to Growth (and The Population Bomb) were and remain so utterly wrong in almost every detail. Like, cr

I'm sorry but I cannot take this article seriously. Limits to Growth (and The Population Bomb) were and remain so utterly wrong in almost every detail. Like, crazy wrong. Predicting exponentially increasing costs and decreasing resources, when in fact we have experienced the exact opposite: available resources increasing exponentially and costs plummeting. Limits to Growth predicted foot shortages and population collapse around now. Instead we have a global obesity epidemic. https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/why-paul-ehrlich-got-everything-wrong https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/why-paul-ehrlich-got-everythin... What is remarkable about Limits is that anyone still takes it seriously. I struggle to think of a model that has been so thoroughly discredited as Limits to Growth has been. Jim Cramer's stock predictions, maybe.

heisenbit 1y ago
Exponentially increasing resources is at odds with observed persistent increase of extraction costs (in terms of energy) of oil.
- alwa 1y ago
  I mean… and then there’s solar: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/solar-pv-prices-vs-cumulative-capacity https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/solar-pv-prices-vs-cumula...
- adastra22 1y ago
  Extraction costs continue to drop in the net: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon–Ehrlich_wager https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon–Ehrlich_wager
atoav 1y ago
Explain to me like an five year old how you expect the end game of those exponentially increasing resources on a finite planet. Maybe I am not seeing a thing that I am seeing, but the logistical function is pretty well explored. If you want infinite growth you need infinite resources and thus an infinite world. Our world is not infinite last time I checked. I haven't checked their precise model and whether the timelines it predicts are sound, but the general idea of a logistic function describing the general dynamics as a rough ballpark model still stands. In reality of course we will have more stepped saturation effects, until a new resource pool is found, maybe outside of planet earth etc. But the saturation region of that more complicated stepped function would still translate to untold suffering. Unless you see a different end game.
- flyinglizard 1y ago
  The world’s population growth is slowing (from 2% annually in the 70’s to about 0.9% today), and it seems to me like we are very far from exhausting planetary resources. It’s like the predictions about “Peak Oil” being wrong time and time again, and in fact today we have larger reserves than ever before despite a century of extraction (3x what we had in 1970). We’ll be off oil (as an energy source) long before it runs out.
  - pjerem 1y ago
    It depends of your definition of exhausting a resource. If using a resource makes your environment inhabitable, it’s practically the same : the ressource is there but you shouldn’t use it. Or you continue to hope that you’ll be able to clean the environment while still using the resources but as of today, that’s still a big gamble on everyone’s lives.
  - atoav 1y ago
    I wasn't arguing about the timeline (and specifically mentioned this), I argued that resource = 1000 resource_use = 0.1 # per year resource_use_growth_factor = 1.01 # per year resource_regrowth = 0.0001 # per year loop { resource += resource_regrowth resource -= resource_use resource_use *= resource_use_growth_factor if (resource <= 0) { print("Resources depleted") exit(1) } } Fiddle with the numbers any way you like, if you use more of a resource than regrows per year you will eventually have used all of it up at some point. Then you will be able to just use the amount that regrows from one moment to another. The timeline could be 10 years, 100 years, 1000 years, but humanity needs to 1. Know when that resource is likely going to be depleted, ideally decades or longer before it happens 2. Develope workarounds, alternative resources etc. to eventually just use the regrowth rate 3. Use resources that have higher regrow rates (aka "sustainable" ones) and stay within the limits 4. Don't forget to price in the externalities into resource use during its whole life cycle (this can be many millenia for some materials) Right now the level is that some people even seem to grok the extremely simple reality of growing resource use with a limited resource eventually hitting a cutoff point. Granted my model here is extremely simplistic, but even if you factor in stuff like undiscovered resource sources and a rate of new discoveres, eventually on a planet with finite resources you will run out of them unless you just use the amount you can sustainably use.

heisenbit 1y ago

Exponentially increasing resources is at odds with observed persistent increase of extraction costs (in terms of energy) of oil.

alwa 1y ago
I mean… and then there’s solar: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/solar-pv-prices-vs-cumulative-capacity https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/solar-pv-prices-vs-cumula...
adastra22 1y ago
Extraction costs continue to drop in the net: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon–Ehrlich_wager https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon–Ehrlich_wager

atoav 1y ago

Explain to me like an five year old how you expect the end game of those exponentially increasing resources on a finite planet. Maybe I am not seeing a thing that I am seeing, but the logistical function is pretty well explored. If you want infinite growth you need infinite resources and thus an infinite world. Our world is not infinite last time I checked. I haven't checked their precise model and whether the timelines it predicts are sound, but the general idea of a logistic function describing the general dynamics as a rough ballpark model still stands. In reality of course we will have more stepped saturation effects, until a new resource pool is found, maybe outside of planet earth etc. But the saturation region of that more complicated stepped function would still translate to untold suffering. Unless you see a different end game.

flyinglizard 1y ago
The world’s population growth is slowing (from 2% annually in the 70’s to about 0.9% today), and it seems to me like we are very far from exhausting planetary resources. It’s like the predictions about “Peak Oil” being wrong time and time again, and in fact today we have larger reserves than ever before despite a century of extraction (3x what we had in 1970). We’ll be off oil (as an energy source) long before it runs out.
- pjerem 1y ago
  It depends of your definition of exhausting a resource. If using a resource makes your environment inhabitable, it’s practically the same : the ressource is there but you shouldn’t use it. Or you continue to hope that you’ll be able to clean the environment while still using the resources but as of today, that’s still a big gamble on everyone’s lives.
- atoav 1y ago
  I wasn't arguing about the timeline (and specifically mentioned this), I argued that resource = 1000 resource_use = 0.1 # per year resource_use_growth_factor = 1.01 # per year resource_regrowth = 0.0001 # per year loop { resource += resource_regrowth resource -= resource_use resource_use *= resource_use_growth_factor if (resource <= 0) { print("Resources depleted") exit(1) } } Fiddle with the numbers any way you like, if you use more of a resource than regrows per year you will eventually have used all of it up at some point. Then you will be able to just use the amount that regrows from one moment to another. The timeline could be 10 years, 100 years, 1000 years, but humanity needs to 1. Know when that resource is likely going to be depleted, ideally decades or longer before it happens 2. Develope workarounds, alternative resources etc. to eventually just use the regrowth rate 3. Use resources that have higher regrow rates (aka "sustainable" ones) and stay within the limits 4. Don't forget to price in the externalities into resource use during its whole life cycle (this can be many millenia for some materials) Right now the level is that some people even seem to grok the extremely simple reality of growing resource use with a limited resource eventually hitting a cutoff point. Granted my model here is extremely simplistic, but even if you factor in stuff like undiscovered resource sources and a rate of new discoveres, eventually on a planet with finite resources you will run out of them unless you just use the amount you can sustainably use.