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It Is Too Late For Sustainable Development

Dennis Meadows

Smithsonian InstitutionWashington, DC; February 29, 2012

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Goals for This Session• I will briefly describe what we did in 1970 – 1972 and

summarize the main contributions of our study.• Then I will describe five reasons it is too late to achieve

sustainable development.– Public discourse has difficulty with subtle, conditional

messages .– Growth advocates change the justification for their paradigm

rather than changing the paradigm itself.– The global system is now far above its carrying capacity.– We act as if technological change can substitute for social change.– The time horizon of our current system is too short.

• As a result, I will suggest that it is essential now to put more emphasis on raising the resilience of the system.

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What We DidA team of 16 people worked under my direction to elaborate a computer model representing the causes and consequences of growth in the main physical factors characterizing global development over the period 1900 – 2100. The model was first conceived by Jay Forrester, who described it in his book, World Dynamics. My team wrote and published 3 additional books on the project, The Limits to Growth, Toward Global Equilibrium, and Dynamics of Growth in a Finite World. Our focus was on: Population Nonrenewable resources Industrial goods Persistent pollution Food

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Our Main Contributions

• We did NOT prove that there are limits to physical growth on a finite planet. We assumed it.

• We did present information about a variety of physical limits- water, soils, metals, and other resources – in order to make the idea of limits plausible.

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Our Main Contributions

• We described the reasons growth of population and industrial output is inherently exponential.

• We showed that exponential growth quickly rises to any conceivable limit.

• Our computer scenarios demonstrated that prevailing growth policies will lead to overshoot and collapse, not asymptotic approach to limits.

• We suggested that changes in the policies could lead to a sustainable state, if the changes dealt with both cultural and technical issues and were implemented soon.

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Public discourse has difficulty with subtle, conditional messages

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“It is no coincidence that all the simulations based on the Meadows world model invariably end in collapse”

The Limits to Growth, Peter Passell, Marc Roberts, and Leonard Ross, New York Times, April 2, 1972

However, it was written in the New York Times:

The Limits to Growth presented 12 scenarios. Four of them showed a relatively attractive global equilibrium without any collapse.

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We said: “These graphs are not exact predictions of the values of the variables at any particular year in the future. They are indications of the system’s behavioral tendencies only.”

P. 93, The Limits to Growth

However a Google today search on “the Club of Rome predicted” yields 13,700 hits, for example:

“In 1972 Limits to Growth, published by the Club of Rome, predicted that the world will run out of gold in 1981, mercury in 1985, tin by 1987, zinc by 1990, petroleum by 1992, and copper, lead and natural gas by 1993”

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Growth advocates change the justification

for their paradigm rather than changing the

paradigm itself.

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At every single stage – from its biased arrival to its biased encoding, to organizing it around false logic, to misremembering and then misrepre-senting it to others, the mind continually acts to distort information flow in favor of the usual good goal of appearing better than one really is

Page 139, in The Folly of Fools; The Logic of Deceit and Self-Deception in Human Life, Robert Trivers, Basic Books, New York, NY 2011

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Evolution of the Criticisms

1970s: There are no effective limits.1980s: There are limits, but they are far away.1990s: The limits are near, but technology and markets

can evade them easily.2000s: Technology and markets do not always evade the

limits, but the best policy is still to pursue GNP growth, so we will have more resources to solve problems.

2010s: If we had been able to sustain economic growth, we would not have had trouble with the limits.

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Given enough energy, minerals might be reclaimed from under the sea, or from seawater itself. A virtually infinite source of energy, the controlled nuclear fusion of hydrogen, will probably be tapped within 50 years.

“The Limits to Growth”, by Peter Passell, Marc Roberts and Leonard Ross, New York Times, April 2, 1972.

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“natural resources are not finite in any meaningful economic sense, mind-boggling though this assertion may be. The stocks of them are not fixed but rather are expanding through human ingenuity.”

p. 24, Julian L. Simon, The Ultimate Resource2, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 1996

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We are following the collapse scenario

From: Growing within Limits, Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, October 2009, page 23.

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The global system is now far above its carrying capacity

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Global Ecological Footprint: 1965 - 2007

Year1965 2007

GEI 1972

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Comparison of the Equilibrium and Standard Scenarios; 2012 & 2020

Resources Population Pollution Food/Capita Ind./Capita

Eq/Std 2012

Eq/Std 2020

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We act as if technological change can substitute for

social change.

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Four Factors Determine the Amount of CO2 Emissions from Fossil Fuel Use

Social Factors Technical Factors

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Introductory Thought Experiment

• I am addicted to shopping. I have filled my house up with enormous piles of stuff. There are also piles of trash from all the wrappings.

• I no longer have room to move around comfortably in the space of my own home. This is NOT sustainable!

• I have just acquired a wonderful piece of technology – a hammer.

• Can the hammer alone give me a sustainable living space?

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Of Course Not! I Would Also Need:• GOALS: to create living space in my house and the

ability to spend time achieving that goal.• MATERIALS: to build the new storage units. • EXPERTISE: to design them.• TOOLS: such as saws, tape measure, pencil.• MONEY to buy the materials and hire help. • TIME and SKILLS to construct the new units and

organize my stuff in them.If any one of those elements is missing, the hammer does not solve my problem. And if I continue buying more and more stuff. Even excellent shelves will not solve the problem.

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Avoiding collapse will require a longer time horizon than

our current system provides.

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The Easy Oil is Gone• Oil discoveries peaked in 1960s. • Every year since 1984 oil consumption has

exceeded oil discovery. • In 2009 discoveries were about 5 billion

barrels (bb); consumption was about 31 bb.• Of the world’s 20 largest oil fields, 18 were

discovered 1917 - 1968; 2 in the 1970s; 0 since

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Global Oil Production is Nearing the End of its Plateau

• 1995 - 1999 + 5.5%• 2000 - 2004 + 7.9 %• 2005 - 2009 + 0.4 % - data from the International Statistical Supplement –

2010 edition, International Energy Agency, p. 18

• 2010 - 2030 – 50%* * Projection from Crude Oil – The Supply Outlook,

Energy Watch Group, Feb 2008, p. 12.

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“By 2012, surplus oil production capacity could entirely disappear, and as early as 2015, the shortfall in output could reach nearly 10 MBD.” - U S Joint Forces Command, Joint Operating Environment Report, February, 2010

“Peak Oil Production May Already be Here,” - Science, p. 1510, Vol 331, March 25, 2011

There is Growing Awareness that the Oil Peak Has Passed

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Oil Price Signals the Decline

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Easy Problems

Now Future

Bette

r ----

--->

Next Evaluation

Action #1

Actual Desired

Action #2

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Difficult Problems

Now Future

Bette

r ----

--->

Next Evaluation

Action #1

Action #2

ActualDesired

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It is essential now to put more emphasis on raising

the resilience of the system

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Diversity and Interconnectivity

Sust

aina

bilit

y

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Diversity and Interconnectivity

Sust

aina

bilit

y

Less Resilie

nt

More Efficient

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Diversity and Interconnectivity

Sust

aina

bilit

y

Less Adaptive &

Innovative

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Diversity and Interconnectivity

Sust

aina

bilit

y

More Resilient

Less Efficient

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It is essential now to startchanging our behavior