Graeme wrote:My first comment is that the Club of Rome report shows that if we continue with BAU, then we are facing catastrophe. We need to change course, and that was what was proposed in the other thread I referred to. In fact, we are starting on the alternative path toward clean energy growth gradually right now. We have have been following the course outlined by the original study as pointed out by an Australian group recently.Our research does not indicate that collapse of the world economy, environment and population is a certainty. Nor do we claim the future will unfold exactly as the MIT researchers predicted back in 1972. Wars could break out; so could genuine global environmental leadership. Either could dramatically affect the trajectory.
I agree. Catastrophe is not guaranteed. I tried to find some alternative views on Google and found these random choices. The first is this one:The dematerialization of production by the service economy is complemented by an equally or more important dematerialization of needs. The growing centrality of services results from the fact that once basic material requirements are met, the aspiration is released for the satisfaction of higher order, non-material needs – communication, information, education, healthcare, entertainment, recreation, and culture – which are not only far less demanding of material inputs but also far less limited in their growth potential. Food consumption is subject to limits; knowledge, human relationship and enjoyment are not. Thus, the growth in relative importance of the service economy represents a progressive shift from the pursuit of physical security to the quest for human security, welfare, well-being and unending development of our individual and collective human potential. Of even greater significance are two other implications of the modern service economy that have gone largely unrecognized.
All human achievement is founded on a bedrock of values. Values have no limit. Ultimately it is the values we choose to embrace that determine the real limits to growth. Narrow self-interest, mindless exploitation of earth, blindness to the needs of others, unbridled greed and extravagance can only take humanity so far. Our problems are of our own making and so are our opportunities. The very powers and institutions we forge to further our aims too easily become fetters that confine and enslave us. We are imprisoned by structures of our own device, simply because we refuse to open the door and walk out. Will humanity insist on clinging to broken systems out of fear to experiment, or will it have the courage to invent and innovate freer, fairer, more equitable, and more civilized arrangements for wealth creation and governance? Humanity’s ultimate challenge is not to cope with the forces of external nature or the problems of production, but rather to wrestle with and master human character and its inclinations.
Here is the second one:But there is no reason to continue to run our societies and our economies as we have. Nor is
there any reason to deprive ourselves and our progeny of the material comforts that the industrial
revolution has provided us in the name of “saving the planet.” Instead we can envision and
then construct a planetary civilization totally committed to enabling the self-actualization of
every single human being on the planet; a civilization that will have banished want and hunger
for all time; a civilization dedicated to realizing the god-like potential of the human spirit.
And finally this one by Professor Jorgen Randers:And then, fourth and finally, if we want to help the world’s poor, we (the rich) should build and pay for a complete clean energy infrastructure in the poor world. This would ensure that they don’t have to build a cheaper, carbon-intensive energy system for the energy they sorely need: electricity, fuel and heat. If we did nothing else, that would solve a substantial part of the future climate and poverty problem.
But the point of BAU is economic growth, which is the second half of the topic thread topic.