World3 and Limits to Growth

Student Worksheet

Introduction

In 1972 a book, “The Limits to Growth”, was written and published by a team of MIT analysts
(Meadows et al., 1972). The authors used a systems analysis approach using a computer model
called World3 to examine the interactions of five subsystems of the global economic system:

 population
 food production
 industrial production
 pollution
 consumption of non-renewable natural resources.

The main findings of research using the World3 model was that continued global population and
the associated economic growth would exceed the available resources of the planet, probably
sometime in the 21st Century] most likely leading to collapse of the population and economic
system. By testing various scenarios on World3, the authors also found that early action,
particularly carefully targeted policy and investment in technology, could avert this disaster.

Like, Paul Erlich’s, The Population Bomb, the MIT team’s book was immediate sensation with
many supporters and many detractors. It was probably the earliest, and certainly the best-known
effort to link the environment and global economics.

Donella Meadows, one of the authors described the output graphs produced from the World3
model as predictive

“…only in the most limited sense of the word. These graphs are not exact predictions of the values of
the variables at any particular year in the future. They are indications of the system’s behavioral
tendencies only.” (Meadows et al., The Limits to Growth, 1972. pp. 92–93).

. There are four key elements in World3:

1. The model depends on the existence of feedback loops, both positive and negative. When
positive and negative feedback loops are balanced a steady state outcome results;
however, when one loop dominates an unstable state is the result. This condition should
be familiar to you from your study of systems.

2. The critical function of resources, such as agricultural land, may be eroded as a result of
the economic activity. This is similar to the reduction in carrying capacity due to
overshoot in many ecological models.

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Copyright 2012. North Carolina Department of Public Instruction. .
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 3. The third key element is the presence of delays in the signals from one part of the world
system to another. For instance, the impacts that result from increasing pollution levels
may not be affect life expectancy or agricultural production for some decades. This is
important because it means that policy makers need to anticipate bad impacts far ahead of
the time that those effects show up in order to be effective.

4. The world economic system is treated as a sub-systems in World3. When considering the
challenges of an individual sector such as energy or agriculture on its own it is relatively
easy to propose solutions. However, as we have seen elsewhere, changes in one part of
the system lead to unintended consequences elsewhere.

World3 scenarios generated in the 1970s have been compared to current conditions by several
researchers. Most, but not all, have found good agreement with the scenarios that World3
produced.

Assignment

Go to this version of World3 at http://insightmaker.com/insight/1954

Use the slider bars (see red arrow on right of image below) to set the parameter as shown on
Table 1 on page 6 of this worksheet.

Figure 1. Controls for World3 Simulation. . Image is screenshot from http://insightmaker.com/insight/1954

Created by The North Carolina School of Science and Math.

Copyright 2012. North Carolina Department of Public Instruction. .
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Figure 2. Controls are circled in red to display graphs from model run and to download the image. Switch panes to show
Demographics or Land use data by clicking on the named tabs shown within the upper red circle. Image is screenshot
from http://insightmaker.com/insight/1954

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Copyright 2012. North Carolina Department of Public Instruction. .
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Questions

Record the results of your model runs in Table 1 on page 6 to record results.

1. Set the “Initial Non-renewable Resources” slider at a low point near the left hand side of
the bar. Set the date for the Progressive Policy Adoption slider to a time in 2015. Run the
model and complete a row in Table 1 showing the results.

This scenario imagines a world that already has very low resources, perhaps from over
use in the past or perhaps just because the population has exceeded the carrying capacity
provided by these resources.

a) Overview pane: Why is the curve for persistent pollution so low in this scenario?

If there are no nonrenewable resources to begin with, there will be less resources to create
pollution with (ex. we won’t be able to create new plastic products without oil, so any plastic
products we might have would have to come from recycled plastic products)

b) Demographics pane: What year does population peak in? Why does this peak occur so
early?

The population peaks in the 1970s; this is because our nonrenewable resources available
drastically decrease to almost nonexistent at that time, and since at the time we weren’t prepared
to give up these resources, the population also decreased.

c) Land use pane: Why does land fertility drop off so dramatically and then recover by
2080 in this scenario?

Due to the decrease in population, we would most likely decreased food production, therefore
lowering agricultural jobs and land maintenance along with it. Also, because of the lack of
nonrenewable resources, we might have to turn to plants and forests to find resources, possibly
destroying land.

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Copyright 2012. North Carolina Department of Public Instruction. .
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 2. Set the “Initial Non-renewable Resources” slider at a low point near the left hand side of
the bar. Set the date for the Progressive Policy Adoption slider to a time in 1970. Run the
model and complete a row in Table 1 showing the results.

All the conditions in this scenario are the same as the scenario set in question 1 except
that the start date for adopting Progressive Policies is set moved back to 1970.

a) Compare the results that this change produces using all 3 results panes.

I kept the initial non-renewable resources as the same value as the first scenario, so the
population still peaked at the same value (~3.75 billion) in the 1970s. However, the population in
the second scenario decreased to ~2.8 billion and stopped decreasing at around 2030, while the
population in the first population decreased to ~2.15 billion and stopped decreasing at around
2060. Despite the difference in the population changes, the population age demographics
remained relatively the same. The nonrenewable resources and persistent pollution remained
mostly the same. Land use also mostly remained the same, but land fertility dropped significantly
more in scenario 2, and arable land also decreased slightly more in scenario 2.

b) This is clearly not an accurate scenario but is there some information that might be
useful for policy makers from running this particular scenario? If so describe the
information and why it is useful. If not provide some explanation of why you think that
there is no useful information for current policy-makers in the data from this scenario.

These models show that the later we make environmentally progressive policies, the more our
population will decrease after we run out of our limited amount of resources. Even if we
currently have enough nonrenewable resources to sustain our current generation, if we don’t
transition into alternative resources soon, our future generations will suffer.

3. Choose 2 scenarios that you think might provide useful information to policy makers.
Run those scenarios and record the results in Table 1. Then describe what the results
mean and how those results might be useful to inform policy.

The website doesn’t say what our actual initial resource really is, so I set it at the middle of the
bar (2.5 trillion). I made the first scenario adopt a progressive policy as soon as possible (2019),
and the second scenario adopt a progressive policy when the population started to decrease
drastically (2050). Although both of the populations peak at around 2050 at ~8.5 billion, the first
scenario stops decreasing ~4.7 billion in the 2080s, while the second scenario decreases to ~3.7
billion by almost 2100. This shows how waiting too late to adopt an sustainable progressive
policy could cost billions of lives. Persistent pollution is also much higher in the second scenario,
and in the first scenario, land fertility increased much sooner after it dropped to its lowest point
in 2060.
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Copyright 2012. North Carolina Department of Public Instruction. .
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Table 1. Results of Scenarios using World3 Model

Initial Resource / Sketch of Results – Sketch of Results - Demographics

Policy Adoption Year Overview
The initial resource
was 134.5 billion, and
a progressive policy
was adopted in 2015

The initial resource

was 134.5 billion, and
a progressive policy
was adopted in 1970

The initial resource

was 2.5 trillion, and a
progressive policy was
adopted in 2019

The initial resource

was 2.5 trillion, and a
progressive policy was
adopted in 2050

Created by The North Carolina School of Science and Math.

Copyright 2012. North Carolina Department of Public Instruction. .
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