REPLY Limits to Growth Plan B (SD6994)

[SDMAIL Jay Forrester]

Posted by  Jay Forrester <jforestr at MIT.EDU>


See my comments below the following quote from Harich:

On May 5, 2008, at 7:23 AM, SDMAIL Jack Harich wrote:
> As an example of how the right process produces the right results, The 
> Nature Conservancy created the Conservation by Design process. Steve 
> McCormick, former president and CEO, wrote that "Conservation by Design 
> has come to be our touchstone for action. It tells us where to work, 
> what biodiversity to conserve, what strategies we should use, and how 
> effective we have been." The process is so superior that the Chinese 
> government and all 50 state wildlife management agencies in the US have 
> incorporated it into their own processes.

This program by the Nature Conservancy is a losing strategy because it 
tries to fight in niches against the overpowering forces of population 
growth and industrial expansion without addressing those dominating 
causes.  "Conservation by Design" is a nice phrase that is effective in 
gaining financial support for the organization and keeping the Nature 
Conservancy operating, but in the long run the strategy will fail.  

In the third paragraph of their website:

http://www.nature.org/aboutus/howwework/cbd/

they say:
"But despite all our progress, climate change, a rapidly expanding human 
population, damaging industrial and agricultural practices and other 
dynamics continue to threaten our natural world and quality of life."

Having identified the fundamental driving forces for environmental 
deterioration, they then turn to fighting losing battles around the 
edges rather than facing the underlying causes that could win the war. 
It is rather clear that organizations like this do not want to 
antagonize their supporters by campaigning for zero population growth 
and an end to the ever-increasing industrial growth.  However, their 
obvious and self-evident courses of attacking symptoms rather than 
causes will be futile.

I suggest that you look at Chapter 5, "Obvious Responses Will Not 
Suffice," of "World Dynamics" for how treating one symptom can unleash a 
different overwhelming reaction.  

Forrester, J. W. (1971). _World Dynamics_. Waltham, MA, Pegasus 
Communications.

You may want to look at Figures 6-7 and 6-8 in Chapter 6, "Toward a 
Global Equilibrium," of  "World Dynamics"  for a proposal to sustain a 
good standard of living in a finite world.  

Jay W. Forrester
Professor of Management
Sloan School, MIT
Posted by  Jay Forrester <jforestr at MIT.EDU>
posting date  Tue, 6 May 2008 16:13:30 -0400