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[johnslat]

"Next Great Depression? MIT researchers predict �global economic collapse� by 2030

A new study from researchers at Jay W. Forrester's institute at MIT says that the world could suffer from "global economic collapse" and "precipitous population decline" if people continue to consume the world's resources at the current pace.
Smithsonian Magazine writes that Australian physicist Graham Turner says "the world is on track for disaster" and that current evidence coincides with a famous, and in some quarters, infamous, academic report from 1972 entitled, "The Limits to Growth."
Produced for a group called The Club of Rome, the study's researchers created a computing model to forecast different scenarios based on the current models of population growth and global resource consumption. The study also took into account different levels of agricultural productivity, birth control and environmental protection efforts. Twelve million copies of the report were produced and distributed in 37 different languages.
Most of the computer scenarios found population and economic growth continuing at a steady rate until about 2030. But without "drastic measures for environmental protection," the scenarios predict the likelihood of a population and economic crash.
However, the study said "unlimited economic growth" is still possible if world governments enact policies and invest in green technologies that help limit the expansion of our ecological footprint.
The Smithsonian notes that several experts strongly objected to "The Limit of Growth's" findings, including the late Yale economist Henry Wallich, who for 12 years served as a governor of the Federal Research Board and was its chief international economics expert. At the time, Wallich said attempting to regulate economic growth would be equal to "consigning billions to permanent poverty."
Turner says that perhaps the most startling find from the study is that the results of the computer scenarios were nearly identical to those predicted in similar computer scenarios used as the basis for "The Limits to Growth."
"There is a very clear warning bell being rung here," Turner said. "We are not on a sustainable trajectory."

Uh-oh - looks like my 87th year on Earth could be a bad one.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/next-great-depression-mit-researchers-predict-global-economic-190352944.html

[spiral78]

Gee, johnslat.....


Well, at least those of us who speak two or more languages should be smart enough to figure out how to ride this out in some degree of comfort

Best regards,
spiral

[Sashadroogie]

Ach! All piffle and fiddlesticks. We should be rejoicing that the rotten Capitalist Piggie edifice is collapsing! Crumble to dust, you obscene enslaver of free men!

And what need free men but a bottle of vodka a day?

[scot47]

Time to revive that Jimmy Rodger's song "Hard Time Blues"

[geaaronson]

shouldn�t that read federal reserve board?

[artemisia]

On "population growth and global resource consumption":

Images from space track relentless spread of humanity
The past century has been defined by an epic migration of people from rural areas to the city. In 2008, for the first time in history, more of the Earth's population was living in cities than in the countryside. The U.N. now predicts that nearly 70% of the global population will be city dwellers by 2050.

Looking back through the decades, these snapshots from space -- created exclusively for CNN by NASA's Landsat department in collaboration with the U.S. Geological Survey -- reveal the impact of this vast population shift on cities around the world.

It's not just the shift from rural to urban but the expansion of those cities that has decimated what used to be rural (or desert) areas. I think the most dramatic changes are Dubai, UAE (2000-2011) / Istanbul, Turkey (1973-2011) / The Pearl River Delta, China (1973-2003) / Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso (1976-2006).

http://edition.cnn.com/SPECIALS/world/road-to-rio/satellite-photos-urban-sprawl/index.html

[scot47]

These are the END TIMES

Send me a check for $500 and I will pray for you.

[ancient_dweller]