Club of Rome
In April of 1968, 30 people, including scientists, educators, economists, humanists, industrialists, and government officials, met at the Academia dei Lincei in Rome. The meeting was called by Dr. Aurelio Peccei, an Italian industrialist and economist. The purpose of this meeting was to discuss "the present and future predicament of man." The "Club of Rome" was born from this meeting as an informal organization that has been described as an "invisible college." Its purpose, as described by Donella Meadows, is to foster understanding of the varied but interdependent components—economic, political, natural and social—that make up the global system in which we all live; to bring that new understanding to the attention of policy-makers and the public worldwide; and in this way to promote new policy initiatives and action. The original list of members is listed in the preface to Meadows's book entitled The Limits to Growth, in which the basic findings of the group are eloquently explained.
This text is a modern-day equivalent to the hypothesis of Thomas Malthus, who postulated that since increases in food supply cannot keep pace with geometric increases in human population, there would therefore be a time of famine with a stabilization of the human population. This eighteenth century prediction has, to a great extent, been delayed by the "green revolution" in which agricultural production has been radically increased by the use of fertilizers and development of special genetic strains of agricultural products. The high cost of agricultural chemicals which are generally tied to the price of oil has, however, severely limited the capability of developing nations to purchase them.
The development of the Club of Rome's studies is most potently presented by Meadows in the form of graphs which plot on a time axis the supply of arable land needed at several production levels (present, double present, quadruple present, etc.) to feed the world's population based upon growth models.
She states that 7.9 billion acres (3.2 billion ha) of land are potentially suitable for agriculture on the earth; half of that land, the richest and most accessible half, is under cultivation today. She further states that the remaining land will require immense capital inputs to reach, clear, irrigate, or fertilize before it is ready to produce food. One can imagine the impact such conversion will have on the environment.
The Club of Rome's studies were not limited to food supply but also considered industrial output per capita, pollution per capita, and general resources available per capita. The key issue is that the denominator, per capita, keeps increasing with time, requiring ever more frugal and careful use of the resources; however, no matter how carefully the resources are husbanded, the inevitable result of uncontrolled population growth is a catastrophe which can only be delayed. Therefore stabilizing the rate of world population growth must be a continuing priority.
As a follow-up to the Club of Rome's original meeting, a global model for growth was developed by Jay Forrester of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. This model is capable of update with insertion of information on population, agricultural production, natural resources, industrial production, and pollution. Meadows's report The Limits to Growth represents a readable summary of the results of this modeling.
A new branch of the Club of Rome is the TT30, a group of people around the age of 30 who form a "think tank." This group is primarily concerned with problems of today, future issues, and how to deal with them.
Resources
Books
Dror, Yehezkel. The Capacity to Govern: A Report to the Club of Rome. Frank Cass & Co, 2001.
Forrester, J. W. World Dynamics. Cambridge, MA: Wright-Allen Press, 1971.
Meadows, D. H., et al. The Limits to Growth: A Report for the Club of Rome's Project on the Predicament of Mankind. New York: Universe Books, 1974.
Organizations
The Club of Rome, Rissener Landstr 193, Hamburg, Germany 22559 +49 40 81960714, Fax: +49 40 81960715, Email: mail@clubofrome.org, <http://www.clubofrome.org E;
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