Re: Limits to Growth

Some blog followers might be interested in a discussion-list post “Re: Limits to Growth” [Hake (2011)].

The abstract reads:

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ABSTRACT: SClistserv’s Michael Beverley (2011) in his post “Limits to Growth” wrote (paraphrasing) “Does anyone recall a discussion concerning the book ‘Limits to Growth’ on the listserve?”

Rick Kubina responded by giving references to Meadows et al. (1972, 2004) and to the UTube video of Albert Bartlett's popular discussion of “Arithmetic, Population, and Energy” at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-QA2rkpBSY - as of 12 August 2011 10:24-0700 the video had been observed 2,894,868 times!

I give 8 references to the work of Donella and Dennis Meadows [including Meadows et al. (1972, 2004)] that were derived from:

(a) “Over Two-Hundred Annotated References on Systems Thinking” [Hake (2009a) at http://bit.ly/9gZdXU ];

(b) “Misconceptions in the Population/Energy Debate #2” [Hake (2009b) at http://bit.ly/qeG9bs]; and

(c) 10 posts of mine containing the word “Meadows” on the OPEN! AERA-L archives at http://bit.ly/cuxhel .

I then contrast the rosy outlook on the future of SClistserv’s Michael Lamport Commons (2011) of the Harvard Medical School with the less sanguine predictions of Dennis Meadows – see the signature quote.
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To access the complete 17 kB post please click on http://bit.ly/oO3oMk .


Richard Hake, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Indiana University
Honorary Member, Curmudgeon Lodge of Deventer, The Netherlands
President, PEdants for Definitive Academic References
which Recognize the Invention of the Internet (PEDARRII)

rrhake@earthlink.net
http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake
http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~sdi
http://HakesEdStuff.blogspot.com
http://iub.academia.edu/RichardHake

“The global society, and particularly the US, is like a small boatload of people about to enter a long stretch of white water and rapids. For the foreseeable future we will be totally preoccupied with immediate problems and far too distracted to develop and implement a rational long term plan. Eventually, after climate change, fossil fuel depletion, and several other manifestations of the growth limits have produced some new sort of semi stable state, with a MUCH lower population and material standard of living, our species will hopefully be able to start identifying, choosing, and pursuing its longer term options. I do not expect to be alive when that time comes.”
Dennis Meadows, private communication of 17 November
2009 to R.R. Hake, quoted by permission.


REFERENCES [URL’s shortened by http://bit.ly/ and accessed on 12 August 2011.]
Hake, R.R. 2011. “Re: Limits to Growth,” online on the OPEN! AERA-L archives at http://bit.ly/oO3oMk . Post of 12 Aug 2011 11:43:23-0700 to AERA-L and Net-Gold. The abstract and link to the complete post are being transmitted to various discussion lists and are also on my blog "Hake'sEdStuff" at with a provision for comments.

Herman Daly's Ecological Economist View Contrasted with the Traditional Economist View of Lawrence Summers and the World Bank

Some blog followers might be interested in a recent post of the above title. The abstract reads:

ABSTRACT: In a post “Energy Efficiency, the Jevons Paradox, and the Elephant in the Room: Overpopulation #3,” I contested Podolfsky's claim that my earlier post on that subject treated complex problems ”in terms of simple ideas and, possibly, a single equation exp^t.”

Instead my post merely expressed doubt that enlightened energy efficiency policy by itself could tame the elephant in the room - overpopulation - and did not ignore the Podolfsky's "energy-use gorilla."

Podolfsky responded that ”to call overpopulation THE elephant is at best misleading, and at worst distracting from other very important issues.”

Johnson, responding to all the above, asked if people might agree with this viewpoint:

“Even though population numbers rarely follow pure exponential behavior for very long, they have the tendency towards exponential growth, and the same goes for energy consumption by technological societies in the absence of limitations on energy usage, as clearly shown in Limits to Growth [Meadows et al. (1972)].”

I agree with Johnson's viewpoint, but Lawrence Summers [current Director of the White House's National Economic Council and former chief economist at the World Bank] probably does not, having expressed the opinion that Meadows et al. (1992)] was “worthless,” and that their (and Daly's) diagram of the economic system as part of and within the ecosystem was “not the right way to look at it.”

Summers' and the World Bank's viewpoint is contrasted with that of Daly's in passages quoted at length from pages 4-10 of the “Introduction” of Beyond Growth [Daly (1997].

To access the complete 44 kB post please click on http://tinyurl.com/yj2pmqp.

REFERENCES

Hake, R.R. 2009. “Energy Efficiency, the Jevons Paradox, and the Elephant in the Room: Overpopulation #4,” online on the OPEN! AERA-L archives at http://tinyurl.com/yj2pmqp. Post of 20 Oct 2009 14:25:15 -0700 to AERA-L, Net-Gold, PhysLrnR, & Physoc.