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Limits to Growth Model used for 2052 forecast and takes global collapse off the table
Note- Nextbigfuture does not believe that the Limits to Growth Models are correct. Improvements in technology can radically increase the capacity of the planet. There is a great deal of emphasis on CO2, yet human created CO2 is a side effect of technological industrialization.
Business as usual improvements to agriculture (better crops with genetically guided plant breeding, precision agriculture and other measures) we can reduce water usage in half and increase crop yields by double over 2-3 decades.
Greenhouses can use 1/6th the water and 1/10th the land to produce the same amount of crop.
Hydroponics can use 1/20th the water. Aeroponics used 65% less water than hydroponics. NASA also concluded that aeroponically grown plants requires ¼ the nutrient input compared to hydroponics
There have been proposals for large scale hydroponics adoption.
Mass produced skyscraper technology is already being deployed in China and the tallest building in the world is in progress and could be completed next year. It will have 930,000 square feet of indoor vertical farm. As a greenhouse it would produce the equivalent of 200 acres of farmland. It has a footprint of about 4 acres.
2052 Limits to Growth Forecast
In 1972 The Limits to Growth report to the Club of Rome raised the question about whether growth can continue indefinitely on our finite planet. The book presented 12 scenarios for the world future to 2100. Six were negative – portraying various types of “collapse”, and six were positive – portraying various degrees of “sustainable development”. But The Limits to Growth (LTG) was unable to tell which of the scenarios was the most likely, simply because there was not enough information available in 1972.
The 2052 forecast is the sum of individual forecasts I made for five regions.
The regions are
1) the USA,
2) the rest of the industrialized world,
3) China,
4) the 14 largest emerging economies, and
5) the rest of the world (some 140 countries).
The forecast is based on the general world view represented in the most recent World3 computer model of the LTG study. It is also based on the assumption that technology will advance at the same rate as during the last forty years. And that there will be no change in fundamental values and preferences: society will continue to pursue income growth. There will be one important change, however. Over the coming decades global society will be facing a strengthening barrage of problems: depletion, pollution, climate change, inequity, social strife etc. I assume these problems will finally be met with increasing investment in solutions. But not before the problems become intense, only afterwards, when repair costs are unavoidable.
Source: http://nextbigfuture.com/2013/12/limits-to-growth-model-used-for-2052.html
