Industrial Civilizational Collapse predicted by a 1972 model. We're right on schedule

[Mihalik]

https://www.vice.com/en/article/z3xw...-collapse-soon

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.

The controversial MIT analysis generated heated debate, and was widely derided at the time by pundits who misrepresented its findings and methods. But the analysis has now received stunning vindication from a study written by a senior director at professional services giant KPMG, one of the 'Big Four' accounting firms as measured by global revenue.

The study was published in the Yale Journal of Industrial Ecology in November 2020 and is available on the KPMG website. It concludes that the current business-as-usual trajectory of global civilization is heading toward the terminal decline of economic growth within the coming decade—and at worst, could trigger societal collapse by around 2040.

The study represents the first time a top analyst working within a mainstream global corporate entity has taken the ‘limits to growth’ model seriously. Its author, Gaya Herrington, is Sustainability and Dynamic System Analysis Lead at KPMG in the United States. However, she decided to undertake the research as a personal project to understand how well the MIT model stood the test of time.

Queue someone coming in and telling us how 1. you can't model the future and 2. magic future tEchMolOgY will fix it.

But....not really.

“BAU2 and CT scenarios show a halt in growth within a decade or so from now,” the study concludes. “Both scenarios thus indicate that continuing business as usual, that is, pursuing continuous growth, is not possible. Even when paired with unprecedented technological development and adoption, business as usual as modelled by LtG would inevitably lead to declines in industrial capital, agricultural output, and welfare levels within this century.”

[s_bushido]

You can "model the future" all you like. But we have these pesky things called "human beings" that love doing stuff to make these prediction incorrect.

[Forogil]

You can "model the future" all you like. But we have these pesky things called "human beings" that love doing stuff to make these prediction incorrect.

Including claiming that the "model of the future" is correct, it is just "misunderstood".

The original LTG contained the following predictions for "business as usual":

• Global Industrial output per capita reaches a peak around 2008, followed by a rapid decline. In 2017 industrial output increased 3% compared to 1% for population.
• Global Food per capita reaches a peak around 2020, followed by a rapid decline. Current projections by environmentalist see a continued increase at least to 2030.
• Global Services per capita reaches a peak around 2020, followed by a rapid decline. Doesn't seem likely, although there's currently a decline in travel and hospitality.

[Julian Rayne]

Unless one of the authors on that paper is named Hari Seldon, Gaal Dornick or Yugo Amaryl I'm not buying it.

[Forogil]

Unless one of the authors on that paper is named Hari Seldon, Gaal Dornick or Yugo Amaryl I'm not buying it.

The author is named 'Gaya' - close to Gaia/Gaea the greek earth-mother.

[Shadowferal]

If back 10yrs ago someone told me wearing masks while going out would be a new normal, I would have scoffed at such sci-fi dystopia..

[s_bushido]

If back 10yrs ago someone told me wearing masks while going out would be a new normal, I would have scoffed at such sci-fi dystopia..

Wearing masks has been fairly "normal" in east asian countries for a while now.

[Shadowferal]

Wearing masks has been fairly "normal" in east asian countries for a while now.

By your quotes I'd say you know that's not normal either.

[downnola]

The arguments raised in the deeper research do seem to point towards capitalism

Ok, with you there.

and a lack of unified morals (no strong central ideology or religion) being at the root cause of western collapse though.

lol.

[Kaleredar]

If you asked scientists today what they thought the most immediate concern for the future of civilization might be it isn’t things like overpopulation or probably even resource distribution in a holistic sense of not actually having enough resources (read “the resources required don’t exist” versus the current reality of “the resources exist but we lack the means/actual desire to see them distributed fairly”)…

I’d wager the current scientists largest concern is climate change, which was not something earnestly on the radar for most scientists in the 70s.

[PC2]

In 1972, a team of MIT scientists got together to study the risks of civilizational collapse.

It's too bad that those scientists made a prophecy instead of making a scientific model that can be *tested* before doom arrives. A real scientific model is a causal or explanatory model that can be tested at any point in time by anyone with the right instruments. A model like this, much like a religious prophecy, is something where you simply have to wait to see whether doom comes or not. That's all it is.

The original LTG contained the following predictions for "business as usual":

• Global Industrial output per capita reaches a peak around 2008, followed by a rapid decline. In 2017 industrial output increased 3% compared to 1% for population.
• Global Food per capita reaches a peak around 2020, followed by a rapid decline. Current projections by environmentalist see a continued increase at least to 2030.
• Global Services per capita reaches a peak around 2020, followed by a rapid decline. Doesn't seem likely, although there's currently a decline in travel and hospitality.

Who cares if the modellers made wrong predictions? What happens every single time is the proponents make new ad hoc justifications in order to save the model from being wrong. There's basically nothing you can do to change the mind of an irrational pessimist. It doesn't matter how much new improvement there is, the world always has to be coming to an end in their eyes.

[Shadowferal]

From 1972;

[Hellobolis]

https://www.vice.com/en/article/z3xw...-collapse-soon





Queue someone coming in and telling us how 1. you can't model the future and 2. magic future tEchMolOgY will fix it.

But....not really.

what did they model then? cause after x years you really can't do much more than make ballpark assumptions on average growth, frequency of recessions/disasters, frequency of breakthroughs.

"continuing business as usual means infinite growth isn't possible." is not an impressive prediction to make. you can make that claim before every industrial revolution that shattered it.

industrial revolutions are increasing in frequency so you got to at least counter why magic future tech won't solve the problems especially on such a short time frame of a few decades. there are obvious advancements in agriculture and energy production happening right now that will definitely keep us going for another 20 years. (and saying oh it willl happen in 50+ years just means you are as inaccurate as the original 1970s prediction.)

a large war or revolution is a much much much more likely result of halted growth than total collapse

[Shadowferal]

industrial revolutions are increasing in frequency so you got to at least counter why magic future tech won't solve the problems especially on such a short time frame of a few decades.

If such technology exists then it obviously isn't being used.
And you never gamble by thinking in some fucked up imagination that it might exist later.

[Hellobolis]

If such technology exists then it obviously isn't being used.
And you never gamble by thinking in some fucked up imagination that it might exist later.

it takes a couple decades for technology to actually become widespread.

there is very obviously a change of the status quo happening in energy right now that won't peak for years to come. (solar panels, electric cars, etc).

similarly many other core sectors that civilization relies on like agriculture and chemical industry aren't done implementing the gains of the latest industrial revolution yet.

and then you have AI/machine learning which will probably be the culmination of the latest industrial revolution which is still in it's infancy.

all those processes will still be going on by the 2040s, the time were supposedly going to collapse.


the real future tech stuff is things like nuclear fusion, but that's a good example of why these predictions rarely hold much water, as that is something that's "coming in 10 years" since the 70s too.

[Elegiac]

it takes a couple decades for technology to actually become widespread.

Cool story.

1) Decarbonization is already within our technological means. It's entirely a function of administrative or political inaction.

2) We don't have a couple of decades, regardless, because of how much time was and still is being wasted as a result of Point 1.

[Forogil]

Who cares if the modellers made wrong predictions?

Some of us care about models, and if we see that the predictions don't match reality we see that the ones peddling it aren't trustworthy - especially if they try to say that the model was right after all.

But you are right that many don't care - and just blindly follow the new predictions, and say that the previous prediction was only a thought experiment and not a real prediction; I already stated that.

E.g. the Limits to Growth model done 49 years ago was basically an updated Malthusian vision - if use of oil (chrome, gold) increases by x% every year and the reserves are y then we will run out after a certain time - even if we "generously" increase the reserves by a factor of 5. For petroleum that was 50 years in their future (that is next year); and Gold in 29 years (that is 20 years ago).

However, petroleum use hasn't increased like that - since their are substitutes for its energy production and people have found new sources. People are also still digging up gold - the current reserves seems to last another 16 years, and possible reserves another 50. Additionally gold can be recycled from old electronics. They were somewhat right in thinking that the easy sources of gold and oil would be more or less depleted, but they failed to understand that people find more efficient methods for handling the less easy sources.

[Clone]

https://www.vice.com/en/article/z3xw...-collapse-soon





Queue someone coming in and telling us how 1. you can't model the future and 2. magic future tEchMolOgY will fix it.

But....not really.

Don't forget civil war.

[Mihalik]

Including claiming that the "model of the future" is correct, it is just "misunderstood".

The original LTG contained the following predictions for "business as usual":

• Global Industrial output per capita reaches a peak around 2008, followed by a rapid decline. In 2017 industrial output increased 3% compared to 1% for population.
• Global Food per capita reaches a peak around 2020, followed by a rapid decline. Current projections by environmentalist see a continued increase at least to 2030.
• Global Services per capita reaches a peak around 2020, followed by a rapid decline. Doesn't seem likely, although there's currently a decline in travel and hospitality.

Those dates were predicted on the assumption that consumption and growth trends wouldn't change from the 1970 models.

The conclusion of the study itself stated that the dates are subject to change, and that even sustainability is achievable if certain measures are taken.

The new model done by KPMG essentially just states that the original conclusions were correct once you input the minimum of effort we've made to delay the inevitable.

Nevertheless we're still on track to burning ourselves out before technology could save us.

[Shadowferal]

it takes a couple decades for technology to actually become widespread.

What technology?