vobiblog

In my experience, advocates of continued industrial growth make reference to the Club of Rome/Limits to Growth (the debunking of it anyway), more often than environmentalists do while promote sustainability.

I would like to know how the Limits to Growth was debunked. All the original document said was that exponential growth, be it population or resource use, could not continue forever in a finite world. There was no absolute date mentioned in the publication about when we would encounter a serious resource shortage. I will agree that some of the resource use growth projections are a little off now, but then growth was virtually non-existent for much of the 1970s. Just because we haven’t faced a major resource shortage yet, doesn’t mean we won’t.

I would also like to know how it has been disowned by the authors. In 1992, they published Beyond the Limits, which claimed that the humans had already exceeded the long term carrying capacity of our planet. In 2004, they published a 30 year update to the original report. There was more of the same in that too. It sounds to me like they are standing by their position.

So next time you feel like getting up on your soapbox and crying that the Limits to Growth is fatally flawed, disowned by its authors and only promoted by wannabe sustainable environmentalists, make sure you have actually read it, rather than regurgitating tripe from some stooge participating in a mock debate on Lateline.

“The Club of Rome got it wrong!” – That’s one myth that I think should be well and truly debunked.

I’m feeling a little better today (after the tragic weekend). However, I still can’t get my head around the whole life changing decision thing. Why is it that I keep thinking that the only way I am going to make it through uni or buy a farm is to work as hard as I can. I have always thought that working hard would solve everything.

The problem is, for the last few years, the promise of lots of $$$ for every hour I work just hasn’t been enough to motivate me to stop fucking around. Productivity has fallen to an all time low. I despise my job so much, that on days like today, I end up just going back to bed or reading crap for 3 hours rather than working. Now I accept that I will never be a true workaholic and aim to spend less time in front of the computer, move time observing nature (I stole that bit from David Holmgren) and working out what I really enjoy doing.

Today, I dropped four old broken computers off at the tip (very therapeutic), purchased a second compost bin, and tidied the yard. For dinner I cooked a Lamb Tagine with Zucchini and Za’atar. Today was less work than usual got done, but I am already feeling more productive, and certainly a whole lot more relaxed than if I had spent my whole day at the fucking computer.