World3 Mystery

Jan 14, 2012 in Uncategorized

I saw this image in an article called ‘Doomsday Book’ by Debora MacKenzie in the January 7 issue of New Scientist magazine:

(click to enlarge)

It shows the behavior of the ‘standard run’ of the model in the book The Limits to Growth, which was published in 1972, as solid lines. Also depicted are actual data for the past 40 years.

There’s a quote in the article by scientist Yaneer Bar-Yam, which goes:

“It is reasonable to be concerned about resource limitations in fifty years,” Bar-Yam says, “but the population is not even close to growing [the way Limits projected in 1972].”

OK, answer me this: If the population is ‘not even close’ to what the Limits to Growth study suggested, then why does it seem to look very close in the graph?

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