Are we doomed? – The WTO-column

(Later also at Chinabiz and BNN)

“If the present growth trends in industrialization, pollution, food production, and resource depletion continue unchanged, the limits to growth on this planet will be reached sometime within the next one hundred years. The most probable result will be a rather sudden and uncontrollable decline in both population and industrial capacity.”

Does this sound familiar? No, this is not another report on the devastating effects of China’s fast growth on world resources. This is a – slightly adopted – statement from the report “Limits to Growth” published in 1972 by de Club of Rome, a non-governmental organization that predicted doom and gloom unless we would put a limit to our economic growth.
I looked it up after reading just another report on how China’s economy growth, low energy efficiency and need for resources will put a heavy mortgage on the world’s future. There are both huge differences and some similarities between what happened at the end of the nineteen sixties, beginning of the seventies and what is happening now.
First, the Club of Rome proved to be highly efficient in the way it brought its message. Their report and many other publications were discussed both during the classes at my middle school, at papers and at TV-programs. It helped that the world when through a – political – oil crisis in 1973, showing the real effects of an energy crunch. Despite an unprecedented economic growth up to that moment, at our middle school we were very much focused on all those things that would end our recently gained economic paradise: energy shortage, pollution, and of course the threatening nuclear war.
That sense of urgency helped to turn around some of the worst predictions and in that way the Club of Rome was highly efficient. We as world citizens felt responsible for its survival and many new daily habits were introduced. We closed doors and windows to preserve energy, switched off lights, we started to separate garbage into different categories and took more often public transport in stead of the car – yes, I’m from Europe as you might notice.
Not all of these acts proved to be that useful later on, but it gave you the feeling you did your bit to save the world.
Focus of the Club was mainly North America and Europe, since those were the biggest culprits then.

Thirty years later, environmental outlooks are very grim again. China’s economic booms is transforming world markets as it goes on a rampage for oil, steel and other resources. Official reports warn against for the heavy damage worldwide if China, followed by India do not change their ways of boosting their economy. Nobody even dares to suggest that China should limit its growth, as was suggested to the world in the 1970s: that would even be worse than asking the country to give up its one China policy.
While also the official reports from China mirror the worries about the country’s environmental future, there seems to be no efficient method to get the message across to lower governments or its citizens. The temperature will be rising very soon and department stores will do their best to use their airco’s to cool down the shopping streets in Shanghai. But rather than trying to stop this useless spillage of energy, China rather engages into building more nuclear power plants, and destroying beautiful resources by building dams to produce more energy.
There are some encouraging signs that a civil society is emerging especially in the area of environmental protection. But what is needed is a Club of Shanghai or Beijing who is as effective as the Club of Rome was more than thirty years ago.

Fons Tuinstra