Biggav, I apologise. You are right actually. It appears that the Club of Rome hasn’t disowned its work and is continuing to upgrade it.

“Limits to Growth” was based on a computer model developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and published in 1972.

When it was published, I believe it was taken by most commentators to be a prediction. However, it appears the authors said in 1991 that it was not a prediction, just a warning of what might happen if no action was taken.

http://www.context.org/ICLIB/IC32/Meadows.htm

In any event, the authors said, “in twenty years some options for sustainability have narrowed, but others have opened up. Given some of the technologies and institutions invented over those twenty years, there are real possibilities for reducing the streams of resources consumed and pollutants generated by the human economy while increasing the quality of human life.”

In fact, that is what I believe has been happening in the thirty-odd years since ”Limits to Growth” was published.

In any case, computer models are only as good as the information that is fed in to them.

I stand firmly behind the rest of my posting.

Froggie - thanks for the response.

There was an update to the Limits of Growth (they've been refining the models for the past 30 years) published this year called "Limits to Growth - the Thirty Year Update".

Its important to note that they have a number of scenarios (10 in fact) modelled although they are all based on one simple observation - exponential increases in resource consumption on a world of finite size cannot continue indefinitely.

The different scenarios were modelled over a 100 year timeframe (which makes claims that the conclusions drawn in the book were wrong pretty annoying, given that there is still 70 years to go). By and large the models have tracked pretty well against reality over the intervening years, and they have continued to tune the models (which will never be perfect) as new data and insights have presented themselves.

The purpose of the work was to say that large changes are required to avoid some of the problems predicted by the models. We haven't made these changes (though the 1970's and 1980's oil price shocks did help to get the process started for a while).

Oil depletion and global warming are 2 obvious symptoms of hitting the limits to growth.

The preface to the latest edition of the book says: "We are much more pessimistic about the global future than we were in 1972. It is a sad fact that humanity has largely squandered the past 30 years in futile debates and well-intentioned, but halfhearted, responses to the global ecological challenge. We do not have another 30 years to dither. Much will have to change if the ongoing overshoot is not to be followed by collapse during the twenty-first century".

William Catton's book "Overshoot" is worth reading to understand a bit more about the overshoot and collapse ideas. On a more positive note, I often refer people to WorldChanging's "Post Oil Megacity" idea as a vision of the alternative:

http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/002081.html

Biggav
Thank you for the link to worldchanging.com. This is certainly a welcome antidote to the usual tales of doom and gloom surrounding the issue of sustainability.

In return, you may like to have a look at the paper below, presented by Colin Macdonald to the Annual Symposium of the World Nuclear Association in London September 2003. Colin Macdonald is a geologist (MSc in geological sciences) and currently Vice-President of Exploration at Cameco, responsible for the company’s worldwide uranium exploration activities.

http://www.world-nuclear.org/sym/2003/pdf/macdonald.pdf

I believe this is an excellent explanation of resource economics, which should go a long way to setting people’s minds at rest concerning the availability of uranium in the world, and indeed of many other resources.
His comments about oil resources are also interesting.

I am certainly not a technical person, but I would like to pose a question, "if the majority of homes in Australia were fitted with solar panels {they would have to be made much more affordable} could anyone hazard a guess, as to how much greenhouse gas omittions would be cut?" The other plus for solar is of course unlike uranium, it cannot be used to make bombs, to the best of my knowledge, the only "problem" arises when there are no ongoing costs for business to profit from, however this sustainable energy, if it could be made affordable, could sovle much of the world's energy needs, and lift the standard of living in third world countries, perhaps that is the reason, it has not been widely promoted as a real alternative.

Hello Shonga

I agree that solar hasn't been subsidised and supported as the long term benefits of energy savings do no benefit big business - if they could find a way to charge for the sun's rays they would. Its the same reason we are so slow on developing fuel efficient transport - short-term greed - explains so much that is wrong in this world.

Keep up the good posts, Shonga

Shonga. There is an international agreement about the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons. It is not at all easy to construct a nuclear weapon, it takes a lot of technology and finance.
The trend in the world today is to dismantle nuclear weapons and to use the fissile material to fuel nuclear power stations. This is what has kept the price of uranium so low, thus making further exploration uneconomic.
The fallacy in your argument is that if people want to use uranium to make bombs, then they can, given that they obtain the necessary technology. This has nothing at all to do with using uranium to produce electricity.
Using solar panels (I presume to produce electricity) is presently hopelessly uneconomic. If you want the Government to subsidise it, think where the taxes are going to come from. That's right- the taxpayer.
Maybe solar will come down in price in the future. You will still need a base-load generator, unless you are able to store the electricity produced economically. Solar may become in the future a useful addition to the energy mix, provided it's cost can be reduced.