The Walls are Closing in

According to MIT we are on the precipice of a complete global economic collapse. A group of researchers at MIT’s Jay W. Forrester’s institute predict that this will happen by 2030 if the world continues to consume resources at it’s current rate. The researchers also predict that there will be a steep decline in population as a result of the economic collapse that is on the horizon.

The Jay W. Forrester’s institute came to their conclusions based on a computer simulation. The simulation accounts for resource usage, farming output, birth control, and pollution.

This research was conducted at the behest of The Club of Rome a think tank that primarily deals with international politics.  According to the Club of Rome’s web site

They created a computing model which took into account the relations between various global developments and produced computer simulations for alternative scenarios. Part of the modelling were different amounts of possibly available resources, different levels of agricultural productivity, birth control or environmental protection. 

 Most scenarios resulted in an ongoing growth of population and of the economy until to a turning point around 2030. Only drastic measures for environmental protection proved to be suitable to change this systems behaviour, and only under these circumstances, scenarios could be calculated in which both world population and wealth could remain at a constant level. However, so far the necessary political measures were not taken.

The report is based on the 1972 book Limits to Growth which states

It is self evident that human resource usage cannot exceed what the globe can provide for very long. The human ecological footprint will have to move back into sustainable territory.  Either through managed decline to sustainable levels of activity or through collapse to the same levels through the brutal work of nature or the market.

I think Serj Tankian said it best when he said

We’re the regulators that de-regulate.
We’re the animators that de-animate.
We’re the propagators of all genocide.
Burning through the world’s resources, then we turn and hide.