I’ve just finished reading the 30-year update of the classic report Limits to Growth – the initial publication was commissioned by the Club of Rome 1972.

Read it.

It is time well spent.

The book is packed with wise insights and pragmatism. The authors have written in a humble tone, so they come out as trust-worthy in my view. I’m sure there are lots of (most?) people who would disagree with or challenge the content of Limits to Growth. Kinda goes without saying. The idea of growth is a very very strong mental model. And most prefer  it to be left alone and not spoken about.

Anyway, what I take with me from this read is:

• our lifestyle is in overshoot – we are consuming more resources than there are (on a note: yesterday was overshoot day – the rest of his year we’re living on resources that don’t exist…)

• almost all their computer-modelled scenarios for the next century lead us towards ecological and/or economical collapse

• if we are to get anywhere near of a sustainable future, we need to stop population growth, freeze industrial output per person (and share it more evenly) AND add all the positive agriculture, resource and pollution technologies available (and more)

So, it is not impossible. Just highly improbable.

Sorry for not being more optimistic at the moment.