Book Review For "LIMITS TO GROWTH: 30-YEAR UPDATE"
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Reviewer: Yicong Yang
Authors of the book: Donella Meadow, Jorgen Randers, Dennis Meadows
Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing Company
Publication date: May, 2004
At the very beginning, I would like to comment on this book with one sentence - "It's a game of idealism, but full of wisdom."
Introduction
The "Limits to Growth: 30-year update" is the third edition of the Limits to Growth book series. The research was initiated in 1972, when four young scientists at MIT wrote "The Limits to Growth" based on the scenarios produced by the World3 computer model. This book has become the best-seller all over the world. In 1992, they published the revised edition, Beyond the Limits, which discussed the world development in the last twenty years. And in 2004, the 30-year update come to the world. In this latest version, they not only restate the 1972 argument in a more understandable way and summarized data in the past thirty years, but also strived to emphasis the significance of political support.
Summary of the Contents
The eight chapters in this book articulately introduced the overshoot, the exponential growth, the limits and the World3 computer model. The authors explained the scenarios according to the figures produced by the World3 computer model. In the last three chapter, the authors discussed the relationship between technology, market and overshoot, addressed concept of transitions to a sustainable system, and introduced tools for the transition to sustainability.
Some Key Concepts
It is common for a reader to have some questions before reading this book. What is the limits exactly? How everything grow? What is overshoot and what's the result of overshoot? We can understand some key concept from this book.
The limits are always related to stream flows of material and energy. And resources are reflections of limits - both renewable and nonrenewable resources have their limits. For example, land and water are limits on food production.
Population and industrial growth is two major growth areas, and they are exponential. When the growth goes too far and can no longer keep the system within its limits, the overshoot will occur. Overshoot will subsequently cause a growth decline in societal welfare, and a collapse will happen at the end to growth. The end to growth can also occur as a smooth adaptation of the human footprint to the carrying capacity of the globe. (Meadows et al., 2004, p. xi)
The authors use the system dynamics method with World3, to presents ten different scenarios for the future, through the year 2100. System dynamics is a method for studying the world that deals with understanding how complex systems change over time.(Meadows et al., 1972) Their purpose is not to predict the future - it is neither unnecessary nor impossible, but to simply present a range of alternative scenarios. From multiple figures we can see that the year 2030 is a turning point for population growth, and the year 2040 is a turning point for industrial growth. After these points, the industrial will begin to decline, and the consequently lack of food and health services will increase death rate thus cause the population decline. It is also presented that after the declination, there will be a stable population living in a better world - with high technology, low pollution, and fine welfare.
A Few Thoughts
We cannot predict the future exactly since the natural, social, political changes are complex. But the 30 years history has testified that their original conclusion was partly correct. The growth in the real world has a high consistency with the scenarios of the World3 model. In such a peaceful era, this model may be useful - regardless of wars, natural disasters, accidents, ethnic strife, the model appears to be ideal and optimistic. And some symptoms of the result of overshoot has occur. Economy stops growing and reverses abruptly in some developed countries in the early 21st century. The movie "2012" predicted that the end of the world will happen a couple of weeks later and has caused panics of many people all over the world. In fact, people has predicted of the end of the world for many times in the history. The end of the world is exaggerated, but the economic and social welfare decline is the reality. And this is more likely to be a cycle that tentatively will last for centuries. The Limits to Growth simulates the game scenario for this cycle.
It is noticeable that the authors emphasis the significance of public policy in the latest book. They point out that technologies and markets developed by society to achieve short-term goals may destroy the environment. This is correct. But, is good public policy really efficient to control the growth going beyond the limit? It seems that policy does not make sense for the world system. China is a good example. China has occupied one fifth of the world population. The birth control policy was initiated in 1980s, according to the population economy theories. This policy was argued by a lot of global media for increasing social problems and against human rights, but the good effect is that the exponential growth of population has been efficiently controlled, the population quality has increased, and social welfare has improved in the past 30 years. Moreover, China's economy is still growing fast and stably in the global economy decline atmosphere these years. The birth control policy is undoubtedly of great significance for China's economy and social welfare. It is interesting that there is a overlapping on the time period of China's population policy and World3 model. We can conclude that the policy may be effective in a certain geographical area, but could make little difference in the global environment. A strong and wise policy may also lead another kind of sacrifice - sometimes the government has to persuade people to change a lifestyle. The nation has to trade off between some negative aspects. I do agree that the policy has a potential to lead humanity on the correct path, but this will be an arduous task. More detailed research and discussion on the relationship between policy and overshoot, is my expectation to the next book of the Limits to Growth series.
(December 7th, 2012)
Authors of the book: Donella Meadow, Jorgen Randers, Dennis Meadows
Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing Company
Publication date: May, 2004
At the very beginning, I would like to comment on this book with one sentence - "It's a game of idealism, but full of wisdom."
Introduction
The "Limits to Growth: 30-year update" is the third edition of the Limits to Growth book series. The research was initiated in 1972, when four young scientists at MIT wrote "The Limits to Growth" based on the scenarios produced by the World3 computer model. This book has become the best-seller all over the world. In 1992, they published the revised edition, Beyond the Limits, which discussed the world development in the last twenty years. And in 2004, the 30-year update come to the world. In this latest version, they not only restate the 1972 argument in a more understandable way and summarized data in the past thirty years, but also strived to emphasis the significance of political support.
Summary of the Contents
The eight chapters in this book articulately introduced the overshoot, the exponential growth, the limits and the World3 computer model. The authors explained the scenarios according to the figures produced by the World3 computer model. In the last three chapter, the authors discussed the relationship between technology, market and overshoot, addressed concept of transitions to a sustainable system, and introduced tools for the transition to sustainability.
Some Key Concepts
It is common for a reader to have some questions before reading this book. What is the limits exactly? How everything grow? What is overshoot and what's the result of overshoot? We can understand some key concept from this book.
The limits are always related to stream flows of material and energy. And resources are reflections of limits - both renewable and nonrenewable resources have their limits. For example, land and water are limits on food production.
Population and industrial growth is two major growth areas, and they are exponential. When the growth goes too far and can no longer keep the system within its limits, the overshoot will occur. Overshoot will subsequently cause a growth decline in societal welfare, and a collapse will happen at the end to growth. The end to growth can also occur as a smooth adaptation of the human footprint to the carrying capacity of the globe. (Meadows et al., 2004, p. xi)
The authors use the system dynamics method with World3, to presents ten different scenarios for the future, through the year 2100. System dynamics is a method for studying the world that deals with understanding how complex systems change over time.(Meadows et al., 1972) Their purpose is not to predict the future - it is neither unnecessary nor impossible, but to simply present a range of alternative scenarios. From multiple figures we can see that the year 2030 is a turning point for population growth, and the year 2040 is a turning point for industrial growth. After these points, the industrial will begin to decline, and the consequently lack of food and health services will increase death rate thus cause the population decline. It is also presented that after the declination, there will be a stable population living in a better world - with high technology, low pollution, and fine welfare.
A Few Thoughts
We cannot predict the future exactly since the natural, social, political changes are complex. But the 30 years history has testified that their original conclusion was partly correct. The growth in the real world has a high consistency with the scenarios of the World3 model. In such a peaceful era, this model may be useful - regardless of wars, natural disasters, accidents, ethnic strife, the model appears to be ideal and optimistic. And some symptoms of the result of overshoot has occur. Economy stops growing and reverses abruptly in some developed countries in the early 21st century. The movie "2012" predicted that the end of the world will happen a couple of weeks later and has caused panics of many people all over the world. In fact, people has predicted of the end of the world for many times in the history. The end of the world is exaggerated, but the economic and social welfare decline is the reality. And this is more likely to be a cycle that tentatively will last for centuries. The Limits to Growth simulates the game scenario for this cycle.
It is noticeable that the authors emphasis the significance of public policy in the latest book. They point out that technologies and markets developed by society to achieve short-term goals may destroy the environment. This is correct. But, is good public policy really efficient to control the growth going beyond the limit? It seems that policy does not make sense for the world system. China is a good example. China has occupied one fifth of the world population. The birth control policy was initiated in 1980s, according to the population economy theories. This policy was argued by a lot of global media for increasing social problems and against human rights, but the good effect is that the exponential growth of population has been efficiently controlled, the population quality has increased, and social welfare has improved in the past 30 years. Moreover, China's economy is still growing fast and stably in the global economy decline atmosphere these years. The birth control policy is undoubtedly of great significance for China's economy and social welfare. It is interesting that there is a overlapping on the time period of China's population policy and World3 model. We can conclude that the policy may be effective in a certain geographical area, but could make little difference in the global environment. A strong and wise policy may also lead another kind of sacrifice - sometimes the government has to persuade people to change a lifestyle. The nation has to trade off between some negative aspects. I do agree that the policy has a potential to lead humanity on the correct path, but this will be an arduous task. More detailed research and discussion on the relationship between policy and overshoot, is my expectation to the next book of the Limits to Growth series.
(December 7th, 2012)
- 作者: Donella H. Meadows / Jorgen Randers / Dennis L. Meadows
- 出版: Chelsea Green Publishing
- 定价: CAD 29.50
- 装帧: Paperback
- 页数: 338
- 时间: 2004-06-28