Club of Rome och mänskligheten

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Club of Rome är en global tankesmedja som sedan grundandet 1968 arbetat med målsättning att "förstå, analysera och lösa mänsklighetens problem".

Tidigt såg forskarna och affärsmännen på Club of Rome att mänskligheten i nuvarande skede var på väg mot en "snar energi- och miljökollaps", och man ville söka nya vägar. I den berömda boken Limits to growth (1972) beskrivs en planet, som kring år 2000, hotas av miljöförstöring, överbefolkningen och masshunger.

Kom prognoserna att falla in?

Här ett litet utdrag ur Club of Romes egen historia.

(...)

By the time of the first major meeting of the Club in Berne in June 1970 (at the invitation of the Swiss government), there were about 40 members. Ozbekhan presented a paper proposing a methodology for coming to grips with the predicament of mankind: they should set up a fairly basic model of the global situation; establish empirically a list of "continuing critical problems"; then simulate the interactions within the system under different conditions. The results would provide a more concrete basis for evaluating possible policy options and offering advice to governments. The paper provoked a heated debate, with strongly held views on both sides. The majority ultimately decided that it would take too long and cost too much to develop the Ozbekhan model to the point where it would produce useful results.

Once again, the enterprise might have foundered; but once again, a deus ex machina appeared, this time in the shape of Professor Jay Forrester of MIT, who had been invited to the meeting. For thirty years he had been working on the problem of developing mathematical models that could be applied to complex, dynamic situations such as economic and urban growth. His offer to adapt his well-tried dynamic model to handle global issues was gratefully accepted, and the way ahead suddenly seemed less uncertain. A fortnight later, a group of Club members visited Forrester at MIT and were convinced that the model could be made to work for the kind of global problems which interested the Club. An agreement was signed with a research team at MIT in July 1970, the finance provided by a grant of $200 000 that Pestel had obtained from the Volkswagen Foundation.

The team was made up of 17 researchers from a wide range of disciplines and countries, led by Dennis Meadows. From their base at the Systems Dynamics Group at MIT they assembled vast quantities of data from around the world to feed into the model, focusing on five main variables: investment, population, pollution, natural resources and food. The dynamic model would then examine the interactions among these variables and the trends in the system as a whole over the next 10, 20, 50 years or more if present growth rates were maintained. The global approach was quite deliberate; regional and area studies could come later.

In a remarkably short time, the team produced its report in 1972: The Limits to Growth, written.very readably for a non-specialist audience by Donella Meadows. The response to the book - in all 12 million copies have been sold, translated into 37 languages - showed how many people in every continent were concerned about the predicament of mankind. "The Club of Rome" had begun to make its mark, as its founders had hoped, on the whole world.

(clubofrome.org)