Mass Urban

“Will the End of Oil Mean the End of Growth?

ANDREW PRICE  Nov 11, 2011

It’ll be nice when this recession is over and the economy starts chugging along again. When GDP resumes its ordained upward trajectory. When we finally get back to growth. After all, the economy should always be growing, right?

Well, maybe not. As you probably heard, the world’s population raced past the 7-billion mark sometime in the last few weeks. Meanwhile, we’re running out of water, rare earth metals, and oil. With resources dwindling and population booming, can the global economy sustain endless growth?

In the early 1970s a team of young scientists at MIT set out to answer that question. They created a mathematical model of the entire world, focusing on the relationships between five variables: population, industrialization, pollution, food production, and natural resources. Their model allowed them to simulate how those five variables would change over time as the population grew. The projections were grim: Sometime in the 21st century, they concluded, humanity would outstrip the Earth’s capacity to support more economic growth, resulting in a precipitous decline in food production, industry, and ultimately population.”

Via: GOOD Magazine