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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 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

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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

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?

Because by the time these persistent pollutants are developed and used, we start to implement
polices to cut down on harmful pollutants and take steps to improve the environment.

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

The population peaks around 1975, because this scenario has low resources so the population
drops quickly, and because environmental polices don’t become implemented until 2015, there is
a long delay before we find and use renewable resources to replace the nonrenewable.

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

Land fertility drops when the resources start to run out, so more land is overused, but eventually
starts to recover when the population is decreasing/increasing slowly because it is not as
overused because of less resource need. Also increased environmental policies will come up with
more efficient and cleaner uses of land, leaving less damages and more fertility.

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.

On the overview pane, the only difference is that the population doesn’t drop quite as much, but
still does. In the first sim the population levels off and starts to increase around 2040, and in the
second around 2020.

In the demographic pane, the four demographics hold exactly the same shape at near the same
levels.

For the land usage, they are also nearly the exact same, except fertility levels off at 2060 rather
than 2080.

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 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.

I think it is somewhat useful in that it does tell policy makers that we even if we started 45 years
ago, all these negative effects including population decline are inevitable. However, other than
that I don’t see it as much use but as more of a “what could have been” scenario.

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.

I set the nonrenewable resources to about halfway on the bar because I think the low amount
isn’t extremely accurate, and the policy implementation to 2020(I realize the U.S. is the one of the
only countries whose federal government is ignoring environmental effects, but they are a big
part of the problem and plenty of other countries follow our lead), and I think the results were
fairly accurate because they represent the population growth well to this point in current time. It
shows the population still growing in 2020, and well into 2040 before an immediate sharp
decline. The population drops from 8.5 billion(pretty close to today’s population) to 5 billion
where it starts to increase again. I think this model is useful because it shows what would happen
if we started in the next couple years to really push environmental legislation(which hopefully
will happen).

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The second scenario I did maxed out nonrenewable resources and changed the year to 2040. It
showed the same results as the other scenarios, and I think this is one is useful because it shows
that even if we have an extremely high amount of resources, we cannot delay policy implement.
Again there is a drastic drop in population. The land fertility drops all the way below 100, and the
potential land is very small.

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Table 1. Results of Scenarios using World3 Model

Initial Sketch of Results – Sketch of Results -

Resource / Overview Demographics
Year
of
Policy
Adoption
12135922330
2

2015

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 12135922330
2

1970

27427184466
02

2020

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 50000000000
00

2040

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