REPLY Limits to Growth Plan B (SD6999)

[SDMAIL Mike Fletcher]

Posted by  "Mike Fletcher" <mefletcher at gmail.com>

The problem is not failed actions, or even failed planning - it's
failed thinking. The  real truth that needs to be accepted before
progress can be made is that the fundamental assumptions underlying
modern industrial society are flawed.  Until humans accept this fact
and redirect their thinking to designing a future that might actually
work no progress can be made. Most of the current "solutions" are
still largely based on flawed core assumptions. For example, if we
take World3 and introduce resource "regrowth" does that solve the
problem? No, actually in almost all cases, it simply makes the
eventual overshoot worse! Why? Because the underlying assumptions and
the decision rules derived from those assumptions about the
unrestricted growth of capital and population are still operating.
Until those decision rules based on the fundamental assumptions
change, the trajectory of human society is unlikely to be anything
approaching a soft-landing outcome. In my estimation, unfortunately,
many of the quasi-solutions now being discussed and even implemented
in places, actually create the possibility of such a "False Spring"
type outcome.

The issue of changing peoples fundamental assumptions about how human
society should operate is the real challenge. Many still assume, as
Donnella Meadows trenchantly commented, "the future will be like
today, only bigger."  Even many who have moved beyond that way of
thinking, are, as Dr. Forrester mentioned, attacking symptoms and not
core problems.

Most of the current "solutions" are the equivalent of doubling the
size of the Lilly-Pond with a backhoe - which if we remember our folk
fable will only add one more day before the end. (e.g. gas and oil
exploration in the Arctic, which is now conveniently ice-free due to
human blundering is such a solution set.) Or there are downright
red-herring solutions which actually make the problem worse, such as
biofuels, which stress world food production and, as proposed in
recent studies, actually create more greenhouse gases than extracted
fuels. Those kind of "solutions" aren't going to solve anything, and
could even lead to worse outcomes. People who feed their 2-ton luxury
SUV with biofuels are - to put it nicely, kind of missing the point.
How much of the worlds surface would have to be covered by wind
generators and solar panels to support 10 billion people in a oil-free
world consuming energy and producing goods and services at the levels
of the U.S. (or even China) today?

It is possible that humans can reshape their society into a high-tech,
low-energy consuming, no-growth paradigm where human competition is
channeled away from consuming resources and energy to produce more and
more into more fruitful pursuits.  Would humans even be able to accept
such a world? What would such a world look like? I'm not sure.  It
appears others aren't sure either. Can Modeling help?  Certainly
models can be part of the discussion - to test ideas, challenge
assumptions and flawed solutions. But first we have to acknowledge -
at a core level of understanding that will allow for meaningful
redesign - that the current "design" is flawed, and almost as
importantly that solutions based on the assumptions of the old
paradigm will not work and can not work.

Otherwise, some new social structure, probably quite different from
that we see today, will of course emerge, but we probably won't be
pleased with the results, and the transition will not be pretty.

Michael Fletcher
Posted by  "Mike Fletcher" <mefletcher at gmail.com>
posting date  Wed, 7 May 2008 17:27:45 -0400