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Page added on April 1, 2023
Limits to Growth Revisited
Oh my God — we’re doomed. The UN’s Panel on Climate Change came out with a frightening report earlier this month that we are sitting on a global time bomb, and according to CNN, “time is running out,” without immediate drastic action. The UN report states that if global temperatures reach 1.5 C above the pre-industrial temperature norm of 1850-1900, the resulting melting of the polar ice caps, rising oceans, and unprecedented ecological disaster will follow.
I read this a few days back on a dark and stormy night while working on my own tome about disaster, the next book in the One Second After series. One Second After examines what would happen if we were ever hit by an enemy using an Electro-Magnetic Pulse generated from detonating a nuclear weapon in space. But ecological disaster, which is all but inevitable according to the highly respected UN report, was far more frightening. Closing off working on my book, I brewed yet another cup of coffee, sat back and pulled out a well-respected study on this existential threat to all mankind.
I started to thumb through the pages of a work that took a team of international experts years to research and has sold well over 12 million copies since publication.
I turned to the chapter on fossil fuels. The report states we have only about twenty more years of oil out there, we are already at peak oil, which will then start to go downhill and the wells will run dry no matter how much we scramble to get more. There will be a final rush to pump one more drop of oil even if at the cost of twenty dollars a gallon, but that in turn will accelerate the depletion into a death spiral. Natural gas will not save us, as we turn to that source as oil runs out, we’ll deplete that as well. Again, a death spiral.
Climate is the big one this report. Despite our feeble efforts to address the radical changes already taking place, the disaster will explode within ten to fifteen years, due in large part to the depletion of farmlands worldwide from the use of toxic chemical fertilizers and pesticides, soil exhaustion, and encroaching urban population. The results: famine, disease, and mass starvation then triggering political instability in which hundreds of millions will die.
The list went on and on, a list that would render any sane reader numb with despair. But me? I could only smile at it all… You see, the book that I was reading, Limits to Growth, was published more than fifty years ago in 1972.
1972? I remember it well. I was in college and still of a mindset that swallowed much of what my young, hip professors were preaching that spring from this new bible. It was time for the youth of America in post-Vietnam America to mobilize for a new crusade! And of course, like most such movements, if anyone showed the slightest doubt, they were mocked as deniers and cast out into the darkness of their ignorance. The generation of Peace and Love would now work to Save the Planet!
What was happening in 1972 was an existential rethinking of our relationship to this blue marble floating in space that we now found ourselves trapped on. The 150-year run of the Industrial Revolution, the emerging wave of the Technological Revolution that prophesied limitless growth, a world going forward into a better tomorrow, crashed on the shores of environmental despair.
Of course, we believed it. The model, after all, was based on “experts” belonging to the Society of Rome, a mysterious think tank who were the leaders of this new crusade that absolutely, 100% predicted catastrophe unless we took heed of their Cassandrian warnings. It was a time to stop growth, stop innovation, stop evil rampant technology, and head to a brave new world teaching us that there had to be limits to growth.
The dates for some of these predictions were clearly stated in the Limits to Growth: oil will no longer flow by the 1990s if current (1972) consumption continues. Food by the 1980s will plunge to starvation levels and disastrous famines affecting hundreds of millions will be the new norm. The dying off will be upon us by 1985. The climate? Total disaster in the 1990s due to global cooling caused by greenhouse gas and smog blocking sunlight. Every major resource needed for a high-tech world from copper to lithium will be depleted, leaving our world an empty husk.
To make it worse, a book published a few years earlier, The Population Bomb, a NYT best-seller by Paul Ehrlich, really sealed our doom.
According to Ehrlich, the planet was already past its “carrying capacity” which in 1970 was 3.5 billion. If we had any hope of surviving, we needed strict, draconian global government coercion to reverse the population explosion. Governments had to seize control of the means of reproduction. How? To impose mandatory birth control, encourage abortion as good for the planet, convince people to be sterilized and make it anathema to have more than one child. Countries such as overpopulated India would have to be “cut off,” and left to starve. Population had to be cut from billions to just 500 million if we were to survive. There were hints as well, that a nice global pandemic just might be the answer. And one other thing: Ehrlich clearly saw that the oceans would be dead from overfishing and pollution by the 1980s.
Limits to Growth and The Population Bomb were the first new-age books of the gospel of despair.
The only fly in the ointment? It didn’t happen as planned. As 1972 rolled into 1982, the experts just simply pushed back the global drop dead date to the year 2000. Does anyone remember Phil Donahue in the 1980s and those marches and hands across America, and cool mega-concerts to Save the Planet? A big difference though, global freezing was out and global warming was in.
When we were still here in the year 2000, just throw in Al Gore receiving the Nobel Prize and telling us 2020 is the new Armageddon date. Then as 2020 passed we have the sad spectacle of children like Greta telling us, “this time it’s definitely gonna happen by 2032.”
And so it goes with this latest UN Climate Report, accompanied by hundreds of experts like John Kerry and Leo DiCaprio circling the world in private jets to keep plunging us into fear.
So, pick up a copy of Limits to Growth, published in 1972 and as a chaser Ehrlich’s The Population Bomb published in 1968. …and wonder, just wonder, why after 50 years we still believe disaster is coming in just one more decade, but this time, by God, we’ll get it right.
23 Comments on "Limits to Growth Revisited"
Your Mom on Sat, 1st Apr 2023 1:05 pm
Disaster is already here — you’re soaking in it, dumbass.
FamousDrScanlon on Sat, 1st Apr 2023 3:19 pm
So you don’t believe it, but still continue to pump out regular articles to remind everyone about the thing you do not believe has/is happening. Oh and you are not at all afraid of this thing that you don’t believe in. Don’t forget the ‘not afraid’ part of the thing you don’t believe in – very important that part.
Thank you for constantly reminding us that you do not believe in limits to growth and that you are so NOT afraid of the thing you you do not believe is happening.
It’s so appreciated having you put out a ‘don’t believe—not afraid’ reminder articles every other week.
It’s good that you make sure all potential readers will be able to understand your super important ‘don’t believe—not afraid’ message by keeping your writing at 3rd grade comprehension level.
Looking forward to hearing if there are any other things that you don’t believe in & you’re not ascaredof-N-stuff.
makati1 on Sat, 1st Apr 2023 5:07 pm
The world can easily support 10,000,000,000+ people Famous, but not with the wasteful Western lifestyle you want. Humans will adapt to climate change just as they have for the last million plus years. Gone will be the waste, but that is a good thing. The sooner the West goes down, the better for the rest. Soon, I hope.
I may only have 10 or 15 years left, but I am prepared for those as best as is possible. Are you?
Many of the 100+ million Filipinos here can live just fine with 1/20th that of Western countries and have a happy life that does not require I-gadgets, fancy houses with running water and two cars in the garage. I live here. Do you?
BTW: Perhaps your support of limits is brainwashing or…stupidity?
FamousDrScanlon on Sun, 2nd Apr 2023 3:46 pm
Mak, no I don’t live there. I’m not a pedophile, so I have no reason to be slumming around SE Asia looking for kids to fuck.
“Many of the 100+ million Filipinos here can live just fine with 1/20th that of Western countries and have a happy life that does not require I-gadgets, fancy houses with running water and two cars in the garage. I live here. Do you?”
As completely ridiculous as that statement is, I’ll wager there is some truth to it given how you have been in the living rooms, kitchens and bed rooms of so many P’s family homes to fuck their kids.
That’s how you know how many gadgets the average Philippine home has and has not.
US ambassador to Philippines apologises for sex tourism remark
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/oct/08/us-ambassador-philippines-sex-tourism
Here’s what is going to happen to yo mak.
Mak loved his P’s vacation “experiences” so much he moved there permanently.
Remember that last crazy leader of the P’s? The one who called for executing all drug dealers? I feel the same only about sick, disgusting, child raping pedo’s.
makati1 on Sun, 2nd Apr 2023 4:55 pm
No, Famouse, you are just a brainwashed Western fool. Your view of the world is very narrow, bigoted and blind.
Remember the US “war on drugs” where there are now multiple thousands of deaths from illegal drugs? What is a few dead drug dealers compared to the millions killed by them in Amerika? 100,000+ every year.
“Drug Overdose Deaths in the U.S. Top 100,000 Annually”
“Drug overdose deaths in the U.S. are surging : NPR – WUFT”
“Flesh-rotting drug ‘tranq’ spreads to 48 US states: DEA alert”
“What is xylazine? Congress cracks down on this drug in fentanyl fight”
And on and on…
If you don’t deal, you don’t get killed. Much better to kill than to jail and then release those scum. Maybe a few “innocents” get killed, but maybe they are not “innocent”, except to the presstitutes?
BTW: How many are being killed in Biden’s latest “war of choice” in Ukraine? Millions of innocents have died in Amerika’s Empirical tyranny since WW2. Now they want WW3.
People who live in glass houses should not throw stones.
makati1 on Sun, 2nd Apr 2023 5:32 pm
Famouse,
Today: “The head of the San Jose Police Officers’ Association faces up to 20 years in prison on drug trafficking charges”
https://www.rt.com/news/574044-police-union-trafficking-fentanyl-sanjose/
“Who Flew on Jeffrey Epstein’s ‘Lolita Express’ Plane? Full List of People Named”
Hmm… Bill Gates, George Mitchel, Kevin Spacey, Donald Trump, Bill Clinton…etc.
https://www.newsweek.com/who-flew-jeffrey-epstein-lolita-express-plane-full-list-people-named-1654827
2015:https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/fbi-epidemic-levels-of-pedophilia-child-sex-trafficking
I think all child molesters should be jailed and/or castrated, but that is my opinion. Both sexes.
FamousDrScanlon on Thu, 6th Apr 2023 11:05 am
The Media’s Recent Turn to “Climate Optimism” Is a Cruel Fantasy
Beneath the upbeat messaging, the latest UN climate report makes it clear that while the means to save the planet may still be available, the political will is nowhere in sight.
But however you dress it up, the salient points remain what we’ve known for some time (and this fresh reminder should by rights herald the demise of the cheery optimism that has recently overtaken professionalized climate and progressive NGO spaces):
The Paris Agreement’s goal of limiting warming to 1.5˚C above the preindustrial average—beyond which all bets are off for the survival of enormous swathes of humanity, largely in the Global South—is all but dead. The planet is now likely to cross that threshold in the early 2030s.
§ Some parts of the world are rapidly approaching, or have already reached, the “limits of adaptation” (see: rising sea levels, desertification, and extreme heat intolerable to the human body). With every additional increment of warming, the task of adaptation gets harder and costlier, if not impossible.
https://www.thenation.com/article/environment/ipcc-report-climate-optimism/
This article & me demonstrates that the morons at the ‘American Thinker’ don’t actually read what the MSM writes about climate change. In fact, it appears they never look at at any MSM at all. The one thing the MSM is good at is covering the never ending climate jacked record smashing disasters which are like a giant black cock fucking the American
ThinkerDenier in his ass.FamousDrScanlon on Thu, 6th Apr 2023 11:19 am
The following article requires a min 88 IQ to comprehend, so ‘American Thinkers’ need not apply. I’ll try & find some colouring books for y’all to play with while the adults discuss the article. Also, please don’t try to remove your helmets and drool bibs – those are tard-proof straps that will only leave you angry & spazzing out. In fact, y’all just remain on the bus. I’ll bring you some snacks in an hour. Don’t shit your pants either. We are running low on adult diapers.
Overshoot: Why It’s Already Too Late To Save Civilization
“I have some bad news. Civilization is going to collapse. Not in 1000 years, not in 100 years, but within the lifetimes of most people alive today.”
“billions of people are going to die from disease, violence, starvation, dehydration, natural disasters, and war.
How do I know this? Because it has already begun.
Our global industrial civilization has been headed for collapse for at least 50 years. That’s how long ago the human population went into overshoot, a concept that is crucial to understand if you’re going to make sense of the horrors that await us in the 21st century.
What is Overshoot?
Ecological overshoot happens when the demands of a species exceed the regenerative capacity of the ecosystem. As the species multiplies, it consumes the ecosystem faster and faster, and the population skyrockets. Once there is nothing left to eat, the population collapses.”
https://medium.com/@CollapseSurvival/overshoot-why-its-already-too-late-to-save-civilization-e834cb4ec694
FamousDrScanlon on Thu, 6th Apr 2023 11:22 am
What the decline of mountain snow cover means for Canada
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/what-the-decline-of-mountain-snow-cover-means-for-canada-1.6787314
FamousDrScanlon on Thu, 6th Apr 2023 11:49 am
Ice storm: 1 million Quebec households without power, 459K in Montreal in the dark
“It’s like a rollercoaster; yesterday it was spring, today it’s winter again.”
https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/ice-storm-quebec-households-without-power-approaching-1-million-40-per-cent-of-montrealers-in-the-dark-1.6343585
Wicked Ice storms in April? I remember their worst one, January of 1998.
It’s actually 1.3 million without power right now.
Bogdan on Wed, 12th Apr 2023 1:04 pm
Hmmm… This sounds like trying to predict when an old man will die, and keep failing… So what will happen, will the old man live forever? Well, obviously no, at some point he will surely die, regardless of how many failed prophecies about his death preceded that event. Same for the modern economy, I guess.
FamousDrScanlon on Thu, 13th Apr 2023 10:31 am
Almost 26 inches of rain hits Florida community. It’s not over
https://www.palmbeachpost.com/story/weather/severe/2023/04/13/streets-flooded-south-florida-fort-lauderdale-airport-schools-closed-torrential-rain-power-outages/70110253007/
Miami Sets Rainfall Record as Wet Weather Causes Flooding in South Florida
Miami set a rainfall record for March 30 with 3.28 inches on Thursday, according to the National Weather Service. The previous record for the day, set in 1906, was 2.68 inches
https://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local/massive-rainfall-causes-flooding-across-south-florida-with-more-rain-expected-thursday-morning/3004383/
Puny humans have spent trillions of dollars in the last 100 years on Big hydraulic engineering projects trying to control water.
In the last 20 years an ever greater number of bigger & badder rainfall events & climate jacked storms have rolled right over all the dykes & dams while laughing at the puny humans futile efforts.
~
“Meteorologist Bob Henson reported on social media that over a period of seven hours, Fort Lauderdale received rainfall equal to roughly a third of its annual average.
The rainfall total at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport from the April 13 downpour alone was enough to break a monthly local record of 19.47 inches, set in 1979.
Since early in the week, heavy rainfall has inundated flood-prone areas like Brickell, Downtown, and Edgewater with mucky waters. And like clockwork, the weather has resulted in a soggy mess across much of South Florida as rainfall totals in isolated spots topped five inches
The City of Miami announced on April 11 that it had placed portable pumps in several areas, including Morningside, Mary Brickell, and Edgewater. Plans are in place to soon deploy vacuum trucks to provide additional flood relief.
https://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/miami-dade-and-broward-counties-brace-for-flooding-heavy-rain-16750384
Real estate rush to the exits just around the corner.
FamousDrScanlon on Thu, 13th Apr 2023 10:39 am
Saudi Arabia: Unprecedented hailstorm blocks roads in Al-Baha
“The city of Al-Baha in western Saudi Arabia has been transformed after a heavy hailstorm hit the region on Monday, dropping as much as one metre of hailstones in some areas….”
https://www.euronews.com/video/2023/04/11/saudi-arabia-unprecedented-hailstorm-blocks-roads-in-al-baha
For the people in the one country who ate too stupid or stubborn to learn the metric system, 1 meter is 3.2 ft or 39.3 inches.
The pic & video look nuts by any metric.
FamousDrScanlon on Thu, 13th Apr 2023 10:47 am
“Early-season heat dome bringing record warmth, fire danger to Lower 48…
“Climate historian Maximiliano Herrera described the episode as “arguably the greatest heat wave in the first half of April in the Lower 48” on record… Records from the heat dome have already been shattered in parts of the West. On Tuesday, Phoenix and Tucson set records at 99 degrees, Las Vegas spiked to 93 degrees, Denver had its earliest 85 degree reading on record…”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2023/04/12/record-warmth-fire-weather-lower48/
FamousDrScanlon on Thu, 13th Apr 2023 2:18 pm
Bubble trouble: Climate change is creating a huge and growing U.S. real estate bubble
Rising seas, bigger floods, and other increasing climate hazards have created a dangerous instability in the U.S. financial system.
“Homes constructed in flood plains, storm surge zones, regions with declining water availability, and the wildfire-prone West are overvalued by hundreds of billions of dollars, recent studies suggest, creating a housing bubble that puts the U.S. financial system at risk.
The problem will get worse as sea level rises and storms dump heavier rains..”
“A 2022 study by actuarial and consulting firm Milliman put a much higher price tag on this bubble — $520 billion, with almost 3.5 million homeowners facing a decrease in property value greater than 10% if flood risk were priced correctly. For comparison, the U.S. government spent $431 billion via the Troubled Asset Relief Program to help people recover from the 2008 housing crisis.”
https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2023/04/bubble-trouble-climate-change-is-creating-a-huge-and-growing-u-s-real-estate-bubble/
I predicted this shit over a decade ago. There’s more to come. Florida alone will have them all shitting themselves.
FamousDrScanlon on Thu, 13th Apr 2023 7:42 pm
‘Once in every 1,000-2,000 years’: Storm swamps Fort Lauderdale with 25 inches of rain. Live updates
“South Florida was under siege and under water Thursday amid a storm that dumped 25 inches of rain over some coastal areas, flooding homes and highways and forcing the shutdown of a major airport.
Fort Lauderdale was slammed with 25.95 inches of rainfall in 24 hours, AccuWeather reported. Some areas received 20 inches of rain in six hours. Hollywood and South Miami received at least 9 inches of rain.”
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2023/04/13/fort-lauderdale-flood-airport-live-updates/11655448002/
Lol where are the deniers? Hiding in a closet waiting for people to forget all the stupid shit they said.
The eggheads are giving a big El Nino 50% chance of appearing,.
I remember the last big one – 2016. Still shit & humans broken from it.
Ft McMurray Alberta (oil sands area) wildfire so huge & insane 88,000 people had to be evacuated. Yet, one dumb-cunt denier was trying to normalize it – oh hell ya small cities always get completely evacuated because of record breaking wildfire.
Wildfire that is different enough that journeyman firefighters with decades of experience are saying they have never seen fire behave the way it is. They are awed by the scale, but even more by the behaviour.
~
2016 Fort McMurray wildfire
“it swept through the community, forcing the largest wildfire evacuation in Alberta’s history, with upwards of 88,000 people forced from their homes.”
” the wildfire destroyed approximately 2,400 homes and buildings. Another 2,000 residents in three communities were displaced after their homes were declared unsafe for reoccupation due to contamination. The fire continued to spread across northern Alberta and into Saskatchewan,[15] consuming forested areas and impacting Athabasca oil sands operations. With an estimated damage cost of C$9.9 billion, it was the costliest disaster in Canadian history.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Fort_McMurray_wildfire
“it was the costliest disaster in Canadian history”
UNTIL the record smashing flooding in BC 2021.
And prior to Fort McMurray the costliest disaster in Canadian history was the 2013 record smashing floods of Calgary & southern Alberta.
What are the odds of the 3 costliest disasters taking place within a 9 year span if climate change “is not happening”?
And to top it off a few months before the flooding & biblical downpour in BC, in the town of Lytton, about an hours drive from ground zero flood zone, the all time Canadian high temperature record was broken for 3 days in a row with day 3 topping out at 49.6C.
On the 4th day the town of Lytton burned to ashes.
.
BC town beats Canadian all-time temperature record for third time in three days
“The BC community recorded the highest temperatures the country has ever seen, surpassing its previous record of 47.9°C on Monday and 46.6°C on Tuesday.
.
Tuesday’s temperatures reached a new high of 49.6°C, according to Environment Canada.”
.
https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/lytton-bc-record-breaking-hot-temperatures-third-time
~
~
‘There’s nothing left in Lytton’: the Canadian village destroyed by wildfire – picture essay
The fire that devastated Lytton is still burning – and First Nation residents say the lack of help from the British Columbia government has been ‘sickening’
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/25/lytton-canada-heat-wildfire-record-temperatures
FamousDrScanlon on Thu, 13th Apr 2023 7:55 pm
ENSO-neutral conditions are expected to continue through the Northern Hemisphere spring, followed by a 62% chance of El Niño developing during May-July 2023.
During the last month, above-average sea surface temperatures (SSTs) became more prominent in the western and far eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean [Fig. 1]. The latest weekly Niño-3.4 index value was 0.0°C, but the Niño1+2 index value was +2.7°C, indicating significant warming along the South American coast [Fig. 2]. Area-averaged subsurface temperatures also increased over the past month [Fig. 3], reflecting the dominance of above-average subsurface temperatures across the equatorial Pacific Ocean [Fig. 4]. For the monthly average, upper-level and low-level winds were near normal across most of the equatorial Pacific Ocean. However, low-level westerly wind anomalies were evident in the first half of March associated with sub-seasonal activity. Suppressed convection was evident over the central tropical Pacific and over parts of Indonesia [Fig. 5]. While the warming near coastal South America was striking, the basin-wide coupled ocean-atmosphere system was consistent with ENSO-neutral.
https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/enso_advisory/ensodisc.shtml
When it comes prepare for a shit show.
FamousDrScanlon on Thu, 13th Apr 2023 8:58 pm
Mak, last word. You need to seek help before you hurt yourself.
FamousDrScanlon on Mon, 17th Apr 2023 4:30 pm
Aspiring Right-Wing Terrorists Are Targeting The Power Grid Amid Rise In Accelerationist Extremism
“The magazine was obtained by TPM in a chat group on the encrypted app Telegram dedicated to “Unabomber” Ted Kaczynski. Along with the breathless depiction of a widespread blackout, it included a precise list of the locations of “THE MOST CRITICALLY IMPORTANT ELECTRIC SUBSTATIONS IN THE UNITED STATES.”
This apocalyptic brand of extremist rhetoric — and the focus, specifically, on targeting substations — is part of a growing phenomenon that has captured the attention of both the far right and law enforcement. The trend has resulted in a dramatic rise in attacks that have left tens of thousands of people without power. Experts have attributed the wave to the digital spread of right-wing accelerationist ideology, which aims to hasten societal collapse, and materials like this magazine that encourage and provide instructions for targeting the grid.
Participants in the Telegram chat where TPM obtained the magazine shared it on multiple occasions, along with Kaczynski’s writings, details on how he made his “boom packages,” bomb making manuals and plans to build homemade, untraceable “ghost guns.” They also hurled racial slurs and anti-gay rhetoric while talking about plans for staging attacks.”
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/power-grid-substations-accelerationism-white-nationalism
Or you could stay home & watch it implode anyway from a combination of 40+ years of bare min maintenance, band aids fixes of ever greater damage from record smashing climate jacked rain, floods, wildfires, droughts & mudslides.
It’s already the shittiest grid (3 grids) in the western world.
I could see right wingers being in a rush to blow it up so they could take the credit instead of being wrong about limits to growth like they were wrong about climate change and declining net energy. Don’t fear conservatards, your libtard brothers are just as wrong as you – no alt energy & saving us from climate. Equally wrong & equally stupid. Totally deserve each other.
Ted Kaczynski for POTUS 2024
peakyeast on Tue, 18th Apr 2023 3:14 pm
American Thinker seem to not have read and not understood “Limits to growth”.
What a surprise.
MASTERMIND on Sat, 29th Apr 2023 10:49 am
makati1
Long time old friend. Hope all is well.
I am knee deep in it. Been really busy.
Glad you are still getting bye.
Cheers!
fnaf security breach on Fri, 5th May 2023 3:52 am
This is a very hard subject for me to talk about. This problem has never been easy for me. I’m worried about every class. So, I decided to play fireboy and watergirl game to take my mind off things. Because of this, my mind is less busy and I can learn faster.
Patty Black on Wed, 25th Sep 2024 2:12 pm
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