Process
Status Items Highlights Done See section below Claims None Questions None Output None
Highlights
Time 0:03:41
Limits to Growth
- The book ‘The Limits to Growth’ (1972) offered a systemic analysis of humanity’s biggest problems and predicted what would happen if current trends continued.
- It highlighted the conflict between a capitalist economy’s dependence on endless growth and the finite nature of Earth’s resources.
- Despite selling millions of copies and being translated into numerous languages, the book’s predictions were largely dismissed and ridiculed. Transcript: Ellen McGirt Why we’re talking about this book in the series about capitalism. The title, The Limits to Growth, offers a pretty big clue. Throughout this series, we’ve seen how a capitalist economy depends on growth, and more growth, and more, and more. John Biewen As John Fullerton said to me, the growth imperative is at the heart of capitalism’s fundamental algorithm.
Time 0:19:09
First World Model
- Jay Forrester, inspired by discussions with the Club of Rome about global issues, created the first world model.
- He sketched it on Swiss napkins during a meeting in Bern, Switzerland.
- The model included five core elements: population, food, industry, resources, and pollution.
- It also considered other interacting factors like healthcare, investment, and technology.
- Forrester demonstrated how changes in one area could affect the entire system using lines and connectors. Transcript: Katy Shields He invited Jay to accompany him to Bern that summer. And so on that warm June evening in Switzerland, as Jay listened to the increasingly fraught discussions among the Club of Rome members, he took his knowledge of modeling the dynamics Of industries and cities and sketched out the first ever world model right there on a set of Swiss napkins. Vegard Beyer And I told them they could come to MIT and learn more about this, but they would have to come for two weeks or not at all, because I knew that it would take two weeks for them to really understand. And they agreed. They agreed there at midnight that evening that they would come. They would come three weeks from that day. Katy Shields Jay touched down in Boston at almost the exact same time as Dana and Dennis were returning from their trip to Asia. Jay Forrester had promised to teach the Club of Rome all about what he called systems dynamics. Now he needed help from his small department’s best computer scientists to demonstrate their work in action. That scientist was, of course, Dennis Meadows. With a few weeks yet before Harvard would open its doors, Dana decided to accompany him, initially planning on listening to what sounded simply like an intriguing seminar. Jay had transcribed the model that he had started on those Swiss napkins in Bern. He now proceeded to present to Aurelio and the executive members of the Club of Rome his model of the world system. It comprised five core elements population, food, industry, resources and pollution and a host of others that interacted with these and each other like education, healthcare, investment And technology. By
Time 0:21:54
Donella Meadows Joins “The Limits to Growth” Project
- Jay Forrester declined to lead the Club of Rome’s project after they offered funding based on his world system model.
- Dennis Meadows, who worked with Forrester, proposed to use the prototype and create scenarios.
- Donella Meadows gave up her Harvard Fellowship to work on the project unpaid to avoid nepotism accusations.
- The Club of Rome accepted Dennis’s proposal, and they began the first major attempt to model the world system.
- Their job was to refine the model with real-world data, consulting various experts on many topics. Transcript: Katy Shields Reasons that Jay never made clear, but were likely influenced by the prospect of the work moving full-time to Switzerland, he declined Aurelio’s generous offer to lead the project. Dennis, who had been working side by side with Jay, went home that evening and wrote a proposal. He would use Jay’s prototype to show what would happen if current trends continued, and create and test alternative scenarios that could help find solutions to mankind’s interconnected Problems. As he discussed his ideas with Dana, she decided there and then to give up her hard-earned Harvard Fellowship to help Dennis work on the project. And though her skills would prove valuable in ways she could not yet imagine, to avoid any accusation of nepotism, she insisted on joining the project without pay. Although he was just 28 years old at the time, the Club of Rome accepted Dennis’ proposal. Now he and Dana found themselves conducting the first major attempt to model the world system. Jay Forrester had provided the basic structure. Their job was to test it and track down the best numbers to create the scenarios. Over the following months they met with leading geologists, agronomists, chemists, physicists, ecologists, demographers, economists. They studied soil erosion, ozone layer depletion, chemical pollution, acid rain, infant mortality, poverty, malnutrition. They learned about the Earth’s mineral deposits and fossil fuel reserves and the energy required to extract them. And
Time 0:24:24
Kaibab Plateau Deer Population
- The Kaibab Plateau illustrates the consequences of exceeding the limits of a finite system.
- Initially, the plateau had a balanced ecosystem with deer and predators like wolves and coyotes.
- Cattle ranchers disrupted this balance, so the government allowed hunters to eliminate the predators to supposedly protect the deer.
- This removal, however, destroyed the negative feedback loop provided by predation.
- As a result, the deer population exploded, overgrazed, and ultimately damaged their own habitat, leading to a population crash. Transcript: Katy Shields Kaibab Plateau in Arizona is another such finite system. An elevated area bounded by steep cliff drops on all sides, it is almost impossible for land animals to migrate in or out unaided. Until the late 1800s, the Kaibab was a thriving, balanced ecosystem consisting of deer and natural predators such as wolves and coyotes. That is, until cattle ranchers moved in, leading to a drop in native deer numbers. In an attempt to protect the deer, the government allowed hunters to kill the native predators. Recall how in systems dynamics, Jay Forrester used the term feedback to describe the reaction of one part of a system to changes elsewhere in the system. Negative feedbacks balance or counteract the change, while positive ones reinforce them. Here is Dana using the language of systems dynamics to explain what happens when the predators are removed. The predation rate is part of a negative feedback loop. By the time the predator population comes down to zero, the balance between the positive feedback and the negative feedback is destroyed and starts generating an exponentially growing Deer population. As the food gets depleted, it takes longer and longer for it to regenerate. What happens is it drags the deer population down with it. In other words, the removal of the predators, instead of protecting the deer, had the exact opposite effect. It allowed the deer to multiply to such an extent that they eroded their own habitat.
Time 0:29:09
Pollution and Technological Solutions
- Even with bans on pollutants like DDT, the accumulated levels continued to rise, posing ongoing environmental and health risks.
- New pollutants and environmental issues were constantly being discovered.
- This raised concerns that even if technologies were developed to address pollution, the pace of new discoveries and the lag in implementing effective solutions would create a persistent challenge.
- There was concern that technological solutions alone might not be sufficient if the underlying causes, such as industrial growth, were not also addressed. Transcript: Katy Shields Only that, but it had taken Rachel Carson two decades to prove DDT was harmful to human health. And around another decade for Congress to enact a ban, no thanks to lobbying by chemical companies. The thinning ozone layer, acid rain, global warming. There were a host of other pollutants and problems the team was only just discovering, and possibly many more going unnoticed. So, if bans alone couldn’t prevent pollution from rising, perhaps technologies could be deployed to clean them up? After all, America had just put a man on the moon. Well, despite what critics may later claim, the team did indeed account for rising technological progress. Here is Dennis Meadows explaining their approach to technology in the world model.
Time 0:31:33
Standard Run & Collapse
- The MIT team’s “Standard Run” simulation, based on 1970s data, showed continued industrial and population growth leading to rapid economic expansion and increased pollution.
- By 2020, the planet’s condition becomes critical due to pollution.
- Around 2040-2050, civilized life as we know it ceases to exist in this scenario, due to the collapse of the industrial system, not necessarily the Earth system, due to overconsumption and pollution.
- Further simulations with varying parameters like unlimited resources, faster technological progress, and switching to nuclear energy showed that growth caused resource depletion or excessive pollution, resulting in a collapse.
- Collapse resulted from overshooting Earth’s capacity, similar to the Kaibab deer. Transcript: Katy Shields Months after they started their work, the MIT team produced what came to be known as the Standard Run. In that scenario, industry and population continued to grow based on the dynamics of the 1960s and early 70s. For the first few decades, expansion was rapid and the global economy, and with it, pollution, ballooned. Ellen McGirt From 1980 to the year 2020, pollution really takes off. So the year 2020, the condition of the planet starts to become highly critical. Katy Shields But with limited measures to use resources more judiciously, a rise in consumption combined with exponential growth in pollution started impacting food supplies and then, of course, Human health. Ellen McGirt Pollution is going to become so serious that it will start to kill people. So the population will diminish. And at this stage, round about the year 2040-2050, civilised life as we know it on this planet will cease to exist. Katy Shields They were not talking about the end of life as we know it. But as Dana herself later explained, If we run into those limits, what will happen will be a collapse of our system, not necessarily the Earth system, but the industrial system. Now, you may expect the team to have been alarmed by this finding. After all, it meant a child born in the year 1970 could live to see the breakdown of modern civilization. But, as physicist Jörgen Randers, just 25 when he worked on the project, explained. John Biewen I was a very young man and naive in the sense that I thought that once we told the world that the planet is small and that it’s a great challenge for humanity to fit a large population and A large economy onto this tiny little planet. I had thought naively that the world would listen and say, yes, clearly this is good advice and we’re going to follow this advice. Katy Shields So the team set about figuring out what that advice could look like. The team simulated 10 new scenarios, one with unlimited mineral resources, another with faster rates of technological progress, in a third, complete switch from fossil fuels to Nuclear energy, and so on. In most scenarios, humanity flourished initially. As the economy expanded, incomes rose and nutrition and health improved. But, even where the population eventually stabilised, exponential growth and consumption caused humanity to use up more and more natural resources, or to produce more pollution Or waste at rates too fast for the Earth to
Time 0:32:05
Limits to Growth - Standard Run
- In the ‘Standard Run’ scenario, the MIT team modeled what would happen if industrial and population growth continued at the rate of the early 1970s.
- Initially, the global economy and pollution grow rapidly.
- By 2020, the planet’s condition becomes critical due to rising consumption and pollution, affecting food supplies and human health.
- Around 2040-2050, the model predicts a collapse of the industrial system, not necessarily the Earth’s systems, due to exceeding planetary limits. Transcript: Katy Shields With limited measures to use resources more judiciously, a rise in consumption combined with exponential growth in pollution started impacting food supplies and then, of course, Human health. Ellen McGirt Pollution is going to become so serious that it will start to kill people. So the population will diminish. And at this stage, round about the year 2040-2050, civilised life as we know it on this planet will cease to exist. Katy Shields They were not talking about the end of life as we know it. But as Dana herself later explained, If we run into those limits, what will happen will be a collapse of our system, not necessarily the Earth system, but the industrial system. Now, you may expect the team to have been alarmed by this finding. After all, it meant a child born in the year 1970 could live to see the breakdown of modern civilization. But, as physicist Jörgen Randers, just 25 when he worked on the project, explained. John Biewen I was a very young man and naive in the sense that I thought that once we told the world that the planet is small and that it’s a great challenge for humanity to fit a large population and A large economy onto this tiny little planet. I had thought naively that the world would listen and say, yes, clearly this is good advice and we’re going to follow
Time 0:34:36
Controlling Growth
- Jay Forrester explained to Donella Meadows why humans can’t keep pushing back limits like resource availability or pollution while still aiming for indefinite economic growth on a finite planet.
- Increasing system complexity creates new problems, hindering solutions to the main issue.
- The core problem is controlling and stabilizing growth before encountering limits.
- Humanity must choose its own limits or let nature impose them. Transcript: Katy Shields Later recalled in her memoir how Jay Forrester had once explained to her why this was bound to happen, why humans simply can’t keep pushing back all limits, like those on resources or Pollution, while still trying to grow the human economy indefinitely on what was essentially a finite planet. Making the system bigger and more complex simply creates new and often more wicked problems, making it impossible to solve the problematique. It’s growth, Dana concluded. The problem is how to control and stabilise growth before the system hits limits. Our solution, she realised, must be to choose our own limits, or let nature choose them for us.
Time 0:37:19
Hope in Cultural Change
- Donella Meadows observed cultural change mechanisms in the US, driven by young people experimenting with alternative lifestyles.
- These lifestyles, rather than being sacrifices, are found to be more fulfilling than traditional American cultural patterns.
- This shift offers hope for a transition towards an equilibrium society, suggesting a different perspective, not a sacrifice, could lead to many benefits. Transcript: Vegard Beyer Very hopeful in this country that the mechanisms do exist for this kind of cultural change. In fact, I think it’s already happening. I think we’re one step, one contribution to a change which is indeed taking place, largely among young people who are trying many experiments, some of which may turn out to be very useful In an equilibrium society. And I think the thing that encourages me, I work in a university with some of these young people, is that they are discovering that the alternate lifestyles that they are trying are not Sacrifices, and they’re not unpleasant. And in many ways, they are more satisfying and their lives are more fulfilling than they, let’s say, than they would have been if they followed the pattern which we have come to regard As the cultural pattern of America. And it’s this which gives me great hope. I don’t think we’re calling for a great sacrifice. I only think we’re calling for a slightly different way of looking at things, which could in fact lead to many benefits. Katy Shields Nonetheless, their proposal could have profound implications. If the economy were to eventually stop growing, it would mean future income and technologies would need to be redistributed more fairly within and across countries, starting with The richest nation, the United States. Just
Time 0:38:20
Implications of Zero Economic Growth
- If economic growth stops, future income and technologies need to be redistributed more fairly within and across countries.
- This redistribution should start with the richest nations, like the United States.
- The challenge lies in convincing wealthy nations to adopt this path.
- The Club of Rome’s task was to identify and implement policies for a smooth transition to a stable world where growth isn’t the solution to every problem. Transcript: Katy Shields Nonetheless, their proposal could have profound implications. If the economy were to eventually stop growing, it would mean future income and technologies would need to be redistributed more fairly within and across countries, starting with The richest nation, the United States. Just how that may be achieved? How America and other rich nations could be convinced to follow such a path? That, the team thought, was a job for the Club of Rome. It is our conclusion that the overwhelming task of the Club of Rome is to identify and implement that set of policies which will permit us to negotiate an orderly transition to a stable World. It was with these words that Dennis ended his presentation of the MIT team’s main findings at the annual gathering of the Club of Rome in Montebello, Canada in the spring of 1971. The club members listened politely, spoke kind words, recalled Dana, and went back to discussing the world’s problems as if each was unrelated to all the others and as if there were No limits.
Time 0:39:38
Growth Ideology
- The Club of Rome members failed to grasp the concept of Earth’s limits.
- They treated global problems as isolated issues, advocating for economic growth as the universal solution.
- Examples include addressing energy shortages with more oil/nuclear power and poverty with increased economic activity.
- The core issue isn’t merely failing to acknowledge limits, but rather a deep-seated belief in endless growth as a means to postpone those limits indefinitely. Transcript: Katy Shields As they took upon each problem, they called on growth to solve it. Energy shortages? We need more oil discoveries, more nuclear power. Poverty? More economic growth. Hunger? More food production. Urban slums? More housing. Pollution? More economic growth so we can afford pollution control. That was when Dana first realised that the problem was not recognising the Earth’s limits. But as she later wrote,
Time 0:48:44
Limits to Growth - 5 Key Findings
- There are physical limits to growth that children alive today are likely to encounter.
- Ignoring these limits while basing policies on continued growth will likely lead to overshoot and collapse – a decline in both population and industrial capacity.
- There’s a viable alternative where population and production are balanced with the environment.
- Reaching this alternative will take 50-100+ years.
- Delaying action makes a smooth transition harder and reduces future options. Transcript: Vegard Beyer Been led, on the basis of this work to five basic conclusions. There are physical limits to growth which, given current trends, are very likely to be encountered even during the lifetime of our children. Second, the most likely outcome of running into these limits, if we continue to ignore them and instead base our short-term policies on the assumption of continued growth, is that We’ll overshoot those limits and collapse, that there will be an uncontrolled decline both in population and industrial capacity. That won’t take place at the same time around the world. It will certainly take different forms. It will be more or less severe in different societies, depending on what happens between now and then and on the level of industrialization. But in each case, it’s likely to be extremely traumatic. The third conclusion is that we appear to have a viable alternative to this outcome, one in which population and material production could be brought into balance with a finite environment And with our resources. A fourth conclusion is that it’s realistically going to take a period of 50 years, 100 years or more, to reach that alternative in an orderly fashion. And finally, and I think this is extremely important, every year we delay beginning to form our goals and moving towards them makes an orderly transition to this stable situation much More difficult and it decreases our ultimate options. Katy Shields The first to react to Dennis’s presentation was Elliot Richardson, Secretary of State for Health and Education and one of President Nixon’s closest members of Cabinet. Vegard Beyer Thank you very much Mr. Reid, Dr. Meadows, ladies and gentlemen. I can say one thing very clearly and very emphatically, and that is that I believe all of us, all of us in the United States, and I think indeed every world citizen, are indebted to the Club Of Rome. The study is too thoughtful, too thorough, too significant, and the consequences of ignoring its implications too disastrous,
Time 0:52:13
1min Snip Transcript: Katy Shields Only question now was, how would the world outside react? Vegard Beyer Across the Charles River at MIT in Cambridge, a team of scientists built a global computer model on paper to measure long-term trends. They found, and this is the core of their startling book, The Limits to Growth, that the way things are going now, the planet can support us for less than 100 years. It may be nearer 50. This is Edward P. Morgan, ABC News, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Katy Shields Thanks to Don’s extensive PR efforts, the team made that evening’s primetime news. And the next day, many of the leading titles had their story splashed across the front pages. Mankind warned to curb growth or face catastrophe, ran one headline. Will growth kill humanity, ran another? To grow and to die, prepare to meet thy doom. Farewell to civilization.
Time 0:56:20
Dana Meadows’ Resilience
- Dana Meadows faced significant backlash for her work on ‘The Limits to Growth’.
- Despite personal hurt, she continued her research and education on sustainability.
- She set up an international network of scientists to promote collaboration.
- Her ideas were only widely acknowledged after her death in 2001, highlighting the delayed recognition of her contributions. Transcript: Katy Shields But though she was personally hurt and saddened by the backlash at the time, Dana Meadows didn’t let it stop her continuing the work they had started. After limits to growth, she and Dennis moved to Dartmouth to continue their research on world systems, and Dana also taught classes in systems thinking. And together they set up an international network of scientists to promote collaboration in the field of what Dana and others term sustainability. And she worked to educate the public too. She wrote a newspaper column for many years that was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and earned her a MacArthur Genius Grant. And she also taught environmental journalism at Dartmouth. But it was only later after she died in 2001, at the age of just 59, that her ideas started to be taken seriously by influential people. The first chapter of an unfinished textbook that she had begun writing was posthumously published as the book Thinking in Systems, which has become very popular across many disciplines. John Biewen Her influence is enormous now. So many people we’ve talked to for this series, people thinking about and working for economic change, cite her work and the limits to growth as pivotal in their thinking. And let’s just point out that systems thinking, as in the work of Dana and Dennis Meadows and their team and folks like Jay Forrester, is the polar opposite of reductionist thinking, Which we talked about in episodes three and four. Katy Shields Exactly. Instead of honing in on a narrow slice of the world, comparing, say, just two metrics like CO2 and growth of GDP, you’re trying to get a bird’s eye view of the whole system. Everything fits together and how changes in one part of the system affect another part and then another and
Time 0:59:49
New Economics Inspired by Limits to Growth
- A new generation of economists, influenced by the “Limits to Growth,” are incorporating its lessons into their models, diverging from traditional neoclassical economics.
- Kate Raworth’s “Donut Economics” is a prominent example, visualizing a sweet spot for humanity’s economic activity.
- This model emphasizes meeting everyone’s basic needs (the social foundation) while staying within ecological limits (the ecological ceiling). Transcript: Ellen McGirt Also a new breed of economists now who have been influenced by limits to growth and incorporate its lessons into their models, very much unlike traditional neoclassical economists. Katy Shields Yes, probably the best known as Kate Raworth, the British economist. She invented donut economics and published a book of the same name in 2017. So let me start with this donut, the one donut in the world that actually turns out to be good for us, because I’ve learned that pictures are powerful. John Biewen This is Kate Raworth giving a talk in the Netherlands. She visualizes her economic model as a donut-like ring. The ring represents the sweet spot where all of humanity and our economic activity can live and thrive. Katy Shields So that the hole in the middle is a place where people are left falling short, without the resources that they need for health care, education, food, water, housing, energy, mobility. We want to leave nobody in that hole, get everybody over the social foundation into the donut. But, and this is a big but, we cannot collectively overshoot the outer ring, the ecological ceiling, because there we begin to tip our planet out of