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Limits to Growth

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Limits to Growth

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  • Our fourth device is our “worldview,” an internally consistent set of beliefs, attitudes, and values—a paradigm, a fundamental way of looking at reality. Everybody has a worldview; it influences where they look and what they see. It functions as a filter; it admits information consistent with their (often subconscious) expectations about the nature of the world; it leads them to disregard information that challenges or disconfirms those expectations. (Location 396)
  • point. Overshoot comes from the combination of (1) rapid change, (2) limits to that change, and (3) errors or delays in perceiving the limits and controlling the change. (Location 417)
  • Exponential growth occurs in two different ways. If an entity is self-reproducing, then its exponential growth is inherent. If an entity is driven by something else that is growing exponentially, then its growth is derived. (Location 693)
  • The third large uncertainty has to do with feedbacks. Carbon flows and energy flows on planet Earth are immensely complex. There may be self-corrective mechanisms, negative (Location 2152)
  • feedback processes, that will stabilize the greenhouse gases or the temperature. One of them is already operating: The oceans are absorbing about half the excess carbon dioxide emitted by humanity. That effect is not strong enough to stop the rise (Location 2154)
  • The third possibility for a growing society is to overshoot its carrying capacity without doing massive and permanent damage. In that case the ecological footprint would oscillate around the limit before leveling off. This behavior, illustrated in figure 4-3c, is called damped oscillation. The fourth possibility is to overshoot the limits, with severe and permanent damage to the resource base. If that were to occur, the population and the economy would be forced to decline rapidly to achieve a new balance with the recently reduced carrying capacity at a much lower level. We use the phrase overshoot and collapse to designate this option, shown in figure 4-3d. (Location 2446)

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title: Limits to Growth longtitle: Limits to Growth author: Donella H. Meadows url: , source: kindle last_highlight: 2022-02-17 type: books tags:

Limits to Growth

rw-book-cover

Metadata

Highlights

  • Our fourth device is our “worldview,” an internally consistent set of beliefs, attitudes, and values—a paradigm, a fundamental way of looking at reality. Everybody has a worldview; it influences where they look and what they see. It functions as a filter; it admits information consistent with their (often subconscious) expectations about the nature of the world; it leads them to disregard information that challenges or disconfirms those expectations. (Location 396)
  • point. Overshoot comes from the combination of (1) rapid change, (2) limits to that change, and (3) errors or delays in perceiving the limits and controlling the change. (Location 417)
  • Exponential growth occurs in two different ways. If an entity is self-reproducing, then its exponential growth is inherent. If an entity is driven by something else that is growing exponentially, then its growth is derived. (Location 693)
  • The third large uncertainty has to do with feedbacks. Carbon flows and energy flows on planet Earth are immensely complex. There may be self-corrective mechanisms, negative (Location 2152)
  • feedback processes, that will stabilize the greenhouse gases or the temperature. One of them is already operating: The oceans are absorbing about half the excess carbon dioxide emitted by humanity. That effect is not strong enough to stop the rise (Location 2154)
  • The third possibility for a growing society is to overshoot its carrying capacity without doing massive and permanent damage. In that case the ecological footprint would oscillate around the limit before leveling off. This behavior, illustrated in figure 4-3c, is called damped oscillation. The fourth possibility is to overshoot the limits, with severe and permanent damage to the resource base. If that were to occur, the population and the economy would be forced to decline rapidly to achieve a new balance with the recently reduced carrying capacity at a much lower level. We use the phrase overshoot and collapse to designate this option, shown in figure 4-3d. (Location 2446)