'Limits to Growth' Author Dennis Meadows 'Humanity Is Still on the Way to Destroying Itself'

[xchrom]

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/limits-to-growth-author-dennis-meadows-says-that-crisis-is-approaching-a-871570.html

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Professor Meadows, 40 years ago you published "The Limits to Growth" together with your wife and colleagues, a book that made you the intellectual father of the environmental movement. The core message of the book remains valid today: Humanity is ruthlessly exploiting global resources and is on the way to destroying itself. Do you believe that the ultimate collapse of our economic system can still be avoided?

Meadows: The problem that faces our societies is that we have developed industries and policies that were appropriate at a certain moment, but now start to reduce human welfare, like for example the oil and car industry. Their political and financial power is so great and they can prevent change. It is my expectation that they will succeed. This means that we are going to evolve through crisis, not through proactive change.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Several central forecasts you made in the book have come true, the exponential growth of the world's population, for example, and widespread environmental destruction. Your prediction regarding economic growth, namely that it would ultimately cease and the global economy would collapse, has not yet come to pass.

Meadows: The fact that the collapse hasn't occurred so far doesn't mean it won't take place in the future. There is no doubt that the world is changing, and we will have to go along with it. There are two ways to do that: One is, you see the necessity of change ahead of time and you make the change, and the second is that you don't and are finally forced to do it anyway. Let's say that you're driving a car inside a factory building. There are two ways to stop: Either you put on the brakes or you keep going and hit the wall. But stop you will, because the building is finite. And the same holds true for Earth's resources.

[Ghost Dog]

1. "But on the global problems, we will make no progress."

... Meadows: You see, there are two kinds of big problems. One I call universal problems, the other I call global problems. They both affect everybody. The difference is: Universal problems can be solved by small groups of people because they don't have to wait for others. You can clean up the air in Hanover without having to wait for Beijing or Mexico City to do the same. Global problems, however, cannot be solved in a single place. There's no way Hanover can solve climate change or stop the spread of nuclear weapons. For that to happen, people in China, the US and Russia must also do something. But on the global problems, we will make no progress.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Are you not underestimating people and the reaction when our backs are to the wall? Australian businessman and environmentalist Paul Gilding, for example, argues in his book "The Great Disruption" that while a crisis is coming, humanity will mobilize to fight it as seen during times of war.

Meadows: He is right. But will it succeed? It could, if the delays were very short. But unfortunately, they are not. In climate change, for example, the delays are very long. Even if we were to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions to zero today, warming would still continue for centuries. The same is true for soil, which we are destroying globally. Recovery can take centuries...

[NoOneMan]

2. And after Pearl Harbor was bombed, we had time to do something effective about that conflict

It wasn't like a big crippling nuke dumped in the heartland that incapacitated the nation. You know what might be similar to a big nuke in the heartland: a massive drought in the heartland.

Another interesting angle is that we could do something about a war--namely, burn oil and create things. Is burning oil and creating things the right approach to climate change?

Further, what do humans like doing more than killing people that don't look like them? Here, we might have to ask people to stop driving so damn much.

Meadows is spot on. But not only aren't the delays too long, the "Pearl Harbor" unifying event hasn't yet happened, and when it will, it will vastly impact our ability to do anything in my opinion.

[Speck Tater]

3. Having not read it for 25 or 30 years I just got the Kindle edition of "Earth Abides"

to curl up with by the fireplace and read.

Call it "psychological preparation".