LIMITS TO GROWTH

I'm getting increasingly worried about humanity's inability to make the right choices when it comes to saving our planet - here's an email I recently sent out to friends, colleagues, and students:

Dear Friend,

Apologies for landing in your inbox, but if you are vaguely interested in (and increasingly worried about) how humans can live sustainably on planet Earth, then please read on.

There is little doubt among a growing number of people that humanity faces "a series of interlocking challenges constituting an unprecedented predicament that must be understood and mitigated in order to live within planetary limits." (see Resource #1). My whole life I have been exposed to problems related to this in one way or the other, but by reading (and listening to) many of the resources shared in this email, it is now clear to me just how serious things are going to get in our lifetime if we do not fundamentally change our perspective on what constitutes a good life.

So I'm sharing these resources with you in the hope that they will influence you as much as they have influenced me in recent years. Please pass on these resources (simply forward this email) to anyone you think might be interested. Some of the resources are very time-consuming to get through (textbook-level), some are podcasts, while others are short articles or YouTube videos. Take your time - this is important.

Thank you,

Andrew

Resource #1: A perspective piece that presents the authors' take on the modern world and its existential challenges. I have also attached this important paper as a pdf to this email.

One of the authors of the above paper is Tom Murphy, a physics professor at the University of California, San Diego. I first came across his work when reading his blog "Do the Math", and he really impressed me with his original ideas and super-rigorous analysis. Here he is in a podcast interview: Resource #2, here is his most recent book, Energy and Human Ambitions on a Finite Planet: Resource #3, and here is his blog: Resource #4.

Resource #5: Around five years ago, as I was preparing to teach a unit on energy and power production, I came across this book by David JC MacKay (at the time he wrote the book, he was a Professor of Engineering at Cambridge University - unfortunately he has since passed away). I had never read a book like this before and it really made me realise how little we understand about our energy usage in the modern world.

Resource #6: Watch this inspiring video (by melodysheep) containing wise words from Isaac Asimov, the late Professor of Biochemistry at Boston University and prolific science fiction writer. (Thanks to Sasha Manu for sharing this video with me.)

Resource #7: From the amazon webpage: "In 1972, three scientists from MIT created a computer model that analysed global resource consumption and production. Their results shocked the world and created stirring conversation about global 'overshoot,' or resource use beyond the carrying capacity of the planet. Now, preeminent environmental scientists Donnella Meadows, Jorgen Randers, and Dennis Meadows have teamed up again to update and expand their original findings in The Limits to Growth: The 30 Year Global Update."

I know there are plenty more resources out there trying to convey the same message, but the ones above are some of my favourites. Good luck to us all.