Presentation from Prof. Ernst Ulrich von Weizsäcker, co-president of the Club of Rome.

1. Co-President
Prof. Ernst Ulrich von Weizsäcker
27 September, 2018
50 years after and 50 years ahead.
Come on, it’s time to act!
Plenary Opening Session

2. Aurelio Peccei 1908 – 1984
Source: lastcallthefilm.com
Alexander King 1909-2007
Source: whitehead-family.ca
Eduard Pestel 1914-1988
Source: Niedersachsen.de
Aurelio Peccei and two other founding fathers of
the Club of Rome. United in major concerns
about the future of the Planet and of humankind.

3. Jørgen Randers, Jay W. Forrester, Donella Meadows, Dennis Meadows, William Behrens
Source: raunerlibrary.blogspot.com
The team writing The Limits to Growth.
The book became a mega bestseller

4. Limits to Growth: Depletion of
natural resources was the core of the
shocking message
1900 2000 2100

5. … and our friend Wouter van
Dieren did wonders in
poularizing The Limits to
Growth prior to its publication.
He made everybody curious
what the mysterious Club of
Rome was going to say.
Picture from an announcement of
Wouter‘s lecture on sustainability
in Flevoland province, in 2005

6. Ronald Reagan : "There are no such
things as limits to growth”, and got very
popular with such statements. (1983)
Thatcher about Reagan: “Others saw
only limits to growth. He transformed a
stagnant economy into an engine of
opportunity.” (2004, obituary comments)
Some people hated The Limits to Growth.
www.reagan.utexas.edu

7. 40 odd additional reports to the Club of Rome,
among them
•Mihailo Mesarovic: Mankind at the Turning Point
•Dennis Gabor and Umberto Colombo: Beyond the Age of
Waste
•Juan Rada: Microelectronics and Society. For Better or for
Worse
•James Botkin, Mahdi Elmandjra, Mircea Malitza: No Limits
to Learning.
•Alex King and Bertrand Schneider: The First Global
Revolution.
•Jorgen Randers: 2052
•Ugo Bardi: Extracted

8. Leaders after Aurelio Peccei and Alex King
Ricardo Díez Hochleitner
President 1990-2000
H.R.H. Prince El Hassan
Bin Talal, President
2000 - 2006
Dr. Ashok Khosla and Eberhard von Koerber
Co-Presidents 2008 - 2012

9. September2012
Jørgen Randers wrote „2052“ in 2012: Forty years after
Limits to Growth, and a projection for forty years ahead.

10. 2 pessimistic mistakes in Limits to Growth:
Resource depletion
did not happen.
LtG assumed a permanent strict
correlation between industry
output and pollution.
The correlation vanished
as pollution control came.

11. 2 (tacid) optimistic mistakes in Limits to Growth
Global warming did not occur
in the calculations
And now it‘s a
grim fact
Biodiversity losses not included
in the scenarios.
And now horren-
dous acceleration

12. Growth economics was ok for the Empty World. But it can
be wrong for the Full World. (Herman Daly)
Empty World Full World
The World Human economy

13. The difference between the Empty World and the Full World
lies at the core of the new (2018) Club of Rome Report
The original edition, 2018 German translation

14. 1. C’mon! Don’t Tell Me the Current Trends Are
Sustainable!
2. C’mon! Don’t Stick to Outdated Philosophies!
3. Come On! Join Us on an Exciting Journey
Towards a Sustainable World!
A48925
The three Chapters of Come On!

15. Topics not addressed in 1972 but in „Come On!“
• Climate
• Sustainability including the 17 SDG‘s
• Anthropocene,
• Globalisation,
• Digitalisation,
• Crisis of democracy,
• Unbridled power of the finanial markets.
Culminating in the need for a new Enlightenment
fitting for the Full World

16. Greed, selfishness, brutal competition, purely
utilitarian economics destroy our Common Home.
We strongly agree with Pope Francis‘
Encyclical Laudato Si‘.

17. Industrial livestock farming is the reason
picture: Randall Hill/Reuters, The Guardian 3 März 2016
One figure on the anthropocene: 97% of the body weight of
land living vertebrates are farmed animals and pets (67%) –
and we humans (30%). Only 3% remain for wild animals!

18. Our book could as well be called
Policies for the
Anthropocene

19. Population increase
is at the core of the
„full world“
problems!

20. The heroes of modern economics are
massively misinterpreted and abused to
legitimate destructive „growth“.
Adam Smith David Ricardo Charles Darwin

21. Balance could become a key notion
for the new Enlightenment,
e.g. between
• humans and nature
• short term and long term,
• public and private (state and markets),
• equity and rewards for achievement,
• speed and stability.

22. We have to act now. That‘s Chapter 3. It includes:
• Regenerative Economy;
• Rapid measures for climate;
• Circular economy creating jobs;
• Control of financial markets
• Engaging civil society
(5 out of 20 items)