[onlooker]

Thought I would post a link to this PDF file which is from a paper done by the Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute. In is historical data is analyzed to see how well the projections of the original Limits to Growth study in 1972 fare. Well, this from a review:
"the actual trends of the past four decades are not far off from the what was predicted by the study’s models. A recent paper examining the original 1972 study goes so far as to say that the study’s predictions are well on course to being borne out." What do others think? here is link http://espas.eu/orbis/sites/default/fil ... r_2014.pdf

[americandream]

The issue of this systems limits is beyond any reasonable doubt in the mind of a rational historian. There are some who assume that we can escape this planets limits and thus continue infinitely growing across the cosmos. Capitalism though is still steeped in barbarism and even if that were to occur, at some point this lurking tendency would ultimately destroy this species.

So when you talk about limits, to capitalism, yes. To a dialectic (conscious) modernity, that will inherently bear a circular form, the question does not arise.

[GregT]

To a dialectic (conscious) modernity, that will inherently bear a circular form, the question does not arise.

The question doesn't arise amongst amoeba either, but at least they exist.

[americandream]

To a dialectic (conscious) modernity, that will inherently bear a circular form, the question does not arise.

The question doesn't arise amongst amoeba either, but at least they exist.

May allah bless you, oh wise one.

[peripato]

Thought I would post a link to this PDF file which is from a paper done by the Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute. In is historical data is analyzed to see how well the projections of the original Limits to Growth study in 1972 fare. Well, this from a review:
"the actual trends of the past four decades are not far off from the what was predicted by the study’s models. A recent paper examining the original 1972 study goes so far as to say that the study’s predictions are well on course to being borne out." What do others think? here is link http://espas.eu/orbis/sites/default/fil ... r_2014.pdf

I always found it sobering that even with a doubling of resources collapse would be averted by only 20 years...

In the Double Resources run :
Food per capita peaks in 2015.
Industrial Output per capita peaks in 2028.
Population peaks in 2041, and pollution increases without limit.
The peak of resource extraction rate occurs in 2030,
so doubling resources has only delayed the inevitable by 20 years.

The killer blow is the overwhelming level of pollution.
The exact nature of this pollution is not defined in the book.
My interpretation of this is that this is the runaway Greenhouse Effect.

Source: goo.gl/SqRPWQ

[Peak_Yeast]

I wonder about the correlation between food and population.

I can undestand the delay between population and food on the way up the curve. But the moment food disappears its going to hit the population immediately. The indication that the population only starts to drop when there is approx 50% food left seems to me to be rather optimistic. - I would believe the delay to be shorter between the two on the way down.

Btw. in their 30 year update they notice that we are more or less on track.

[ennui2]

The indication that the population only starts to drop when there is approx 50% food left seems to me to be rather optimistic.

Population dropping isn't the metric that matters. Deaths vs. births is what matters. The population flattening out is the actual leading edge of the malthusian die-off. It's just buried in this chart. The death rate has to skyrocket just to get population to level off let alone bend downward. Now, if everyone just suddenly practiced perfect contraception, sure, the birth rate would tank, but since nobody's going to do that, the death-rate overtaking the birth-rate is what's going to push that chart negative.

[vtsnowedin]

I wonder about the correlation between food and population.

I can understand the delay between population and food on the way up the curve. ....
....

The fact that many of us are now overweight and enjoy a diet with plenty of meat and other foods that are wasteful of food producing resources is your answer. Only after most of us are reduced to a diet of grains and vegetables and then fall short in even that will any large number of humans start to die.

[onlooker]

I think the population crashing will be from the dual effects of premature death of toddlers or babies as well as an increase of death rates of the fragile parts of our populations namely the sickly and old.

[Newfie]

I wonder about the correlation between food and population.

I can understand the delay between population and food on the way up the curve. ....
....

The fact that many of us are now overweight and enjoy a diet with plenty of meat and other foods that are wasteful of food producing resources is your answer. Only after most of us are reduced to a diet of grains and vegetables and then fall short in even that will any large number of humans start to die.

Maybe. But I think it's more likely you will see many deaths before the haves go hungry. That's the way it is today.

[vtsnowedin]

I wonder about the correlation between food and population.

I can understand the delay between population and food on the way up the curve. ....
....

The fact that many of us are now overweight and enjoy a diet with plenty of meat and other foods that are wasteful of food producing resources is your answer. Only after most of us are reduced to a diet of grains and vegetables and then fall short in even that will any large number of humans start to die.

Maybe. But I think it's more likely you will see many deaths before the haves go hungry. That's the way it is today.

Sadly you are most certainly correct in that.

[Newfie]

But it's only natural. Not to make a moral statement but if you think about it it's your job as a partner and parent to do the bes you can for your kids. By extension for your kin. By extension for your tribe.

If we all did share equally then we would be promoting even higher populations than www now have.

Again, not picking sides, just trying to see all sides and truly understand the dynamics. They are heartbreaking and oh so very confusing and at odds with our emotions.

It's one reason I have so little hope for humanity, we can't separate our motions from our solutions. None of us wants to see people die, especially our loved ones. But the solutions involve much suffering. Of course ignoring the problem involves even more suffering.

[onlooker]

Unfortunately, what Newf says is true. We have collectively let it come to this point. This point is such now that consequences are inevitable and that not confronting these consequences and just going to make them worse. Thus, Ibon's point about seeing consequences as solutions. Nevertheless, all paths are leading to a rather grim future.

[vox_mundi]

Confirmation from the U.K. government ...

U.K. parliamentary group warns that global fossil fuels could peak in less than 10 years

By Nafeez Ahmed
19 April 2016

(Insurge Intelligence) – A report commissioned on behalf of a cross-party group of British MPs authored by a former UK government advisor, the first of its kind, says that industrial civilisation is currently on track to experience “an eventual collapse of production and living standards” in the next few decades if business-as-usual continues.

The report published by the new All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Limits to Growth, which launched in the House of Commons on Tuesday evening, reviews the scientific merits of a controversial 1972 model by a team of MIT scientists, which forecasted a possible collapse of civilisation due to resource depletion.

The report launch at the House of Commons was addressed by Anders Wijkman, co-chair of the Club of Rome, which originally commissioned the MIT study.

At the time, the MIT team’s findings had been widely criticised in the media for being alarmist. To this day, it is often believed that the ‘limits to growth’ forecasts were dramatically wrong.

But the new report by the APPG on Limits to Growth, whose members consist of Conservative, Labour, Green and Scottish National Party members of parliament, reviews the scientific literature and finds that the original model remains surprisingly robust.

Authored by Professor Tim Jackson of the University of Surrey, who was Economics Commissioner on the UK government’s Sustainable Development Commission, and former Carbon Brief policy analyst Robin Webster, the report concludes that:

“There is unsettling evidence that society is tracking the ‘standard run’ of the original study — which leads ultimately to collapse. Detailed and recent analyses suggest that production peaks for some key resources may only be decades away.”

The 1972 team used their system dynamics model of the consumption of key planetary resources to explore a range of different scenarios.

As Professor Jackson and Webster explain in the new APPG report:

“In the standard run scenario, natural resources (for example oil, iron and chromium) become harder and harder to obtain. The diversion of more and more capital to extracting them leaves less for investment in industry, leading to industrial decline starting in about 2015. Around 2030, the world population peaks and begins to decrease as the death rate is driven upwards by lack of food and health services.”

Not all the model’s scenarios result in this outcome, but the majority of them “show industrial output declining in the 2020s and population declining in the 2030s. The researchers didn’t put precise dates on their projections. In fact, they deliberately left the timeline somewhat vague.”

The new APPG report flags up two major challenges facing global society: the overconsumption of planetary resources and raw materials, and the breaching of critical ‘planetary boundaries’ triggering irreversible environmental changes.

According to recent peer-reviewed scientific studies reviewed by the APPG’s report, key resources like phosphorous (essential for fertilising soil in agriculture), coal, oil, and gas have “either already reached peak production or will do so within the next 50 years

... Phosphorous - which is critical to fertilising soil and sustaining agriculture - has already peaked, and will start declining around 2030/2040, they said. Coal production will peak in around 2015-20 and ‘peak energy’ around the same period. From that point on, they concluded, “we will no longer be able to take natural-resource fuelled global GDP growth for granted’

[vox_mundi]

[Newfie]

Vox,

While it's good to see a government report along these lines it's ultimately pretty meaningless. What we need are some prominent politicians to come out in the open on climate change. PMs and Presidents.

[vox_mundi]

Vox,

While it's good to see a government report along these lines it's ultimately pretty meaningless. What we need are some prominent politicians to come out in the open on climate change. PMs and Presidents.

I'm not sure even PMs and Presidents can turn this ship around.

We're heading for a Seneca cliff.

My SWAG is that (human) nature will run it's course over the next 5-15 years. Food and water won't last much beyond that for all 8 billion by then.

After that, maybe 3-5 years of World War and a generation or two of Hunger Games/Death Matches for what's left. I'm sure some of the nukes won't go to waste.

This will have the perverse effect of mitigating the worst of Climate Change, though, what's left will probably support a billion or less. The sooner we get this over, the more biodiversity will survive to rehabilitate the Earth.

Society is resilient. Electronic information storage, not so much. Most of the lessons we learn in the next 2 decades will disappear like tears in the rain. Those Georgia Guidestones may come in handy.



Wait 3-500 years and as Ibon suggests, some parts of the Earth may bounce back.



See. This is what happens if I miss my afternoon nap.

[onlooker]

The sooner we get this over, the more biodiversity will survive to rehabilitate the Earth.

Absolutely, the longer civilization, fossil fuel spewing and this humongous world population bestrides the Earth, the worse will the future be for anyone or anything.