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More pessimistic predictions came from the Club of Rome, a group which used computer
models to extrapolate existing trends.
In ``Limits to Growth'', published in 1972, they foresaw global catastrophe within the next
few decades, due to population growth, pollution and resource depletion.
These prophecies are familiar to us from Chapter Four,
where we noted that similar predictions made by Paul Ehrlich in ``The Population Bomb'' (1968)
had failed to materialize.
Contemporary critics noted several problems with these predictions - for example, the
Science Policy Research Unit at the University of Sussex showed that running the `Limits to
Growth' computer model backwards implied that the human population in 1880 must have
been many billions.
Part of this debate is familiar to us from our earlier discussion of the
environment. We are no closer to resolving that debate, though we can note
rather gross inaccuracies in the predictions of both sides.
John Jones
2003-11-25