I believe we all have a slighty distorted view because we were all born long
after industrialization has started and have seen nothing but growth.
Industrialization started around 200 years ago in Great Britain and spread
shortly after to America and Europe. First by exploiting coal and steam
engines, later by oil and petrol engines. Tanks, warplanes, warships as well as
normal cars, planes and ships all consume oil.Richard Heinberg writes in his
book "The End of Growth": "with the fossil fuel revolution of the past century
and a half, we have seen economic growth at a speed and scale unprecedented in
all of human history. We harnessed the energies of coal, oil, and natural gas
to build and operate cars, trucks, highways, airports, airplanes, and electric
grids - all the esential features of modern industrial society. Through the
one-time-only process of extracting and burning hundreds of millions of years
worth of chemically stored sunlight, we built what appeared (for a brief,
shining moment) to be a perpetual-growth machine. We learned to take what was
in fact an extraordinary situation for granted. It became normal [...] During
the past 150 years, expanding access to cheap and abundar fossil fuels enabled
rapid economic expansion at an average rate of about three percent per year;
economic planners began to take this situain for granted. Financial systems
internalized the expectation of growth as a promise of returns on
investments."https://richardheinberg.com/bookshelf/the-end-of-growth-bookHeinberg
argues the time of cheap and abundant fossil fuels has come to an end. There
1.5 billion cars in the world which consume oil and produce CO2. Resources are
depleted while pollution and population have reached all time highs. It is true
that humans are innovative and ingenious, especially in times of scarcity,
necessity and need, and we are able to find replacements for depleted
resources, but Heinberg argues in his book "Peak Everything: that "in a finite
world, the number of possible replacements is also finite". For example we were
able to replace the whale oil by petroleum, but finding a replacement for
petroleum is much
harder.https://richardheinberg.com/bookshelf/peak-everythingWithout oil no army
would move, traffic would cease, no container or cruise ship would be able to
go anywhere and therefore international trade and tourism would stop. On the
bright side no more plastic and CO2 pollution either. In his book "End of
Growth" Heinberg mentions "transition towns" as a path towards a more
sustainable society and an economy which is not based on
fossil-fuels.https://donellameadows.org/archives/rob-hopkins-my-town-in-transition/French
author Victor Hugo wrote 200 years ago that "the paradise of the rich is made
out of the hell of the poor". If rich people start to realize this and help to
find a way to a more sustainable, livable society it would be a start.-J.
-------- Original message --------From: Pieter Steenekamp
<[email protected]> Date: 5/31/25 5:46 AM (GMT+01:00) To: The Friday
Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[email protected]> Subject: Re:
[FRIAM] Limits to Growth I’ve always loved the Simon-Ehrlich bet story—two
clever guys betting on the future of the planet. Ehrlich lost the bet, but the
debate still runs circles
today.https://ourworldindata.org/simon-ehrlich-betThis article nails it: over
the long term, prices mostly go down, not up, as innovation kicks in. We don’t
"run out" of resources—we get better at using them. Scarcity shifts, but human
creativity shifts faster.The Limits to Growth folks had good intentions, but
the real limit seems to be how fast we can adapt and rethink. And so far, we’re
doing okay—messy, uneven, but okay.Turns out, betting against human ingenuity
is the real risky business.On Fri, 30 May 2025 at 21:51, steve smith
<[email protected]> wrote:
REC -
Very timely... I did a deep dive/revisit (also met the seminal
work in college in the 70s) into Limits to Growth and World3
before the Stockholm workshop on Climate (and other existential
threats) Complexity Merle wrangled in 2019.... and was both
impressed and disappointed. Rockstrom and folks were located
right across the water from us where we met but to my knowledge
didn't engage... their work was very complementary but did not
feel as relevant to me then as it does now.
In the following interview, I felt he began to address many of
the things I (previously) felt were lacking in their framework
previoiusly. It was there all the time I'm sure, I just didn't
see it and I think they were not ready to talk as broadly of
implications 5 years ago as they are now?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6_3mOgvrN4
Did anyone notice the swiss village inundated by debris and
meltwater from the glacier collapse uphill? Signs of the times
or "business as usual"?
- SAS
On 5/30/25 12:16 PM, Roger Critchlow
wrote:
https://thenextwavefutures.wordpress.com/2025/05/20/limits-to-growth-was-right-about-overshoot-and-collapse-new-data/
I remember the Limits to Growth from my freshman year in
college. Now Hackernews links to the above in which some
people argue that we've achieved the predicted overshoot for
the business as usual scenario and the subsequent collapse
begins now. Enjoy the peak of human technological
development.
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