It Is Too Late For Sustainable
Development
Dennis Meadows
Smithsonian Institution
Washington, DC; February 29, 2012
1
Goals for This Session
• I will briefly describe what we did in 1970 – 1972 and
summarize the main contributions of our study.
• Then I will describe five reasons it is too late to achieve
sustainable development.
– Public discourse has difficulty with subtle, conditional
messages .
– Growth advocates change the justification for their paradigm
rather than changing the paradigm itself.
– The global system is now far above its carrying capacity.
– We act as if technological change can substitute for social
change.
– The time horizon of our current system is too short.
• As a result, I will suggest that it is essential now to put
more emphasis on raising the resilience of the system.
2
What We Did
A team of 16 people worked under my direction to
elaborate a computer model representing the causes and
consequences of growth in the main physical factors
characterizing global development over the period 1900
– 2100. The model was first conceived by Jay Forrester,
who described it in his book, World Dynamics. My team
wrote and published 3 additional books on the project,
The Limits to Growth, Toward Global Equilibrium, and
Dynamics of Growth in a Finite World.
Our focus was on:
Population
Nonrenewable resources
Industrial goods
Persistent pollution
Food
3
Our Main Contributions
• We did NOT prove that there are limits to
physical growth on a finite planet. We
assumed it.
• We did present information about a variety
of physical limits- water, soils, metals, and
other resources – in order to make the idea
of limits plausible.
4
Our Main Contributions
• We described the reasons growth of population
and industrial output is inherently exponential.
• We showed that exponential growth quickly rises
to any conceivable limit.
• Our computer scenarios demonstrated that
prevailing growth policies will lead to overshoot
and collapse, not asymptotic approach to limits.
• We suggested that changes in the policies could
lead to a sustainable state, if the changes dealt
with both cultural and technical issues and were
implemented soon.
5
Public discourse has difficulty with
subtle, conditional messages
6
The Limits to Growth presented 12 scenarios.
Four of them showed a relatively attractive global
equilibrium without any collapse.
However, it was written in the New York Times:
“It is no coincidence that all the simulations based
on the Meadows world model invariably end in collapse”
The Limits to Growth, Peter Passell, Marc Roberts, and
Leonard Ross, New York Times, April 2, 1972
7
We said: “These graphs are not exact predictions of
the values of the variables at any particular year in
the future. They are indications of the system’s
behavioral tendencies only.”
P. 93, The Limits to Growth
However a Google today search on “the Club of Rome
predicted” yields 13,700 hits, for example:
“In 1972 Limits to Growth, published by the Club of
Rome, predicted that the world will run out of gold
in 1981, mercury in 1985, tin by 1987, zinc by 1990,
petroleum by 1992, and copper, lead and natural
gas by 1993”
8
Growth advocates
change the justification
for their paradigm rather
than changing the
paradigm itself.
9
At every single stage – from its biased arrival to
its biased encoding, to organizing it around false
logic, to misremembering and then misrepresenting it to others, the mind continually acts to
distort information flow in favor of the usual
good goal of appearing better than one really is
Page 139, in The Folly of Fools; The Logic of
Deceit and Self-Deception in Human Life, Robert
Trivers, Basic Books, New York, NY 2011
10
Evolution of the Criticisms
1970s: There are no effective limits.
1980s: There are limits, but they are far away.
1990s: The limits are near, but technology and markets
can evade them easily.
2000s: Technology and markets do not always evade the
limits, but the best policy is still to pursue GNP
growth, so we will have more resources to solve
problems.
2010s: If we had been able to sustain economic growth,
we would not have had trouble with the limits.
11
Given enough energy, minerals might be reclaimed
from under the sea, or from seawater itself. A virtually
infinite source of energy, the controlled nuclear fusion
of hydrogen, will probably be tapped within 50 years.
“The Limits to Growth”, by Peter Passell, Marc Roberts
and Leonard Ross, New York Times, April 2, 1972.
12
“natural resources are not finite in any
meaningful economic sense, mind-boggling
though this assertion may be. The stocks of them
are not fixed but rather are expanding through
human ingenuity.”
p. 24, Julian L. Simon, The Ultimate Resource2,
Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 1996
13
We are following the
collapse scenario
From: Growing within Limits, Netherlands Environmental
Assessment Agency, October 2009, page 23.
14
The global system is now
far above its carrying capacity
15
GEI
Global Ecological Footprint: 1965 - 2007
1972
1965
2007
Year
16
17
18
Comparison of the Equilibrium and
Standard Scenarios; 2012 & 2020
Eq/Std 2012
Eq/Std 2020
Resources Population Pollution Food/Capita Ind./Capita
19
We act as if technological
change can substitute for
social change.
20
21
Four Factors Determine the Amount of
CO2 Emissions from Fossil Fuel Use
Social Factors
Technical Factors
22
Introductory Thought Experiment
• I am addicted to shopping. I have filled my house up
with enormous piles of stuff. There are also piles of
trash from all the wrappings.
• I no longer have room to move around comfortably
in the space of my own home. This is NOT
sustainable!
• I have just acquired a wonderful piece of technology
– a hammer.
• Can the hammer alone give me a sustainable living
space?
23
Of Course Not! I Would Also Need:
• GOALS: to create living space in my house and the
ability to spend time achieving that goal.
• MATERIALS: to build the new storage units.
• EXPERTISE: to design them.
• TOOLS: such as saws, tape measure, pencil.
• MONEY to buy the materials and hire help.
• TIME and SKILLS to construct the new units and
organize my stuff in them.
If any one of those elements is missing, the hammer
does not solve my problem.
And if I continue buying more and more stuff. Even
excellent shelves will not solve the problem.
24
Avoiding collapse will require
a longer time horizon than
our current system provides.
25
The Easy Oil is Gone
• Oil discoveries peaked in 1960s.
• Every year since 1984 oil consumption has
exceeded oil discovery.
• In 2009 discoveries were about 5 billion
barrels (bb); consumption was about 31 bb.
• Of the world’s 20 largest oil fields, 18 were
discovered 1917 - 1968; 2 in the 1970s; 0
since
26
Global Oil Production is Nearing
the End of its Plateau
• 1995 - 1999
• 2000 - 2004
• 2005 - 2009
+ 5.5%
+ 7.9 %
+ 0.4 %
- data from the International Statistical Supplement –
2010 edition, International Energy Agency, p. 18
• 2010 - 2030
– 50%*
* Projection from Crude Oil – The Supply Outlook,
Energy Watch Group, Feb 2008, p. 12.
27
There is Growing Awareness that
the Oil Peak Has Passed
“By 2012, surplus oil production capacity could
entirely disappear, and as early as 2015, the
shortfall in output could reach nearly 10 MBD.”
- U S Joint Forces Command, Joint Operating Environment Report, February, 2010
“Peak Oil Production May Already be Here,”
- Science, p. 1510, Vol 331, March 25, 2011
28
Oil Price Signals the Decline
29
Easy Problems
Better ------->
Action #1
Desired
Actual
Action #2
Now
Next Evaluation
Future
30
Difficult Problems
Action #1
Better ------->
Action #2
Desired
Actual
Now
Next Evaluation
Future
31
It is essential now to put
more emphasis on raising
the resilience of the system
32
Sustainability
Diversity and Interconnectivity
33
Sustainability
More Efficient
Diversity and Interconnectivity
34
Sustainability
Diversity and Interconnectivity
35
Sustainability
More
Resilient
Less Efficient
Diversity and Interconnectivity
36
It is essential now to start
changing our behavior
37