In the 1970s, humanity experienced a time of great technological advancement and increasing life expectancy. However, concerns were already beginning to emerge about the long-term sustainability of growth and the planet’s ability to keep up with human activity.

In this context, four MIT students used Jay Wright Forrester’s original World1 system – considered the father of system dynamics – to create a mathematical model called World3. This model was commissioned by the Club of Rome to predict how the world could sustain its growth given the planet’s finite resources.

The Club of Rome is an organization of thinkers, former world heads of state, scientists and UN bureaucrats. with a mission to seek “holistic solutions to complex global problems and to promote initiatives and political actions that empower humanity to emerge from multiple planetary emergencies”.

World One’s mathematical model showed that if population and industry continued to grow, at current levels, global collapse would occur by 2040. The model’s calculations took into account factors such as pollution, population growth, the amount of natural resources and the quality of life on Earth.

The World One Program

World One (World1) was a computer program that viewed the world as a system. The program took an “electronic tour” of our behavior since 1900 and anticipated where that behavior would lead.

using images, World One showed trends and statistics for variables such as population, quality of life, natural resource supply, pollution and more. These trends made it possible to visualize where crises could occur in the coming decades.

The result, which offered no optimistic view of tomorrow’s world, was captured in his 1972 study “The Limits to Growth,” one of the best-selling environmental books of all time, which was described as “perhaps the most innovative academic work of all time.” the 1970s,” he said Science alert in 2018.

In 1972, the MIT computer calculated when the end of civilization would come.

In one of its central milestones, the study predicted a global pollution peak in 2020. It was then that the quality of life would begin to drop dramatically. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) picked up the original television coverage from the 1970s and then summarized the research:

“By 2020, the state of the planet will be very critical. If we don’t do anything about it, the quality of life will drop to zero. The pollution is becoming so severe that it will kill people, which in turn will lead to a population decline below 1900 levels. By then, around 2040 or 2050, civilized life as we know it on this planet will cease to exist.”

It should be noted that in the same 1973 coverage, ABC assured that “World1 does not claim to be an exact prediction”, but views the world as a system for the first time in human history on Earth. It shows that the Earth cannot sustain current population and industrial growth for much longer than a few decades.

New world order

Alexander King, leader of the Club of Rome at the time, believed that the results of the World One computer program would mean that nation-states would lose their sovereignty and corporations would take control. “The sovereignty of nations is no longer absolute,” King told ABC. “There is a gradual decline of sovereignty, little by little. This will happen even in big countries,” he added.

Despite the huge sales, “Limits to Growth”, which was considered to be the forerunner of the general awareness of the concept of environmental sustainability, was heavily criticized in many quarters at the time of its publication. Some experts claimed that the book overestimated resource depletion and underestimated the ability of technology to solve environmental problems.

“In our opinion, Limits to Growth is an empty and misleading piece,” he wrote. The New York Times in 1972. “The imposing apparatus of computer technology and systems jargon (…) starts with arbitrary assumptions, shakes them up, and draws arbitrary conclusions that sound like science.”

In the decades since, research has shown, despite the detractors, that many of the predictions of this pioneering model were not so inaccurate after all. For example, according to data from the World Health Organization (WHO), nine out of ten people around the world currently breathe air with high levels of pollution. The agency estimates that nearly 7 million deaths a year can be attributed to pollution.

However, perhaps it is not fundamentally necessary to have a mathematical model to arrive at such a prediction. Still, World One had a major impact on the debate on sustainability and human development, so despite the criticism and controversy surrounding its publication, the model helped raise awareness of the need to address resource depletion, natural resources and quality of life. on the planet.