Limits to Growth Model Worth Another Look

There are only finite resources in the world, but population continues to grow. How will this situation resolve itself? This was a question a group of scientists (Meadows et al), commissioned by the “Club of Rome,” attempted to answer back in 1972, in a book called Limits to Growth. The model they presented predicted growing resource scarcity, increasing pollution, and eventual population decline, all prior to 2100.

Charles A. S. Hall and John W. Day revisit these predictions in an article published this month in American Scientist called Revisiting the Limits to Growth After Peak Oil. Their analysis indicates that the predictions from 1972 were surprisingly accurate, considering how long ago they were made:
According to Hall and Day, “The values predicted by the limits-to-growth model and actual data for 2008 are very close.”
Hall and Day immediately acknowledge that the academic world has paid most attention to human impacts on biodiversity and climate change and not enough on general resource issues.

The Oil Drum