A recent study based on computational models claims that within the next decade, global human welfare will begin to decline.
The study was written by Gaya Herrington, a sustainability and dynamic system analysis researcher at the consulting firm KPMG, and published in the Yale Journal of Industrial Ecology.
According to the study, simple supply and demand raises the following problem: If the world's economy and population continues at its current growth rate, the world's natural resources will eventually run out. Then, the economy and population will begin to shrink in order to match its supply.
A groundbreaking MIT study in 1972 titled "Limits to Growth" (LtG) was the first to try to solve the problem based on empirical data and computational analysis.
The 1972 study created a computer model that analyzed global resource consumption and production based on used data from many fields, including population, fertility rates, pollution levels, food production, and industrial output.
The study then presented 12 possible scenarios for the future, based on different forecasts of human behavior. In most of the scenarios, incessant economic growth eventually overshoots the world's natural resources, rendering further economic growth impossible. Personal welfare would then begin to decline as a result.
"Business as Usual" (BaU) was one of the most famous of the 1972 scenarios. BaU predicted that global economic growth would continue as it had done before. When BaU was feeded into the computational models, the outcome was that around the 2040s the world's economy will begin to lose ground, and the world's population, food availability, and other resources would drop as a result.
The 2020 study looked at today's data and compared it to the 1972 predictions. The computer analysis showed that two of the 1972 predictions were very close to the current state of the global economy.
One of them was BaU.
According to the study: "The two scenarios aligning most closely with observed data indicate a halt in welfare, food, and industrial production over the next decade or so, which puts into question the suitability of continuous economic growth as humanity's goal in the twenty-first century."
BaU does not necessary end in a total collapse of human society. the researchers explained in the study. But, it will still create a sharp economic downturn that could destabilize the world as we know it.
However, according to the study, there is still another model within reach, if human behavior changes drastically.While this scenario is least aligned with the 2020 data, humans may decide to deliberately limit their own economic output before the dearth of natural resources forces them to. This includes, among others, having smaller families and limiting industrial pollution and consumption of natural resources.