Scientist Graham Turner— the world is heading to collapse

Scientist Graham Turner from Melbourne University I am sure that the authors published forty years ago the alarmist report "Limits to growth" was not so wrong — it seems that our civilization will soon come to an end. The translation of his article from The Guardian, where he bases his prediction:

The first edition of the book "Limits to growth" published in 1972, and since then, around her, the debate continues. For many prediction books that promised the inevitable collapse of our civilization in this century, was nothing more than an apocalyptic horror story. In 2002, a self-proclaimed expert in the field of the environment Bjorn Lomborg sent a book called "dustbin of history". She doesn't belong there. Research the University of Melbourne prove that forty years later all the predictions of the book are correct. If we continue to move along the same path, we didn't have long to wait for the first signs of the global collapse.

The report "Limits to growth" was commissioned by a public organization called the club of Rome. In her job, a group of researchers at mit, among them — wife Donella and Dennis meadows, built a computer model of the development of the world economy and the environment. Absolutely advanced for its time, the program was called World3. Before her stood an enormous task to track the growth of world output, population, food, resource consumption and environmental pollution. By driving in the program sample data before 1970, researchers have modeled several scenarios to the year 2100. The system predicted that if the world does not take serious action for the protection of the environment and prudent use of resources, its economy, population and ecology expect "overload and collapse" before 2070. This development was called the book a "normal" scenario — that is the inevitable result of sustainable development. The main idea of the book — what it is, in fact, was criticized later — was the idea that "the Earth is finite", that unlimited population growth, wealth and so on will inevitably lead to collapse.

But were they right? Forty years later the first edition of the book we decided to review these scenarios. Dr. Graham Turner collected data from UN (UNESCO, Economic and Social Council of the United Nations, the organization of food and agriculture, the annual statistics of the United Nations). He examined them with data from the National oceanic and atmospheric administration, statistics of BP and others — and then compared the scenarios described in the "Limits to growth". The results showed that the world does not particularly deviate from the "normal" scenario book. But other, more optimistic scenarios resulting graph is not the same.

In 1972, the researchers at MIT stated: according to the "ordinary" scenario, the growth of population and wealth will lead to greater production, and this will cause a sharp rise of environment pollution. That's, statistically, happens. Rapidly we are depleting resources, growing environmental pollution, increasing the consumption of foods and food per capita. The rapidly growing population of the Earth.

So still "Limits to growth" coincide with reality. What happens next? According to the book, to support the continuing growth of production will require more use of resources. But the more resources used, the more expensive it becomes to produce. When production becomes too expensive, manufacturing will begin to fall — according to the book, this will happen around 2015. Environmental pollution will continue, but as the resources become less, it will inevitably affect food production. Reduced health and education — and from 2020 we will see a sharp increase in mortality. In 2030 the world population will start decreasing for 500 million a decade. Living conditions will eventually return to a level of approximately 1900.

The main cause of a future collapse, according to the book, becomes a scarcity of resources — but not only it. Will play a role and the growing environmental pollution, and consequent climate change. The book warns about carbon dioxide emissions, which will have a "climate effect", "warming the Earth's atmosphere".

Researchers at Melbourne University have not yet found evidence of a collapse in 2010 (although there are areas where growth has already slowed). But according to the "Limits to growth", in 2015-2030 year we will feel the first signs of the coming collapse.

He's probably already started. The global financial crisis of 2008 and the ensuing economic instability could be the first symptom of the collapse Sistemas for limited resources. The race for material well-being turned into an unbearable debt, when added to this unexpectedly high prices for food and oil — followed by a crisis.

Critical is also the question of peak oil production. Many independent researchers confirm that global production of oil has peaked — as evidenced by even the conservative International energy Agency.

Peak oil may be a major cause of the global collapse. We still have hope for an alternative fossil energy resources — shale oil, tar Sands, coal gasification, — the only question is how quickly we learn these resources to produce, at what price and how long they last. If their production would be too expensive, it will only accelerate the crisis.

The study does not mean that the collapse of the global economy, environment and population cannot be avoided. We also do not claim that everything will develop exactly as predicted by the researchers at MIT in 1972. Can start a war — of countries can join together to solve global environmental problems. Such events can have a significant impact on the situation.

But research should be for all alarm. Seems almost impossible that the desire for more and more material possessions will continue until the year 2100 without serious negative effects — and those effects might come sooner than we think.

As concluded by the authors of "Limits to growth" in 1972: "If the existing population growth, industry, pollution, food production and resource depletion continue unchanged, the limit to growth on this planet will be reached within the century. The most probable result will be rather sudden and uncontrollable decline in population and industrial capacity". And nothing today indicates that they were wrong.

Source: theoryandpractice.ru