MIT’s 1972 collapse model updated: Humanity enters make-or-break decade

The article revisits the seminal 1972 MIT study "Limits to Growth," which used the World3 computer model to simulate the long-term interactions of population, industrial output, food production, resource use, and pollution on Earth's finite systems. The original study warned that continuing "business as usual" growth would lead to ecological overshoot followed by decline within the 21st century, but also showed that a managed transition—stabilizing population, reducing consumption, and improving efficiency—could sustain living standards and ecosystems. This framework has influenced modern discussions on planetary boundaries and sustainable development. In 2020, sustainability analyst Gaya Herrington updated the model using recent empirical data, finding that real-world trends closely match the "business as usual" scenario, which predicts significant declines in industrial capital, agriculture, and welfare starting in the coming decade, potentially leading to broader social breakdown by 2040. Herrington emphasized that this is not a deterministic forecast but a warning about systemic risks if growth remains the overriding