Next Great Depression? MIT researchers predict ‘global economic collapse’ by 2030

[Bill USA]

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/next-great-depression-mit-researchers-predict-global-economic-190352944.html

A new study from researchers at Jay W. Forrester's institute at MIT says that the world could suffer from "global economic collapse" and "precipitous population decline" if people continue to consume the world's resources at the current pace.

Smithsonian Magazine writes that Australian physicist Graham Turner says "the world is on track for disaster" and that current evidence coincides with a famous, and in some quarters, infamous, academic report from 1972 entitled, "The Limits to Growth."

Produced for a group called The Club of Rome, the study's researchers created a computing model to forecast different scenarios based on the current models of population growth and global resource consumption. The study also took into account different levels of agricultural productivity, birth control and environmental protection efforts. Twelve million copies of the report were produced and distributed in 37 different languages.

Most of the computer scenarios found population and economic growth continuing at a steady rate until about 2030. But without "drastic measures for environmental protection," the scenarios predict the likelihood of a population and economic crash.
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[Turbineguy]

1. Electing more republicans in 2012

could hasten this.

[Demeter]

2. Nah, they're just ignoring little bumps in the road

like what will happen in 2013....

[montanacowboy]

3. Take away the birth control pills

and it could happen in 4 years

"What we need is more people at the banquet table" (one of the last few Pope's said this, can't remember which one)

Man continues to outsmart himself and anyone with eyes to see knows this planet and it's resources are FINITE - DO THE DUMB FUCKS GET IT?

[GliderGuider]

4. Warning: Graphic image!

Thanks to joshcryer for pointing me to this fantastic illustration, the Graph 'o Doom...

[Dead_Parrot]

5. A picture paints a thousand words....

...and all of them are "Fuck."

[GliderGuider]

6. Like this?

No, I can't say that in public...

[Dead_Parrot]

8. That was only 770, anyway.

[joshcryer]

9. Thanks! I saw it posted in GD actually, had to share it with you.

Would've posted it here if I wasn't all distracted in other DUrama.

Fucking astounding image.

[dmallind]

13. some mighty thick lines there. Where are the axis values?

[GliderGuider]

14. As far as I know there have never been units on the Y axis.

That implies that the y values are normalized in some fashion.

[caraher]

16. Where is that graph from originally?

It's awfully hard to evaluate with no units, no sense of the methodology, and no idea of the data sources used.

[Kolesar]

17. I see *no* useful information in that graph ...eom

[GliderGuider]

18. It's the "Standard Run" from the original Limits to Growth report.

To really get it you have to have read the book. I strongly encourage anyone who hasn't read it to do so.

The point of this graph is that the 30 years of actual data from 1970 to 2000 matches the projection of the original run quite closely. That fact validates to some extent the technique they used in 1971, and the fact that we appear to be on the road to collapse instead of the more optimistic scenarios they also graphed in the original report.

Graham Turner's 42-page paper that reports on the 30-year update of the actuals is here: http://www.csiro.au/files/files/plje.pdf

At the end of that paper are three runs from the original LtG report, including this one.

[caraher]

19. Thanks!

I read it a very, very long time ago. The paper is helpful, thanks again!

[GliderGuider]

7. So what now?

The answer is that we need to spread new ways of thinking about the world. It's less important that we Do Something About It than that we think differently about it. Daniel Quinn put it this way in a 2005 speech to the Texas Bioneers Conference:

When people look into the future and give up hope, it's because they don't know what to DO about the bad things they see. I've heard it so often that I'm sure the very first letter I got when Ishmael came out said something like, "I loved your book, and I get what you're saying--but what are we supposed to DO?"

Of course he didn't really get what I was saying or he wouldn't have asked that question. This wasn't his fault. If people don't get what I'm saying and they're reasonably well-educated, reasonably intelligent, and older than, say fourteen, then it's my fault. I should have quoted something Thorstein Veblen said in The Theory of the Leisure Class a century ago. Here goes: "Social structure changes, develops, adapts itself to an altered situation ONLY through a change in the habits of thought of the individuals who make up the community."

It's important to note that he's not talking about the leaders of the community. He's saying that a society is transformed only when people in general start thinking a new way.

This is the deep value of being a vocal witness to the changes, and a vocal advocate for new ways of thinking about who we are as individuals, communities, a civilization and a species. It's much less important that we do THIS thing or behave THAT way, than that we shift our worldview, and model it so that others might be encouraged to shift in their turn.

[Egalitarian Thug]

10. Not taking issue with the model, rather with the reporter's lack of understanding.

If the article is accurate, this model does not take the activities of purely economic entities into account and seems to describe, not an economic, but a societal collapse.

[GliderGuider]

11. Population to peak at 8 billion?

That's what the graph linked in #4 implies - a peak in world population at 8 billion in 2030.

I've been saying something similar for a while now. The combined effects of oil prices, climate change shifting rainfall patterns, soil and aquifer depletion, and a global economic collapse will team up to limit the world's absolute food supply and raise the price of food substantially. This will cause a drop in global fertility rates as well as a reduction of life expectancy in vulnerable areas.

It's time to start practicing your gardening.

[dmallind]

12. Well eventually the Malthusians have to be right

They've never actually let up since .....well Malthus obviously, and always been wrong so far but yes there is undoubtedly some limit to resource usage which will outstrip either carrying capacity or ability of substitutes and alternatives to keep up. However since finding that point would require Mystic Meg level insights into changes in every known earth science as well as politics, sociology and economics, I doubt that we can pick which one of the doomer predictions is going to get the timing right. One certainly will, because I AM possessed of good enough Mystic Meg sight into doom prophecies to predict they are not going to stop.

[GliderGuider]

15. I think of our situation not as specifically Malthusian

It's more of a "Liebig's Law of the Minimum" situation. The first limiting factor we encounter (out of a whole bunch) stops our growth. It's not necessarily food, but that and economic collapse seem the likeliest candidates to me.