Back in the 1970s a group called the “Club of Rome” sponsored a research study – carried out at MIT – called “Limits to Growth.” Over the years, it has been pilloried as alarmist and just plain wrong. Now with energy decline, environmental issues, and population it is interesting to see what tactics were used to discredit the study. The Oil Drum has a good essay on this:
The demonization of Limits To Growth
and I posted a comment:
I think a key problem for those of us trying to prepare for the future is the tendancy of humans (reenforced by the media) to want “predictions.” I was struck by how the Limits to Growth study discussed scenarios – which opponents then claimed were predictions. Problem is, no one can predict the future – but we can reasonably consider the evidence and anticipate different scenarios as to what might happen, so as to be prepared, as Limits to Growth was advocating.
Even though the Limits to Growth didn’t fall into The Prediction Trap (the title of my upcoming book, which you can preview at my web site), their opponents realized the power of painting the study as a prediction. As noted, if you demolish one prediction, credibility for the rest of the information plummets – though for some reason this doesn’t seem to apply to economic predictions…
In fact, maybe that is the way out for Peak Oil awareness. Rather than trying to convince people of peak oil, maybe we should make a significant effort to publicize the predictions of peak oil deniers – like the oil price predictions that the EIA and others have made for years, that are widely off base.
P.S. Another frustrating piece of history: Jimmy Carter’s speech on energy April 18, 1977.
