Limits to growth (including an update to the 1972 study of that name)

[elbows]

Over the years this theme has popped up in many different contexts. Fears about peak oil, the financial crisis, various climate change, environmental and energy issues, etc. A decade or so ago it was common to find me droning on about the god of growth being dead, and my conviction that this is one of the major stories of the century has never gone away, even as detail evolves (eg 2000's peak oil fears having got the timing a bit wrong does not diminish the underlying themes and implications).

Anyway someone decided to review and update the 1972 study 'Limits to Growth' so I've decided to use that as a starting point for a fresh attempt to continue these discussions, with anything relating to growth welcome.

I havent had time to read the updated study yet, I am just starting that now, but I thought I'd start this thread at the earliest opportunity. I did get as far as reading the Guardian article about it which I'm linking below.

Yep, it’s bleak, says expert who tested 1970s end-of-the-world prediction

A controversial MIT study from 1972 forecast the collapse of civilization – and Gaya Herrington is here to deliver the bad news

www.theguardian.com

Herrington, 39, says she undertook the update (available on the KPMG website and credited to its publisher, the Yale Journal of Industrial Ecology) independently “out of pure curiosity about data accuracy”. Her findings were bleak: current data aligns well with the 1970s analysis that showed economic growth could end at the end of the current decade and collapse come about 10 years later (in worst case scenarios).

The timing of Herrington’s paper, as world economies grapple with the impact of the pandemic, is highly prescient as governments largely look to return economies to business-as-usual growth, despite loud warnings that continuing economic growth is incompatible with sustainability.

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