ppt课件-overshoot-causesandconsequences.pptVIP

* Economics and Limits to Growth: What’s Sustainable? Dennis Meadows at The Population Institute Washington, DC October 6, 2009 The Reference Scenario Resources Population Pollution Industrial Output Food Original Report Today Main Insights from the Scenario In 1972 we expected another 40-80 years of growth. All our scenarios showed growth ending in the period 2010-2050. The preponderant mode was overshoot and decline, not gradual slowing within a limit. Changes in technology may delay the end of growth by a few years, but they do not avoid it, and they do not avoid the decline. Social changes are essential for the attractive futures. What are today considered to be problems are actually symptoms. The real problem is physical growth in material and energy flows pressing against the limits of a finite planet. Main Points of My Speech Growth has continued until we are now past sustainable levels. The global society will change more over the next 20 years than in the past 100. Design policies for what is coming, not what has been. The main forces for change will be climate change and resource scarcity - especially fossil fuels and water. The end of growth does not result from total depletion, but from rising capital costs. The most important scarcity is the absence of a longer-term perspective. World Population Industrial Production Index of World Metals Use “Sind die Menschen noch zu retten?” Die Zeit, 16.11.06 If current trends of overfishing and pollution continue, .. all seafood faces collapse by 2048. By the middle of the century … no fewer than 7 billion people in 60 countries may be faced with water scarcity. Human beings and the natural world are on a collision course. .. Fundamental changes are urgent…. - more than 1,600 scientists, including 102 Nobel laureates, from 70 countries (Ignoring climate change) “could create risks of major Disruption to economic and social activity… on a scale Similar to those associated with the great wars.” Stern