This style of argument is common to a whole series of both optimistic and pessimistic modelling that are important just now. For instance, Population growth will slow at some stage in the future because the 3rd world will recapitulate the 1st world and drop birth rate as they become more educated. So the growth curve will flatten out at some stage in the future. Except it hasn’t started doing it yet. Here’s another one. CO2 concentration, CO2 emissions and Global temperatures will flatten out in the future, peak and start dropping. Except they’re currently all still accelerating and show no signs of slowing down, yet alone reaching a peak. In each case you can argue that just because the current curves match the model, doesn’t mean they will match the curve when our model says they’ll change from a continuously rising smooth curve to something else.
Which is to completely misunderstand the point of the model. And actually to misunderstand the point of LtoG. The LoG models try to understand what happens when continuous growth meets finite resources in the real world. Where we are following a line of continuous growth towards the limits in the Earth’s resources and carrying capacity. We’re still just about in the continuous growth stage, following the models predictions. The resource constraints on the horizon are becoming more and more obvious. So arguing that it hasn’t happened yet and so will never happen is just foolishness because it ignores another part of reality. exactly the art the LtoG models are trying to understand. If you think the models are wrong, then suggest something else. Obviously that doesn’t mean creating another model yourself. A cite will do.
This thread pushed me into a bunch of research. One thing I tried to find and wasn’t really successful with was figures for yearly growth in global population in absolute numbers. As near as I can find it’s hovered around +80m/y from 1980 to now and really hasn’t changed much up or down. This is constant straight line linear growth. There’s no slow down or rise. It also led me to a bunch of techno-optimistic bets from people like Kevin Kelly and Stewart Brand from early this century. eg this one from 2003 http://longbets.org/118/ “By 2060 the total population of humans on earth will be less than it is today.” Or this from 2009. http://longbets.org/510/ “Human population of the world will peak at or below 8 billion in the 2040s and then drop dramatically.” Both of these look like a Grue to me. There’s no evidence in the historical record or currents statistics but we’ll wish on a star for a happier outcome some time in the future based on some hand-waving about human nature. Both bets currently look very unlikely with business as usual. However, both bets might be right if we get some Black Swan events like severe water shortages in the most heavily populated regions and/or Black Flag weather. Ironic then that they’re born out of optimism but are only likely to come true under the most pessimistic doom scenarios.
Which gets to the core of what bothers me about articles like the OP. It feels like they reflect a particular brand of techno-optimism common on the left coast of the USA and the result of an inward looking view. What does the world look like from California and does it include the 3.5B people in SE Asia (India, China, Indonesia, et al) where this stuff will get decided?
Ramble on.
