45
3 years and the growth of production cannot be
stopped. Their primary aim was to draw attention
to the major problems humanity will have to face.
Meadows and her colleagues repeated the calculations 20 years later and took the developments of the time passed into consideration
(Meadows et al. 1992). When the more recent
data (from 1990) were entered into the computer
and the first results were obtained it became clear
that humanity got into a new relationship with the
environment compared to the one analysed at the
end of the 1970s. In 1990 millions of people
made efforts at global levels to solve environmental problems and could claim numerous
results already. For example, the efficiency of
energy utilisation was improved, the ratio of
renewable energy resources in the energy budgets
of countries increased, new environmentally
sound materials were developed, waste recycling
was realized in many places, new environmental
friendly technologies were worked out, institutes
of environmental protection were established and
international agreements were made aimed at
solving global problems, etc.
Besides beneficial developments, however,
long observed processes were still active: millions of people lived on Earth in hopeless poverty, natural resources were further wasted, more
pollutants were released into the environment,
etc. These processes further reduced the “life
supporting capacity” of Earth.
Meadows and her colleagues admitted that the
extension of their model of 1972 was not enough.
The new situation required a new complete analFig. 2.20 Version 10 of Meadows’ world model
(Meadows et al. 1972): with pollution control, looking
after raw material resources, immediate reduction and
then stopping of the rate of economic growth (in the
1970s!) and stabilization of the number of people at the
level in 1975
2.6 Earth Models, “World Models”
3 years and the growth of production cannot be
stopped. Their primary aim was to draw attention
to the major problems humanity will have to face.
Meadows and her colleagues repeated the calculations 20 years later and took the developments of the time passed into consideration
(Meadows et al. 1992). When the more recent
data (from 1990) were entered into the computer
and the first results were obtained it became clear
that humanity got into a new relationship with the
environment compared to the one analysed at the
end of the 1970s. In 1990 millions of people
made efforts at global levels to solve environmental problems and could claim numerous
results already. For example, the efficiency of
energy utilisation was improved, the ratio of
renewable energy resources in the energy budgets
of countries increased, new environmentally
sound materials were developed, waste recycling
was realized in many places, new environmental
friendly technologies were worked out, institutes
of environmental protection were established and
international agreements were made aimed at
solving global problems, etc.
Besides beneficial developments, however,
long observed processes were still active: millions of people lived on Earth in hopeless poverty, natural resources were further wasted, more
pollutants were released into the environment,
etc. These processes further reduced the “life
supporting capacity” of Earth.
Meadows and her colleagues admitted that the
extension of their model of 1972 was not enough.
The new situation required a new complete analFig. 2.20 Version 10 of Meadows’ world model
(Meadows et al. 1972): with pollution control, looking
after raw material resources, immediate reduction and
then stopping of the rate of economic growth (in the
1970s!) and stabilization of the number of people at the
level in 1975
2.6 Earth Models, “World Models”