MIT Predicts That World Economy Will Collapse By 2030

Thursday, April 5, 2012 - 15:32 in Mathematics & Economics

Crowds and Haze in Shanghai Jeremy Vandel via Flickr Forty years after its initial publication, a study called The Limits to Growth is looking depressingly prescient. Commissioned by an international think tank called the Club of Rome, the 1972 report found that if civilization continued on its path toward increasing consumption, the global economy would collapse by 2030. Population losses would ensue, and things would generally fall apart. The study was - and remains - nothing if not controversial, with economists doubting its predictions and decrying the notion of imposing limits on economic growth. Australian researcher Graham Turner has examined its assumptions in great detail during the past several years, and apparently his latest research falls in line with the report's predictions, according to Smithsonian Magazine. The world is on track for disaster, the magazine says. The study, initially completed at MIT, relied on several computer models of economic trends and estimated...

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