Planetary boundaries, Limits to Growth and the climate debate

6 November 2013, 2.05pm AEST
Jason Alexandra
Honorary Fellow at Charles Darwin University

There are many reasons mining interests might dismiss a publication which proposes planetary limits to exploitation. Bert Kaufman

Do the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the Club of Rome deserve a reputation as modern Chicken Littles who claimed repeatedly that the sky is falling? According to Hugh Morgan - former mining executive and president of climate sceptic organisation the Lavoisier Group - they do.

The Australian Newspaper reported Morgan as saying that the IPCC will be “remembered in the same way as the Club of Rome for its ‘Chicken Little’ approach”.

This deserves critical examination. Morgan’s claim is eminently debatable, if not highly dubious, for a number of reasons.



After four decades, the Club of Rome’s Limits to Growth actually stands up well to scrutiny. A modern version of “Chicken Little” hysteria it was not.

Vilified by countless critics, including Morgan, this innovative study provides a credible example of complex system modelling. Its scenarios highlight the intricate interdependencies between the economy and Earth’s resources.

This pioneering report remains useful; in fact, researchers have found “its conclusions are still surprisingly valid … it is time to revive the derailed discussion about economic growth and the environment.”

It is worth emphasising that the published study itself is quite different to the way it is described in criticism. Outspoken critics demonised it as simplistic doom mongering. According to CSIRO, sustained, ill-informed attacks on the study claimed falsely “that The Limits to Growth predicted resources would be depleted and the world system would collapse by the end of the 20th Century”. The Australian perpetuates the mythology.

In this way, analysis of Limits to Growth may be a useful progenitor to the intense criticisms levelled at the IPCC. They too challenge powerful vested interests, including some in the mining and energy sectors.

Despite persistent attempts to discredit the study, retrospective analyses have found the scenarios remarkably accurate. While some analyses are from the report’s authors independent analysis by CSIRO compared 30 years of reality with the model runs, and found the “business as usual” scenario matches pretty closley with what has occurred.

Graham Turner at CSRIO found the “observed historical data for 1970–2000 most closely matches … the ‘standard run’ scenario” and given the complexity of global feedbacks “it is instructive that the historical data compares so favorably with the model output.”

Finally, the book has had lasting influence. More than 12 million copies have sold in over 30 languages. Interest in the study is sustained because it is a forebear to the global consensus on sustainable development. Contemporary work on planetary boundaries and negotiating a “safe operating space for humanity” builds on its intellectual foundations.

Used on the cover of Limits to Growth, this first photo of Earth from space inspired people to think about our planet’s limits. NASA

The Limits to Growth did not attempt to make accurate predictions. It aimed to explore system behaviour when growth in human populations and resource use interacted.

Five scenarios were generated based on computer simulations. They explored interactions between:

•     population
•     food production
•     industrial production
•     pollution
•     natural resources depletion.

The Australian claims that “The Club of Rome used computer modelling to warn that the world would run out of commodities, including gold, mercury, silver, tin, zinc, petroleum, copper, lead, oil and natural gas, within 30 years.”

The Limits to Growth never made this claim. According to Turner’s CSIRO review, critics selectively use this claim of imminent resource depletion, but the depletion claims were falsely attributed to the study in a New York Times Sunday Book Review article. The Limits to Growth mentions this depletion, but as a statement made by the US Bureau of Mines, not something they derived from their analysis.

[continued ...]

Well, there certainly are limits, in fact there are limits for everything.

The following are certainly right up there now       
        population
        food production
        industrial production
        pollution
        natural resources depletion

And, we will start seeing a little more clarity, from here on in, on where some of these Limitations will send the future of Humanity!

# wrote on Nov 7^th, 2013 at 8:37pm:


Always the way!

Particularly on Political lines, some 70-80% of people are pretty much "locked in" to whatever their Liberal or Labor party says.