Discovering Limits to Growth

After inaugurating the Do the Math blog with two posts on the limits to physical and economic growth, I thought it was high time that I read the classic book The Limits to Growth describing the 1972 world computer model by MIT researchers Meadows, Meadows, Randers, and Behrens. I am deeply impressed by the work, and I am compelled to share the most salient features in this post.

To borrow a word from a comment on the Do the Math site, I’m gobsmacked by how prescient some of the statements and reflections in the book are. Leaving aside remarkably good agreement in the anticipated world population and CO2 levels thirty years out (can’t fake this), I am amazed that many of the thoughts and conclusions I have formed over the past several years are not at all new, but were in black-and-white shortly after I was born. Continue reading

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Does the Logistic Shoe Fit?

U.S. total energy 1650-present (logarithmic)

This is a quick update regarding the first plot shown in the galactic scale energy post. A reader, Chris, called attention to the obvious departure from exponential growth in recent decades. The post required turning a blind eye to many practical issues (like population saturation) in order to entertain indefinite growth, serving to highlight the absurdity of the notion. But Chris goaded me into paying more attention to the departure from the exponential track in the actual data, and here are the results of a logistic approach. Continue reading

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