I have been studying “Limits and Beyond”. This is the 50 year review of “Limits to Growth”. The message remains as stark as ever: Make radical global changes in society or face the extinction of human civilisation.

The book consists of a set of 21 essays including several by authors that had been involved in the original Club of Rome.

 The first section of the book deals with how the original “Limits to Growth” has been received until now. In particular how has been wilfully misinterpreted when actually the model has stood up remarkably well. This was already apparent in the 40 year review.

The rest looks at the changes that are needed which fall into three categories:

1. More appropriate economics and governance. A recurring theme is the need for greater equality. Several authors point out how toxic Neo-liberal free market ideology is. On governance the need call for greater collaboration, strong regulation and even questioning if western style democracy is best.
2.  A correct mind-set. Less competitive. Less patriarchal.  More empathetic. More collaborative. More attuned to Nature.
3. Necessary technological developments. The authors come from a wide range of backgrounds and offer a variety of views on the first two categories. The idea that there could be a technological fix to make Business as usual is rightly dismissed,.

I found several writers in “Limits and Beyond” to be rather dismissive of technology. Unpredictable and out of control, maybe. But some new technology is essential, but technologists do need a considered brief. Technologists as a tribe have no problem with complex requirements.

In the case of renewable energy the brief is to replace energy from non-renewable and polluting fuels but to do so with solutions that do not themselves increase the environmental footprint.

It seems to me that we need to establish the idea of “Necessary Technology” and regard that unruly crowd of technologists as essential collaborators.

The thing about technological development is that it takes time. The level of investment in a new technology have always been, very roughly, at the rate of about ten times per decade.

Probably the most necessary technology for avoiding catastrophe is renewable energy. The rate of investment in fossil fuels has been of the order of 100 billion pounds a year so to get to that level now we need to have started investing a million pounds a year 50 years earlier.

Serious development did indeed start 50 years ago.

 I was there.

In 1972, I was a junior researcher in the laboratories of a multinational corporation in a department that was devoted to the development of semiconductor and other materials and associated technologies. Here was a group of people who understood the implications, the underlying science, and the concept of modelling. Fertile ground.

There were a lot of discussions about how to overcome the limitations of potential photovoltaic materials (quantum mechanics comes into this, I won’t go into details!).

This story would have played out in other similar laboratories and the development of solar power initiated.

So this very necessary technological development has now reached the situation where renewable energy is about a tenth the cost of non-renewable energy. All as a result of the right people getting a right message from Limits to Growth.

A result!

(Incidental the technology for LEDs also started then, I remember a colleague walking down a corridor showing off a demonstration of a dim red LED. Wow!

And now 50 years later we have LED floodlighting.)