From: losway@peg.pegasus.oz.au
Newsgroups: aus.politics
Subject: Club of Rome Warning!
Date: 28 Sep 92 01:44:00 GMT
Nf-ID: #N:peg:996200270:000:4072
Nf-From: peg.UUCP!losway    Sep 27 20:44:00 1992


Information about and from the Club of Rome is scarce in 
Australia, and one could be forgiven for thinking that this 
organisation has left the scene. If anything at all does appear 
it is - this has been my personal experience - more or less 
negative.
 
Why is this so?
 
When in 1989 the Club celebrated its 20th anniversary I for one 
did not notice anything in the Australian press. The event was 
not forgotten in the European media however, and in one instance 
in particular, the magazine "Cash-Flow", January '89 issue, 
carried a rather comprehensive report on the organisation's 
members.
 
What this article showed was that far from being a spent force, 
the Club of Rome is very much able to count on individuals of 
high academic and political standing, right across the world - 
Europe, Asia, Africa (yes, things happen there too!). What also 
comes across is that the areas of investigation and research are 
manifold and broadly based, from family-planning and health 
issues to human rights, from political science to the forefronts 
of human technology. 
 
Why then do we hear not more about them in this country? 
 
On the 15 Sep 92 the ORF (Oesterreichischer Rundfunk Fernsehen - 
the Austrian government television service) screened the feature 
"Journal Panorama". 
 
In it the scientists Donella and Dennis Meadows revisited their 
original Club of Rome study "The limits of growth", written in 
1972. Twenty years later, the criteria for a general 
sustainability within the complex of a world economy have to be 
emphasised once more. According to Donella and Dennis the last 
20 years have been wasted as far as any constructive political 
initiatives are concerned. While the sheer data pointing to a 
gradual approach towards breakdown accumulate (and because of 
better technology no doubt become more and more detailed), when 
it comes to their implementation the situation is worse than 
before.
 
The common denominator for productive solutions to our 
predicament is, as demonstrated in the program, an increase in 
efficiency. For this to happen, a "technological escape forward" 
is necessary, to quote Prof Martin Jaenicke from the Institute 
for Environmental Politics at the "Freie Universitaet Berlin". 
Obviously, this requires measures quite beyond the obvious 
science/technology framework [my observation].
 
In the above mentioned program Dennis Meadows says,
 
"The establishment of a sustainable society is still possible. 
According to our calculations the earth's resources could 
satisfy the basic needs for 8 to 9 thousand million people [8 to 
9 billion in US english], although over the past 20 years the 
situation has markedly deteriorated... In my opinion the time 
available for these changes is only 20 years. Based on the 
computer simulations done over the past 12 months I am convinced 
of the following:
 
"Unless we undertake a fundamental re-orientation of our economy 
in both directions, that is use of materials and population 
growth, it will be too late by the year 2015 or 2020. By then 
collapse is unavoidable. Possibly a global collapse will not 
have happened by then, but similar to the loss of control on an 
icy road where one can still feel safe and sound moments before, 
the catastrophe, the collapse, is directly before us, 
unavoidable. The same will happen to us."
 
[The quotes have been taken from the transcript issued by the 
ORF and translated by me from German]
 
Even if one could grant a certain emotional urgency, these words 
are stark and chilling. Even if one should point to an 
over-emphasis on certain data, there are other areas which also 
play an essential role in the maintenance of a stable and 
positive society - fundamental thought structures, psychological 
factors, social energies streaming under the surface. And we 
have not even begun to fully confront those.
 
Again I ask: why don't we hear more about the Club of Rome? Why 
don't we open more to the world in general, rather than being 
forced to concentrate on mostly American-style moralistic 
agendas?
Newsgroups: aus.politics