Half a century Once upon a time, a small group of respected thinkers, calling themselves the Club of Rome, came together to ponder the difficult question: What would happen if mankind continued to consume the world’s finite resources as if they were infinite? . Their efforts produced his now-famous 1972 paper, The Limits to Growth, in which he modeled what might be in store for humanity.
It wasn’t a pretty picture. They predicted that the world will be on a trajectory that will overshoot its ability to support continued growth at some point in the first half of this century. Polluting the environment, burning up resources while emitting carbon dioxide, and continuing business as usual will cause “sudden and uncontrolled declines” in food production, population and industrial output by the end of the 21st century. . Simply put, global collapse.
Fifty years later, humanity is still in serious trouble. In 2020, econometrician Gaya Herrington revisited and updated the Club of Rome’s model to see if we’ve strayed from this terrifying trajectory, finding that we barely moved the needle. rice field. But while we are still on this tragic path, all hope is not lost. WIRED asks Herrington what he thinks will happen, how humanity can protect the future, and how it will step up and see if it has a chance not only to survive but to thrive. interviewed to find out.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
WIRED: How do you feel about humanity’s current chances of avoiding a global collapse?
Gaya Herrington: Quite simply, we are in a moment of uncertainty. What we do in the next five to ten years will determine the level of human welfare for the rest of the century. We are approaching so many tipping points, both climate-wise and biodiversity-wise. Therefore, our welfare should decline if we do not change the current paradigm.
You cannot grow infinitely on a finite earth. We don’t have the option of growing forever. It’s that simple.
A review of the activities of the Club of Rome shows that we have not changed course over the past 50 years. If we continue like this, what will happen next?
Everything is interconnected. We are so interdependent that our economy is 100% embedded in society and our society is 100% embedded in nature. The system starts flickering when the failure starts. We have had social and governance crises, such as the rise of populism and political violence, and declining trust, and of course we now have environmental crises such as floods and droughts.
These are red flags because the system is constantly trying to maintain itself in balance. But I don’t want to reach a tipping point. Watch out for flickering.
If we ignore them, the world in general will be much more unstable and comfortable because we will have less access to things like clean air, clean water, and nutritious food. It’s hard to predict with any accuracy because we’ve never experienced anything like this before, but parts of the world will become uninhabitable and experience more severe and frequent weather disasters and crop failures. I guess. Large migrations will most likely increase in size and frequency.
