Fifty years to save our world, wasted

In 1972 a book called The Limits to Growth was published by the Club of Rome. It was the first serious study to question the sustainability of continued growth. Its conclusions were clear. There were limits to growth and this would lead to a "sudden and uncontrollable decline in both population and industrial capacity" in the 21st century. Drastic and urgent measures were needed to prevent this. Although the book caused quite a sensation, little to nothing was done. Thirty years later, in 2004, the authors published an update, in which they reaffirmed their findings, lamenting that "It is a sad fact that humanity has largely squandered the past 30 years in futile debates and well-intentioned, but halfhearted, responses to the global ecological challenge".

Meanwhile, in 1992, the Union of Concerned Scientists and more than 1,700 independent scientists had uttered a stark "World Scientists' Warning to Humanity" calling on mankind to curtail environmental destruction, in other words to make our civilization sustainable. Their warning was given little attention.

In 2017 they evaluated the human response to their warning. With one small exception (the ozone layer) very little had been achieved and most problems had gotten far worse. They published a new warning, this time supported by no less than 17,000 independent scientists. Sadly, their apocalyptic warning again received far too little attention. They can be blamed for that. As we already noted on our wab page about science, scientists have let us down badly by not being able to drive their message home. It pretty much dooms us all.