Environmental Crises and Limits to Growth Professor Emeritus Dennis Meadows University of New Hampshire, USA

Session 2 | First Presentation Environmental Crises and Limits to Growth Professor Emeritus Dennis Meadows University of New Hampshire, USA

thank the conference organizers for inviting me to participate in this conference. It has given me the opportunity and incentive to I think further about an issue that has been my lifelong preoccupa- tion: the importance of unifying our understanding of the different scientificdisciplines. During forty years as a professor, I was on the faculty of three different universities. At the first, I was a member of the business faculty; at the second, my title was Professor of Engineering; and at the third university, I was a tenured professor in the social sciences. I was assigned three different academic labels, although I was always involved in similar efforts. Unfortunately, universities try to organize knowledge by disciplines rather than by problems. Because they did not understand the unity of science, each of the three schools had to fit me into one of their traditional categories. This made it much more difficult to carry out the sorts of collaborations needed to address actual problems. Here I will discuss one of those problems. While thinking about the topic “Environmental Crises and the Limits to Growth,” I was reminded of my father. Some years ago, he became very sick, and we hired many specialized doctors to treat him. When my father had a high fever, we found a specialist who could reduce the fever. When he started to get headaches, we found a different specialist who prescribed pain killers. When he began having trouble eating, we found a third specialist who recommended changes in his diet. Each specialist achieved the results he sought. But none of them prevented my father from dying. Why? He died because the fever, headache, and stomach problems were not at the root of his illness — they were merely symptoms. My father had can- 82 Environmental Crises and Limits to Growth cer, and he died because we focused on the symptoms of the disease, not on the actual problem, the cancer. Cancer is the uncontrolled growth of cells. The globe’s environmental crises today are being created by cancers: uncontrolled growth in population and uncontrolled growth in industrial output. Climate change, depletion of groundwater, pollution of the air, erosion of soils, and many more of the emerging global environmental crises are symptoms. They can and are being addressed by specialists. But if humanity does not recognize that the underlying problem is growth, the system will eventually die. One does not come to understand this problem through specialized science. It takes an understanding of the total system, involving unification of thesciences. In the early 1970s, as a professor at the MIT management school, I assembled a team of sixteen scientists to study and understand the growth of the human population and industrial production around the globe — their causes and possible consequences. We built a computer model to integrate relevant theories and data related to physi- cal growth from many different specialties, such as demography and economics. By unifying these sciences, we created a single image of the globe: a global computer model named World3. One cannot make accurate predictions about the future with even the best conceivable model. But a good model can be the basis for providing useful portraits about different possible future evolu- tions of important variables. We call those portraits, “scenarios.” In our research we used World3 to generate a variety of scenarios that helped us understand the likely future implications of different devel- opments in society, economy, technology, and the environment. Below is a summary of the conclusions published in our 1972 report, The Limits to Growth. It is followed by a summary of the results of recent research conducted by others in Australia and the Netherlands, to assess the accuracy of our scenarios. I will portray some data about the environmental crises we now face. To deal more effectively with these crises, we will need to look across disciplines, using a vocabulary that helps unify the relevant sciences. Thus I will suggest some changes in the way we think and talk about these crises. To achieve any type of attractive future for our global society, we will need a new perspective and a new vocabulary. Professor Dennis Meadows 83

I will conclude by suggesting some ways of talking about environmental crises that can be helpful for developing more successful actions in the future. In our 1972 book, we wrote, “If the present growth trends in world population, industrialization, pollution, food production, and resource depletion continue unchanged, the limits to growth on this planet will be reached sometime within the next one hundred years.” Figure 1 is the so-called standard or dominant 200-year scenario produced by our model1. The left side portrays the world in 1900, and the right side shows possible values for important variables in 2100. Our model calculated possible values for several hundred different global 1 The following citation is from the third edition of our 1972 report. It gives the same results as the first edition. I cite it here because the first edition is no longer in print. Meadows, D.H., et. al., Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update, Chelsea Green, VT, 2004, page 173. Figure 1 A Collapse Scenario

Original Today Report

Industrial Output

Population Pollution Pollution Curve Resources Food

5 84 Environmental Crises and Limits to Growth

factors. The main variables, shown in Figure 1, were industrial output, population, persistent pollution, resources, and food. When we published the book in 1972, the world was at the stage portrayed by the vertical red line, with a great deal of growth left ahead. We anticipated no immediate problems. Currently, the world is at the stage indicated by the vertical black line. Global society is just starting to experience the consequences of serious reductions in growth. We ran our model under many different assumptions. Some of them produced scenarios that suggested society could possibly produce different futures, avoiding the worst consequences of those limits. But one could not do this with the so-called “hard technologies” alone. New devices, new equipment, and new energy sources would not be enough to change these results. In 1972, we concluded that if one could quit emphasizing growth and start working on the soft technology side, one could produce a much more attractive future. This is called a “sustainability scenario,”

Figure 2 A Sustainability Scenario

Industrial Output Food

Population Resources

Pollution

6 Professor Dennis Meadows 85

shown in Figure 22. In this projection, the human population is more or less stabilized, the standard of living is quite high, certainly above the average of what you see in Korea today — maybe something like France, not super-wealthy but totally acceptable. However, one had to start making the changes very quickly. Some leaders understood our message. For example, Sicco Man- sholt, the fourth president of the European Commission (1972–1973) and an author of key ideas leading to the European Union, said, “We do not need growth. Without growth per capita, that means growth in material consumption, we can better survive.” Jimmy Carter, president of the United States from 1977 to 1981, said, “We have learned that more is not necessarily better, that even our great nation has rec- ognized its limits.” But most people paid no attention to these ideas and continued to pursue the same pro-growth policies. Thus there has been increasing growth until today, and the global system appears to have increased far beyond its sustainable limits. This issue of limits and sustainability is a very difficult one, philo- sophically, morally, and technically. One useful approach to the issue has been carried out by the Swiss scientist Mathis Wackernagel, who defined the concept of the global ecological footprint and used it to discuss the ability of the globe to sustain the human population. His numerical calculations from 1960 up to the present suggest that in 1960, the population and industrial output were still below the capacity of the earth to support an industrial civilization. As there were no successful efforts to slow the population and industrial growth, the annual demands of the human population for energy, resources, food, water and related resources continued to increase. Today, Wacker- nagel suggests that global society has expanded to almost twice the sustainable capacity of the planet. Recently, the CSIRO (Commonwealth Science and Industrial Research Organization), which is the national research and scientific organization in Australia, did a study comparing two of our scenarios with the recent evolution of global data. They compared our scenarios for sustainable development and for collapse against the recent empir- ical data. Their results were presented in a recent report by the Dutch

2 Op. cit, page 245. 86 Environmental Crises and Limits to Growth

Figure 3

9 national environmental organization. That Dutch illustration (Figure 3) shows that global society is following the overshoot scenario. This is not a big surprise. Much of the media currently presents daily evidence of these problems. Here I will mention some of that evidence, not to prove anything but to illustrate that this issue is now widespread across all aspects of the environment. Petroleum remains the overwhelmingly dominant energy source for our society. Every single year since 1984, with a small exception, the world has used more oil than it has discovered. Society is now drawing down the big discoveries from back in the 1950s and 1960s, and the major oil producers do not expect such large discoveries anymore. For this reason, energy has become more expensive. The United States built its industrial society with oil, which once cost three dollars a barrel. Now it is fifty or sixty dollars per barrel. One cannot build a major industrial society with energy that expensive. Depletion is an obvious issue not just for oil. There is evidence Professor Dennis Meadows 87 for it in the data for copper, which are characteristic of many metals. In 1900, the average grade of copper ore mined around the world was about 4%; since then it has fallen to about 1% today. The purity, or concentration, of the metals that industry is working with is falling inescapably lower and lower. More dilute ores require more energy to refine them, morewaste is generated in mining them, and so forth. This relation is demonstrated by data on the amount of energy required to produce gold. In 2005, about 17 gallons of diesel fuel were needed to produce an ounce of gold. By 2015, that figure had risen to 32 gallons. Gold production has more or less stabilized; the industry is near the peak in gold production. Yet, energy use continues to increase. One trend familiar to almost everyone is growth in the concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere. In 1972, the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere was 1.5 parts per million (ppm). Now it’s up more than double that, at 3.3 ppm. In 1972, the concentration of CO2 was growing at 1.5 ppm/year; it is now growing at 3.05 ppm/year. The rate of increase has doubled since we wrote our first book. As a result, the globe is starting to experience climate change, which in turn has many consequences, including, for example, loss of the Arctic ice cap. Anyone in this room could cite dozens more examples illustrat- ing declining resources and rising pollution. Across the globe, on all continents, we are beginning to see signs of extreme stress. We are over the limits, and we need to respond quickly. When observing the overshoot curves in Figure 1, one might rea- sonably imagine that the period of greatest difficulty will be when the curves are going back down. That would not be correct. The period of greatest difficulty is before the peak. Growth will stop only when the negative forces blocking it equal the positive forces that encourage it. That is simple dynamics. Positive pressures are obviously strongest during the growth phase, not during the decline phase. We are now in a period when the pressures against growth are increasing very quickly. In my lectures fifteen years ago, I was already informing audi- ences, “Over the next twenty years, you will see more important changes globally in the economy, in the environment, in politics, than you have seen during the last hundred years.” Consider the phenome- nal changes that have occurred in Korea, from the Joseon period until now. Yet they are small compared to what we will see over the next 88 Environmental Crises and Limits to Growth

twenty years. We are now in the period of greatest change and greatest stress. Now is the time we need to start formulating our responses. What can we do? A useful definition of insanity, a definition often attributed to Ein- stein, is that it is doing the same thing you have done in the past with the expectation that you will get different results. Considering what we are currently doing to solve environmental crises, one may conclude that we are trying to solve those problems by relying on the same systems that caused them in the first place. Growth caused these problems. How do we propose to solve them? With more growth. The economic system caused us to focus on the short term. How are we going to solve that? By focusing even more on the short term. That has not worked, and it will not work. We need to do something very different. We need to look at a problem through the words and phrases we use to describe it. They form our image. They help us communicate with others. The vocabulary we have been using does not work. Take “sustainable development,” for example. Development is not sustainable by its very nature. The pursuit of sustainable development is simply a fool’s errand — we need a different understanding. I will propose three different dichotomies. My purpose is to give the ICUS discussants a vocabulary for thinking about global environmental problems and priorities. In the first dichotomy, I differentiate between universal and global problems. The first tend to be linear, the second tend to be quite nonlinear. In the second, I will discuss soft technology and hard technology. In the third, I will differentiate between seeking sustainability and pursuing resilience. Consider first the dichotomy between universal and global problems. There are many problems affecting the people of the world. They include climate change, water pollution, atmospheric emissions, the gap between the rich and the poor, and so forth. Some of them are universal and some are global. The difference is that universal problems can be solved in one location without waiting for others to agree. For example, one can work on the air pollution in Seoul without waiting for Beijing, New York, or London to agree on the best method. Most often, air pollution is a universal problem. Also, water pollution, soil erosion, and the loss of forests tend to be universal problems. Global problems, in contrast, can be solved only if there is global cooperation. For exam- Professor Dennis Meadows 89 ple, climate change is a global problem. There is nothing one can do in Korea that will eliminate or significantly reduce the problem of global climate change, unless people in Beijing, London, New York, Chicago, and Moscow also agree and begin taking effective measures. With universal problems, you can take action here and pay the costs now, and the benefits will come here and soon. Politically and economically, universal problems are quite attractive. Actually, we don’t have many universal problems because the current political and economic systems are quite effective in solving them. With global problems, you pay here and now for the solution, but the benefits come much later and someplace else. The idea of paying here and now for someone else to get the benefits later and far away is not politically attractive. It does not attract much investment capital. So global problems are not being solved. We have not been solving problems such as climate change, the proliferation of nuclear weapons, the drug problem, or deforestation, or any of the other global problems. It is useful to differentiate between these two. By initially focusing efforts on solving universal problems, you can get started soon, see quick results, and build up confidence in learning. With that, you can move on to global problems. If you immediately start with Figure 4 Linear Results

Action #1

Actual Desired ------> Better Better

Action #2

Now Future Next Evaluation 19 90 Environmental Crises and Limits to Growth global problems, you will be frustrated and discouraged. This is illustrated simply in Figure 4. The red dot represents poor results now, and the green dot represents excellent results later. The goal is to find an action that will take us from the red dot to the green one. This is a very general representation that could be used to portray many goals, such as losing weight, increasing energy efficiency, raising personal savings, or achieving a loving and peaceful relationship with someone. Assume there are two different kinds of actions we could take, shown in the figure as Action #1 and Action #2. Also, assume there will be an intermediate point in time for evaluating the results, shown as a vertical red line in the figure. That point in time could represent the next time you step on a scale that shows body weight, or the next time you calculate a nation’s automobile fleet fuel efficiency, or the next time you receive a bank statement showing the balance in your savings account. Which of the two types of actions would people tend to choose? Everyone would prefer to take Action #1. It makes the actor look better in the short term, and it solves the problem in the long term. There is, however, a different kind of problem, shown in Figure 5. The red and green dots have the same meaning, and there are again two Figure 5 Nonlinear Results

Action #1 Action #2

Desired Actual ------> Better Better

Now Future Next Evaluation 20 Professor Dennis Meadows 91

possible courses of action. However, in this case, the action that appears most successful at the next evaluation makes the problem worse over the long term, and the action that appears unsuccessful at the next evaluation eventually solves the problem. Which of these two actions would people tend to choose? Figure 6 Unfortunately, most will choose Action #1. CO2 = Population X Units A European Union Consumed/Person X Energy/Unit X leader recently charac- Fraction of Energy from Fossil terized the perspective of most politicians by saying, “We know what to do, but we don’t know how to get reelected if we do it.” Unfortu- nately, most politicians believe it is better21 for them to win their next election than it is for them to do the right thing, which might cause them to lose. The market system also has a preference for whatever looks better in the short term. Unfortunately, the solutions to most global problems look worse in the short term but provide real benefits in the long term. Solutions to climate change, energy depletion, nuclear proliferation, and related problems are in this category. The second dichotomy is between hard and soft technologies. Consider climate change as an example. There are many greenhouse gases, of which CO2 illustrates the point. As shown in Figure 6, CO2 emissions are determined by the product of four different factors: (1) the number of people, (2) the number of units consumed per person, (3) the energy required for each unit to be produced and operated, and (4) the fraction of that energy derived from fossil fuels. Multiplica- tion of those four factors together gives the amount of CO2 generation. There are widespread efforts to reduce CO2 emissions, but they are focused on hard technologies. Consider the climate control efforts that emerged from conferences in Kyoto and Paris. They emphasize efforts to reduce the amount of energy per unit. For example, they strive for more fuel-efficient cars, promote the use of bicycles instead of cars, raise standards for building insulation, replace incandescent light bulbs with fluorescent ones, and so forth. They also push toward using solar energy. They ignore policies to reduce population growth and reject efforts to lower the standard of living. Measures to pro- 92 Environmental Crises and Limits to Growth mote energy efficiency andrenewable energy are desirable. However, we also need to work on the soft side, that is, to take the psychologi- cal, cultural, and social measures that will stabilize the population size, and to address poverty by redistributing the economic pie rather than trying to continually expand it. Without greater attention to the soft sciences, there will be no way to halt rising CO2 levels. The third and final dichotomy is the difference between sustainability and resilience. Today, most people consider it possible and useful to achieve “sustainable development,” but no one really under- stands what that term means. Implicit in the way we use the phrase are the ideas that rich people should be able to keep what they have, poor people should somehow get to catch up with the rich, and this should be accomplished in some way that does not damage the environment. However, it is no longer possible to attain sustainable development defined in that way. Moreover, by pursuingsustainable development with the paradigms and tools that have produced the current problems, we are just making the problems worse. As shown in our World3 scenarios, there is no longer any chance to avoid those problems. Along with efforts to ameliorate those problems, we now need to strive for resilience to reshape our global systems in ways that will reduce the amount of damage they will sustain from those problems. Redesigning our cities so that they are less subject to weather fluctuations, reshaping agriculture so that it is not influenced so much by high temperatures and water scarcity, designing power grids so that they are less subject to widespread damage from localized fail- ure — those are examples of the hundreds of projects we would have if resilience became an important goal. Increasing the resilience of a system means raising its ability to adapt to unexpected shocks. Adaptation is a science. There are objec- tive, repeatable steps that can be taken to make systems more resil- ient. There is starting to be some interest in this. The Fukushima inci- dent in Japan and the floods in Bangkok confronted whole industries with the consequences of emphasizing efficiency overresilience. We need to take that thinking over to the other aspects of our society. To do that is going to require a unified science, and I hope we will succeed. Thank you.