This book explains a lot more about our current economic and environmental predicament than most of us want explained. In a very few pages, it details the problem with positive feedback loops in economies and societies that lead to uncontrolled growth in population and industrialization. The book details multiple reasons why growth in these areas is fundamentally unsustainable. The current peak oil problem is just the first of many problems that the authors foresaw 30 years ago, that very few people, and no-one in power took seriously.
In 1970 a group of scientists developed an extensive computer model of "the world system" which accounted in a general way for population, food production, industrialization, capital flows, pollution, natural resources, and other variables. When running this model they found that it nearly always showed a population crash before the year 2100, often as early as 2030. This book details the logic behind the model and the "systems thinking" that is necessary to understand the world's economic and physical status.
The public response to this book back in the 1970s involved mostly negative reactions, a great deal of (sometimes intentional) misunderstanding, and very little positive action. Unfortunately for us, everything in the book is still valid today, and even more pertinent than it was in 1970. The problem in a nutshell is that populations and industries grow exponentially, while the planet we live on is not increasing in size or capacity.
The authors have written followup volumes which give updates and detail more of the issues than did the original book. They regretfully admit that the projections of the 1970 model are still valid today, more than 30 years later. All that has changed is that we now have less time to try to change things. Their computer model, which once required a mainframe computer, now can be run on any desktop computer, and it is still making dire projections. Sorry, but things don't look so good from here.
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