A prescient precursor - article 3600

Sunset/rev L

A prescient precursor of things to come was MIT's 1972 seminal work, The Limits to Growth, predicting what would happen if BAU (Business As Usual) i.e. capitalism, continued to exploit earth's resources with dire consequences coming to society beginning in the 2040s. Seems their prediction's spot on without question.

In 1972, a team of MIT scientists got together to study the risks of civilizational collapse. Their system dynamics model published by the Club of Rome identified impending ‘limits to growth’ (LtG) that meant industrial civilization was on track to collapse sometime within the 21st century, due to overexploitation of planetary resources.

According to a new peer-reviewed scientific report, industrial civilisation is likely to deplete its low-cost mineral resources within the next century, with debilitating impacts for the global economy and key infrastructures within the coming decade.

The study, the 33rd report to the Club of Rome, is authored by Prof Ugo Bardi of the University of Florence's Earth Sciences Department, and includes contributions from a wide range of senior scientists across relevant disciplines.

Planetary overshoot rules ... if we let it.

Earth Overshoot Day marks the date when humanity’s demand for ecological resources and services in a given year exceeds what Earth can regenerate in that year.

In 2021, it falls on July 29.

Click here to see how the date was arrived at.

Click here to download The Limits to Growth PDF.