The conference “The Power of the Mind” – Club of Rome celebrates 40 years since the first report on the state and future of the world

The National Bank of the Romania (BNR) and the Romanian Association for the Club of Rome(ARCOR) organize today,2 october 2012, the International Conference “The Power of the Mind” in which will be celebrated the 40th anniversary at the first report of the Club of Rome entitled “Limits to Growth” which has initiated a debate about humanity and nature which is continued from today. At the event participate members of the Club of Rome from the different parts of the world, also as personalities from Romania, like the Guvernator of BNR, Mugur Isarescu.
During the conference will be presented,by their authors,the reports “Limits to Growth” by Dennis Meadows,”2052-a Global Forecast for the Next Forty Years” by Jorgen Randers, “Bankrupting Nature” by Anders Wijkman, “Factor Five” by Ernst Ulrich von Weizsäcker and”No Limits to Learning” by Mircea Malita, and Mugur Isarescu,the president of ARCOR will present the perspectives of the international banking system. Also, Ionel Haiduc, the president of the Romania Academy,the academician Mircea Malita, and Richard Ernst laureate of the Nobel Prize, will discuss about the learning role and education for our future, domains about the Romanian Association of the Club of Rome put a special emphasis in many times.
We mentione that, in mai 2012,The Club of Rome launched public a new report which contains predictions about the human evolution in the next 40 years.The document which is called –„2052: Shaping Our Future” – A Global Forecast for the Next Forty Years” (published by Chelsea Green) announce a future not at all lightly for the humanity. In launching this Report, the Club of Rome continued its tradition of raising fundamental questions about the challenges facing humankind in a systemic, holistic and long-term manner. This Report revisited issues first raised 40 years ago in Limits to Growth, a report that created shock waves when it was published.Among the predictions of the report we can remember some: in 2040, the Earth will reach 8,1 bilions of population, after that will start a decrease of the number of people on the Earth; the current economic powers will stagnate, in special USA, while the other economies, like Brazillia, India, Russia and South Africa will increase. China will continue the success of its capacity of response; Global PIB will increase slowly than they estimated mainly due to the decrease in productivity and population. In 2050,PIB at global level will be 2,2 much higher than at present; the growth rate will decrease because a good part of PIB will spent for counterbalancing depletion of natural resources, increasing environmental pollution, deteriorating climatic factors and not ultimately multiplication social injustice;the anxieties generated by social imbalances and worsening climatic imbalance will intensify.The concentration of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere continue to cause a temperature rise of 2.8 degrees Celsius,which can to trigger the major climate change, the rate of consumption of goods and services is expected to peak in 2045.

Already in the 1972 report, the club warned that the globe’s future would depend on the future use of energy. In contrast to today though, the assumption in the seventies was that the problem was rather that fossil fuels – oil and gas – would soon run out. And in the aftermath of the ’72 report, its predictions seemed to hold true. The oil crisis of 1973 and the one of 1979/80 led to a dramatic rise in prices, with the industrialized world going through a recession as a consequence. But, according Deutsche Welle, the Club of Rome also failed to predict pushes of modernization leading to a structural change away from heavy industry towards a society with advanced technology and a service based economy: the rise of the computer during the 1980s, the Internet in the ’90s and the advances in energy and environment and nano technologies.

“The limits of growth” was a milestone in which the Club of Rome for the first time used complex mathematical models for predictions on future interdependencies of social, environmental and economic factors. The models took into account the limited availabilitiy of natural ressources, the output of the global industry, food production, population growth and the pollution of the environment.