Customer Reviews

Beyond the Limits: Confronting Global Collapse, Envisioning a Sustainable Future

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4 star:		(1)
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1 star:		(2)

 

 

This book contains more common sense, wisdom and compassion than any I've read in many years. It challenges the prevailing paradigm of our society with a perfect balance of head and heart. I borrowed a copy from a friend and I've now come to Amazon to buy my own copy, which I will urge all my friends to read. Another reviewer from Virginia seems to think the book should have been more technical. I think s/he is completely missing the point. This is a book for lay people, which it should be, because if it was full of equations only a handful of geeks would read it and it wouldn't change anything. As it is it's written in beautifully clear prose and you don't need any technical training to follow it.

This book is a must read for anyone seriously interested in global sustainability. It is clearly written and is easily accessible to non-technical readers. Although based on a sophisticated computer model, the authors avoid presenting a dry, scientific explanation of the simulation -- equations and mathematical formulations are deemphasized. Instead, the authors refer the technically-minded to an earlier book (Dynamics of Growth in a Finite World, available at www.pegasuscom.com) that contains every equation used in the model. Moreover, Prof. Meadows makes the model itself available to anyone interested (for a nominal fee).

So read this book. Then, if you want more detail, get the model and technical book.

Great book, but aside from an explanation of their simulation model, I don't recall seeing a single equation (including actual numerical values) used to justify their claims.

Reading the Meadows, Meadows and Randers book, "Beyond the Limits", on the possibility of impending global collapse in the aftermath of continued violation of physical planetary limits was a disappointing experience. The withholding of important material, whether deliberate or by oversight, while overloading the text with ecological trivia was more than this reviewer could quietly accept. If we agree at the start that the simulation trial results of the Meadows et al. computer model, "World3/91", is supposed to be the book's main attraction, it then follows that the reader deserves to know with appropriate detail, using commonly accepted language and terminology, the structure of that dynamic model and the means by which the investigators obtained their results. The book provides only a cursory description of the World3 model and the methods by which it was implemented on their computer. In the experience of this reader, such models are usually first represented by a set of differential equations, later transformed into a set of difference equations which are then encoded using any of several (Fortran, Pascal, Basic, C++, FoxPro, . . .) suitable programming languages. If the object system operates in discrete time rather than continuous time, then the differential equations structure is omitted and construction of the simpler difference equations is immediate. Meadows, et al. show no set of system equations, either continuous time or discrete time. In fact, the entire book has not a single mathematical expression in its nearly three hundred pages. The fact that a book which focuses on a dynamic systems model, implemented on a digital computer, can be completely devoid of mathematics seems a bit odd. How is it that Meadows et al. will not, as an explanatory aid, write down a simple one-line differential / difference equation for a single variable system such as figure 4-3? This kind of judgment requires explanation, but the text provides none.

In the body and appendix are subsystem block diagrams (also known as influence diagrams, directed graphs, signal flow charts) showing interconnections between parameters and variables. However, several of the symbols are undefined and no help is provided as to how to interpret the diagrams. Readers who have seen similar diagrams before can likely guess symbol significance, e.g. the circles are summing nodes where all inputs are added to produce a single output. Of course such guesses can be wrong, e.g. node inputs can be combined in some other operation more complex than simple addition. At minimum, the authors should have explained in sufficient detail, using commonly accepted scientific language and terminology, abbreviated parts of their system. A few other omissions deserve mention.

On page 15, under a section titled "The Mathematics of Exponential Growth" the process of sequentially folding a sheet of standard office paper in half, such that the height is increased at each step, is introduced as a lead into the subject of exponential growth. This familiar process presents a fine opportunity to introduce the lay reader as to how a real process can be represented by a simple - the simplest - difference equation which has a correspondingly simple solution, namely an exponential function. However, these authors present no representative equation, but immediately assert - with no justification - that the height of the folded paper would, after forty foldings, reach from the earth to the moon. Since the proof of their assertion could be done within the space of one page - using mathematics not beyond that of freshman college algebra - why did the authors not make the minuscule effort to show their reasoning? It is absurd for a section titled "The Mathematics of Exponential Growth" to contain no mathematics!

A wordy extended discussion on a plethora of ecological topics spanning birth-death rates in Sweden, pollution in the Rhine river, grain production in china, deforestation in Costa Rica and on and on. . . fill up the middle or so hundred pages. This textual overload was a bit much for this reader to digest especially since its connection to the construction of World3/91 is not addressed. Some editorial pruning would have helped.

The latter and most interesting parts of the book are the time course graphs, outputs of thirteen simulation trials of World3/91 conducted under different initial conditions and parameter values (scenarios). System variables displayed in the graphs show some interesting time course behaviors that merit serious attention; accompanying explanations for the various behaviors are clear and intuitively reasonable. In the final pages of the text are some new age musings on political action, networking, visioning and loving. In spite of the disjointedness and questionable value of the preceding material the contents of the latter parts of the book make it worthy of purchase. For those wishing to read further, an extensive list of books along with several peer reviewed professional journal articles is provided. Several books in the list were written by Meadows et al. but their names do not appear as authors for any of the professional journal articles.

Here in Brazil, I tried to read this trash-book on an internet site. And this trash-book has the same useless ideas of Margaret Sanger(in 1910 decade), Paul R. Ehrlich or the Club of Rome sometimes with new words, for the same frauds and prejudices.
This book has the same answers to the main menaces to mankind: Babies from poor colored/poor woman again!
This book again, tells about an inexistent future.
There's nothing about Iran's atomic aiatollahs or Bin Laden, in this book.
Such as in the books writen by Margaret Sanger, in 1910 and 1920 decades, the most terrible menace to us are, again babies from poor colored/poor woman.
After reading some pages, I decided not to continuous to read, this trash-book.

So, these guys write this book in 1972 telling us how the sky is falling and it's all going to end in probably 20 years because we're all a bunch of greedy capitalist pigs.

So, they're wrong about their predictions and they come back about 30 years later to try to scare people again?

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.