You should read the actual book, "The Limits to Growth," or just the
abstract. The authors did not blindly believe the "predictions" of their models. Some key points from the 1972 abstract:
- If the present growth trends in world population, industrialization, pollution, food production, and resource depletion continue unchanged, the limits to growth on this planet will be reached sometime within the next one hundred years. The most probable result will be a rather sudden and uncontrollable decline in both population and industrial capacity.
- It is possible to alter these growth trends and to establish a condition of ecological and economic stability that is sustainable far into the future.
- Can anything be learned from such a highly aggregated model? Can its output be considered meaningful? In terms of exact predictions, the output is not meaningful.
- We shall emphasize just one more time that none of these computer outputs is a prediction. We would not expect the real world to behave like the world model in any of the graphs we have shown, especially in the collapse modes.
- The exact timing of these events is not meaningful, given the great aggregation and many uncertainties in the model.
The great irony is the Western, developed world (and Japan, too) has dropped below replacement birth rates, while the Muslim world is growing way beyond replacement rates. The West has adopted the birth rate controls recommended in the report and is bound for extinction because the Muslim world is ignoring them.
Can anything be learned from such a highly aggregated model? Can its output be considered meaningful? In terms of exact predictions, the output is not meaningful. So not only was "The limits to Growth" dead wrong, but we're not even supposed to challenge its predictions?
On the real Earth, human populations that "overconsume" are also the ones that innovate their way out of whatever shortage is most threatening.