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New report to the Club of Rome

FACTOR FOUR

Ernst von WEIZSACKER, Amory B. LOVINS, L. Hunter LOVINS

Translation

A.P. Zavarnitsyn and V.D. Novikov

Weizsacker E., Lovins E., Lovins L. FACTOR FOUR. The cost is half, the return is double. New report to the Club of Rome. Translation by A.P. Zavarnitsyn and V.D. Novikov, ed. Academician G.A. Months. M.: Academia, 2000. 400 p.

How to reconcile a high quality of life and careful attitude to natural resources? The next report to the Club of Rome (1995), the authors of which are world-famous experts in the field of environmental protection, is devoted to the search for an answer to this question. The book offered to the attention of readers is a revised version of the mentioned report. The main content of the book is devoted to substantiating the concept of "resource productivity", by which the authors understand the ability to live twice as well and at the same time spend half as much. Hence the title of the book.

The book is addressed to a wide range of readers.

ISBN 5-874444-098-4

BBC 65

© Authors, 1997

© A.P. Zavarnitsyn, V.D. Novikov, 2000

© Publishing house «Academia», 2000

From the translation editor

In 1968 a group of scientists and businessmen from different countries founded the Club of Rome - an international non-governmental organization that has set as its goal the study of global problems and ways to solve them. In 1972, the first report to the Club was published - "The Limits to Growth" by Donella and Dennis Meadows, Jorgen Randers and V.V. Berens. The report, which attracted the attention of politicians and scientists around the world, argued that the fate of mankind was threatened by uncontrolled population growth, the ruthless exploitation of natural resources and environmental pollution. Some have taken The Limits to Growth as a prediction of the imminent end of the world.

Physicist and biologist, environmentalist and politician Ernst Ulrich von Weizsecker, President of the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy at the North Rhine-Westphalia Science Center, Germany. Formerly Director of the Institute for European Environmental Policy in Bonn, in 1996 he became the first recipient of the Duke of Edinburgh's Gold Medal. Since 1998 he has been representing the city of Stuttgart in the German Bundestag.

Amory Bloch Levins is the research and finance director of the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI), of which Hunter Lovins is president. They founded this non-profit resource policy center in 1982 in the Rocky Mountains (hence the Institute's name, which means "Rocky Mountains" in English), Colorado, USA. Amory Lovins is an experimental physicist educated at Harvard and Oxford. He has received an MA from Oxford, six honorary doctorates, and has published 26 books and several hundred articles.

L. Hunter Lovins is a lawyer, sociologist, political scientist, forester, and cowboy. She holds an honorary doctorate and has co-authored many books and articles with Amory Lovins. She was awarded with him the Nissan, Mitchell and Alternative Nobel Prizes.

The main areas of their joint work are systems design, problems in the automotive industry, electricity and construction, integration of resource efficiency into strategy sustainable development.

The goal of the Rocky Mountain Institute is to develop methods for the efficient use of resources. The Institute is independent of government, political parties, ideological or religious movements. About 50 of its employees conduct research and disseminate knowledge related to energy, transport, climate, water resources, agriculture, security, green building, economic development of various communities. The institute's budget is about three million dollars a year. Of these, 36-50% comes from consulting fees to private sector organizations and from the proceeds of the institute's commercial subsidiary, which is a source of technical and strategic information in the field of progressive and efficient energy use.

The rest of the budget is made up of tax-free donations and grants from foundations.

While in the US in February 1997, I visited the Rocky Mountain Institute where I met Dr. Amory Lovins. I was captivated by his idea of a solution environmental issues and at the same time increasing the efficiency of natural resource consumption by improving technology. The breadth of Dr. Lovins' thinking is astounding. He is well aware that in order to achieve the goals set, it is necessary to solve many economic problems, and in some cases state regulation is necessary.

I was also struck by the building of the Institute. It in itself is the subject of scientific research. Suffice it to say that only a few percent of the energy needed for similar buildings in the same area is used to heat it. The rest of the energy is obtained from the sun, although the winters are cold there - the temperature sometimes drops to -40°C. This is provided by special glasses that pass well Sun rays and at the same time are good thermal insulators. Thermal insulation of walls, doors, windows is made at the highest level using modern materials. Due to the low energy consumption, the payback period for these materials does not exceed one year.

Why am I, a physicist, interested in the ideas of Dr. E. Lovins and his colleagues? For more than 12 years, I was the chairman of the Ural Branch of the Academy of Sciences (first of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, and then of the Russian Academy of Sciences). The Ural region of Russia is experiencing Hard times. This is the land of ferrous and non-ferrous metallurgy, nuclear and defense industries, mechanical engineering, and mining enterprises. For hundreds of years, billions of tons of waste have accumulated on the surface of the Earth. In order to solve the environmental problems of the Urals, I participated in the creation of several institutes of the appropriate profile (Institute of Industrial Ecology, Institute of Ecology and Genetics of Microorganisms, Institute of Forest, Institute of the Steppe, etc.). It seemed self-evident that industry creates environmental problems, and scientists (biologists, chemists, physicians, physicists, etc.) think about how to solve them. However, it is equally important to think about how to change technologies in order to create fewer environmental problems. We need to move away from the mere cesspool role of scientists. In order for us to have a future, we need to radically improve technology, consume less energy, use natural resources efficiently. Factor Four offers solutions to these problems, so I asked Dr. E. Lovins for permission to translate the book into Russian, and he graciously agreed.

Are we living right? And how to live right? These are, in fact, the main questions that the authors of Factor Four are trying to answer. This is not about wars, terrorism, drug addiction and other similar global problems, but about the economy, technology, ecology, and natural resources. And about the free market, which is especially important for us, since we are trying to build a market economy in Russia. Since the Industrial Revolution, progress has meant increased productivity. Factor Four offers a new approach to progress, focusing on increasing resource productivity. According to the authors, we can live twice as well and at the same time spend half as many resources, which is necessary for the sustainable development of mankind in the future. The solution is to use electricity, water, fuel, materials, fertile land, etc. more efficiently, often at no additional cost and even profitably. As Factor Four very convincingly shows, most of the technical solutions to our problems already exist and must be used right now.

At one time we talked a lot about energy-saving policy, the quintessence of which can be considered the well-known inscription on the walls of our institutions: “When leaving, turn off the light!” So the productive use of resources is not so new. The news is how many untapped opportunities exist. The authors cite dozens of examples, from hypercars to video conferencing, from new approaches in agriculture to economical models of refrigerators. At the same time, they not only give recommendations, sometimes quite simple, but also implement many of them in practice, as I had the opportunity to verify. The book is replete with practical examples of technologies that allow more efficient use of the world's resources. It can become a reference guide for those who want to understand how to put technology at the service of sustainable development and environmental protection. Unfortunately, in our daily life we encounter dozens of counterexamples - from leaking taps through which entire seas of precious clean water flow, to heating mains in large cities that are shifted every three to four years, and their thermal insulation is such that in winter the snow over melts them.

The book explains how to organize markets and rebuild tax system in such a way that people's well-being can increase and resource consumption does not increase.

For many developing countries, the efficiency revolution may offer the only real opportunity for prosperity in a relatively short period of time. But the new way of thinking is not acceptable to everyone, as the discussions at the World Environmental Forum in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 showed, to which many pages are devoted in the book.

One of the main barriers to more efficient use of resources is the contradictions between developed and developing countries. For the latter, saving resources and caring for nature often recede into the background before the immediate tasks of combating poverty, which they are trying to solve on the path of development along the Western model, alas, not without many mistakes. The events of recent years have thrown Russia out of the camp developed countries to which she seemed to belong, to a position behind even many developing countries, so we are probably destined for our share of misconceptions and mistakes in addition to those already committed. But according to the fair assertion of one of the authors, Dr. Amory Lovins, Russia has priceless wealth - these are its people, with their stamina and resourcefulness, inner strength and talent, talent and spiritual depth. I think that the book offered to the reader's attention can, to some extent, help us realize this enormous wealth.

August 1999

Academician G.A. MONTH

Preface to the Russian edition* * Translated by N. Sen

The book has already been translated into more than 10 languages, and I am especially pleased that, at the suggestion of Academician G.A. Months the Russian Academy of Sciences made this book available to the Russian-speaking reader. I am grateful for the efforts made and hope that the content of the book will be consonant with the new thinking that has arisen in Lately in Russia. Of course, many of the details mentioned here have no analogues in Russian reality, but attentive readers will no doubt draw the appropriate conclusions and apply our experience in Russian conditions.

The part of the world you live in is of particular interest to me for several reasons. I studied at Harvard in the Russian department. I have some practical experience of trying to help Russian colleagues in saving energy. And finally, I am a descendant of four Ukrainian grandparents. So, I hope I will be forgiven for being bold if I offer some thoughts about why the Russians, I believe, can make a unique contribution to the implementation of the ideas of this book, not only at home, but throughout the world.

Russia is an outstanding country. Its resilient and resourceful people have endured and overcome great adversity and achieved many successes that the world admires.

Today Russia is in trouble again. It is not easy to bear the burden of an exceptionally difficult thousand-year history. But any dangers, any difficulties are harbingers of new opportunities. And now Russia and the whole world have a single path that inspires great hopes. I mean not only the near future, but first of all a long-term strategy that will determine our common destinies. In this world strategy, Russia has a place of great and ever-increasing importance. Let me explain why.

The time in which we live poses a new challenge to all of us, and Russia, like never before, can use its unique resource, which will increasingly determine its special and significant role in global development. This resource is the inner strength and talent of Russians.

The unified world economy of the 21st century will, relatively less than before, depend on physical resources. Of course, Russia's mineral and land resources will not lose their significance. But in an economy that produces more and less physically, the most valuable will be what people have in their heads and souls. There is no need to conserve these human resources like coal, timber or nickel. On the contrary, they must be used generously, generously, even wastefully, because they differ from physical resources in their inexhaustibility. The more you use them, the more they become.

In the emerging global information economy, which is largely based on human resources, Russia's advantage lies in priceless wealth - its people. Their natural gifts, enriched by history and one of the most thoughtful and effective systems of universal education, are a unique treasure. This treasure can serve as the basis of a new Russian economy - stable, comprehensive and deep, because it will be based not on oil, which can run out, not on steel, which can be eaten by rust, not on sturgeon, which can be caught by poachers, but on the very a precious capital, more needed and more respected in the world - a capital which is a confident, well-educated, gifted people with their age-old culture.

World-class scientists and engineers leading and innovating in every field; the industry that created the defense power; amazing talent of writers, musicians and artists; natural wisdom and ancient customs of the villagers; the compassion of doctors and the dedication of teachers; the spiritual depth of the great Russian soul - these and other precious resources of Russia constitute the capital that the world will value more and more and use more and more widely. And the world is ready to pay for this capital.

Thanks to the experience of Russian science and technology, combined with the capacities and specialists of its military-industrial complex, many acute environmental problems (in Russia itself, in Eastern Europe, in China - everywhere, including both American continents) can be solved on the way to a safer life, healthy childhood, prosperous economy. First-class Russian programmers are able to contribute to the solution of technical problems associated with the so-called "computer error of the year 2000". Russian teachers will help their American colleagues develop new approaches to serious problems in my country's schools. Russia's unsurpassed experts in combating terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction will work with their foreign partners to make the world a safer place for our children and to prevent a global catastrophe. And finally, the restructuring of the world economy, the more productive use of energy, water and materials is another ambitious task that will require Russian hands and Russian minds.

Russia has previously cooperated with the West in various areas of mutual interest: space, environmental protection, international security. Many joint projects were successful, but they appeared from time to time. A systematic approach will bring much more tangible results to all of us. Strengthening the role of independent non-governmental organizations will help overcome the problems created in our countries by bureaucracy and political instability, which make joint action less effective than it could be. In addition, a careful choice of policies that ensure openness and honesty in the field of knowledge work will protect Russian innovations from piracy and bring them a fair reward. Some fruitful ideas for the practical implementation of a new approach to using the experience and ideas of Russian citizens to solve many global problems have already been proposed by the leaders of the Russian Academy of Sciences and members of the Russian government. They were also discussed with American leaders. We must move from these preliminary discussions to serious action.

All people and all nations have their tasks. All people and all nations discover in themselves the talent and determination to find answers to them. We have a lot to think about and do, relying on trust and mutual understanding, on the friendship and boundless patience of the Russian people. In their special talent lies the key to solving the world's problems.

This book attempts to suggest some of the practical steps needed to realize this enormous potential. Together, step by step, patiently and gradually, we can create for ourselves and our children better world, the world of our hopes.

Foreword

On the other hand, how can we ever return to ecological balance on Earth if we cannot halve our resource consumption? The halving of resource consumption truly means "Respect for Nature", as the latest report of Woeter van Dieren to the Club is called. Halving resource consumption is closely related to the complex issue of sustainable development that dominated the World Environmental Forum in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. But remember that this goal was set 20 years earlier in the famous report to the Club of Rome "The Limits to Growth" Donella and Dennis Meadows, Jorgen Randers and Bill Behrens (Meadows et al., 1972).

Thus, the doubling of wealth and the doubling of resources indicate the scale of the global problem, which the Club of Rome considers to be the core of its activities. We are proud to be able to present Factor Four as a new hopeful report to the Club, outlining some of the steps humanity needs to take. "Factor Four" can contribute to solving the problems raised by the Club in the "First Global Revolution". We would like to acknowledge with gratitude the contribution of two pioneers in the field of energy efficiency, Amory and Hunter Lovins, involved in this work by our member Ernst von Weizsäcker, who initiated the making of Factor Four another report to the Club. The authors were able to collect 50 impressive examples of quadrupling the productivity of resources and thereby demonstrate the wide possibilities of the ideas outlined in the Factor Four report.

Each report to the Club of Rome sums up the results of comprehensive research and discussion by Club members and other leading experts. In the case of Factor Four, the results were summed up at an international conference of the Club of Rome, organized with the support of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, in Bonn in March 1995. The conference gave all interested members of the Club the opportunity to provide information for the forthcoming report, the draft of which was circulated in advance. The Executive Committee of the Club of Rome decided in June 1995 to accept the revised manuscript as a report to the Club.

On behalf of the Club of Rome, I express my sincere hope that this new report will contribute to an international discussion involving both politicians and experts.

Madrid, December 1996

Ricardo Dies HOCHLEITNER,

President of the Club of Rome

Introduction

This is an ambitious book that aims to change the direction of technological progress. A persistent increase in labor productivity is a rather dubious program now that more than 800 million people are out of work. At the same time, scarce natural resources are being squandered. If resource productivity were quadrupled, humanity could double its wealth while halving the burden on the natural environment. We believe we can prove the technical feasibility of quadrupling the productivity of resources and with it the macroeconomic benefits that would make individuals, firms, and society as a whole richer.

In this trailblazing program, we have taken as a starting point the concerns expressed in the early 1970s by the Club of Rome, which shocked the world with its "Limits to Growth" report (Meadows et al., 1972). But this time we give an optimistic answer. We will demonstrate that there are equilibrium scenarios. Factor Four, we believe, can bring the Earth back into balance (to use a metaphor from Al Gore's compelling bestseller [Gore, 1992]).

We would like to thank the Club of Rome for the constant inter pec to our project. To discuss the manuscript of the book, a special seminar of the Club of Rome was organized in Bonn in March 1995, sponsored by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation and the German Environmental Protection Fund. As a result, most of the text was rewritten and sent to the members of the Executive Committee of the Club, which in June 1995 accepted the book as a report to the Club. The President of the Club of Rome has done us the great honor of writing the preface to this edition.

Initially, the manuscript was written in various versions of the English language. Half of the text was written by an author whose native language is German, the other half by two Americans who lived respectively 2 and 14 years in England, but hardly managed to reach the level of William Shakespeare. For (first publication, the entire book was translated into German and presented in September 1995 under the name "Faktor Vier: Doppelter Wohlstand -- Halbierter Naturverbrauch" by Dremer-Knaur, Munich. (A loosely translated subtitle might be "Live twice as good, consume half as much" or, more accurately, as on the title page of this book.) The book became a best-seller almost immediately and remained so for more than six months. Agreement was granted for translations into Spanish, Swedish, Czech, Italian, Korean and Japanese, and requests were received for other languages. All over the world interest from industrial circles quickly grew. The authors have received hundreds of letters of approval, many of which provide new practical examples of the Factor Four principles. Furthermore, two of us, Amory B. Lovins and L. Hunter Lovins, have written with Paul Hocken a highly acclaimed book that is intended more for US than European conditions, and primarily for business people. circles* * Paul Hocken, Amory B. Lovins and L. Hunter Lovins: Natural Capitalism, Earthscan Publications Ltd, London..

We are deeply indebted to all those who participated in the discussion of this book even before it appeared in what we hope is more accurate English. Hundreds of people were involved in the creation of the book. Here we will name only a few of them, including those who actively participated in the meeting of the Club of Rome, which discussed the book. These are Franz Alt, Owen Bailey, Benjamin Bassen, Maris Biermann, Jérôme Binde, Raymond Bleischwitz, Stephanie Beghe, Holger Berner, Hartmut Bossel, Frank Bosshardt, Stefan Bringezu, Leo-nor Briones (Manila), Bill Browning, Michael Brylavsky, Maria Bui -tenkamp, Scott Chaplin, David Kramer, Maureen Kewerton, Hans Diefenbacher, Wouter Van Dieren, Ricardo Diez Hochleitner, Reuben Doymling, Hans Peter Dürr, Barbara Eggers, Felix FitzRoy, Claude Füssler, Paul Hocken, Rick Head , Peter Hennicke, Friedrich Hinterberger, Alice Hubbard, Wolfram Hanke, Reimut Johimsen, Ashok Khosla, Albrecht Koschützke, Sascha Kranendonk, Hans Kretschmer, Martin Lies, André Lehmann, Harry Lehmann, Krista Liedke, Jochen Luhmann, Manfred Max-Neef (Valdivia) , Mark Merritt, Nils Meyer, Timothy Moore, Ki-kujiro Namba (Tokyo), Hermann Ott, Andreas Pastowski, Rudolf Petersen, Richard Pinkham, Wendy Pratt, Josef Romm, Jen Seal, Wolfgang Sachs, Carl-Otto Schallabeck, Friedrich Schmidt- Bleeck, Harald Schumann, Eberhard Seifert, Farley Sheldon, Bill Scheiermann, Walter St Ael, Klaus Steilmann, Ursula Tischner, Reinhard Uberhorst, Carl Christian von Weizsäcker, Christine von Weizsäcker, Franz von Weizsäcker, Anders Weikmann and Heinrich Wohlmeyer.

Without the pioneering work of Herman Dali, Donella and Dennis Meadows. Paul Hawken, Hazel Henderson, Bill McDonough, and David Orr, it would be almost impossible to conceive a book of this magnitude. We also thank the sponsors of the Bonn meeting and the government of North Rhine-Westphalia for a substantial grant to the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy at the North Rhine Wuppertal Science Center with the task of researching and putting into practice the principles of this book. Much of the credit goes to Earthscan Publications in London, which did an excellent job of publishing the book and facilitating its distribution. We are especially grateful to Jonathan Sinclair Wilson and Rowan Davies.

January 1997

Ernst von WEIZSACKER

Amory B. LOVINS

L. Hunter LOVINS

List of abbreviations

GDP -- Gross Domestic Product -- Gross Domestic Product, GDP

WMO -- World Meteorological Organization -- World Meteorological Organization, WMO

GNP -- Gross National Product -- Gross National Product, GNP

WTO -- World Trade Organization -- World Trade Organization, WTO

GATT -- General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade -- General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, GATT

GDS -- German Dual System -- Duales System Deutschland, DSD

ISEW -- Index ofSustainable Economic Welfare, ISEW

KOCP -- United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, UNCED

KSEG -- Corporate Average Fuel Economy -- Corporate Average Fuel Economy, CAFE

IMF -- International Monetary Fund -- International Monetary Fund, IMF

IPCC -- Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change -- IPCC

MKHP -- International Conference on Population and Development, ICPD

MCK -- Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee, INC

MCHC -- International Council of Scientific Unions, ICSU

ICC -- International Chamber of Commerce -- International Chamber of Commerce, ICC

OPEC -- Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, OPEC

OECD -- Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development -- Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, OECD

UNFCCC -- Framework Convention on Climate Change, FCCC

SMOG -- Alliance of Small Island States -- Alliance of Small Island States, AOSIS

FNE -- New Economics Foundation -- New Economics Foundation, NEF

HUVR -- Chlorinated Hydrocarbon (CHC) Solvents

ENR -- Ecological Tax Reform, ETR

ACT2 -- Advanced Customer Technology Test for Maximum Energy Efficiency

CAFE -- Corporate Average Fuel Economy -- Corporate Average Fuel Economy, KSEG

ISEW -- Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare

MIPS -- Material Inputs Per Service Unit -- Material consumption of a service, material costs per unit of work

NAFTA -- North American Free Trade Agreement -- North American Free Trade Agreement

PCSD -- President's Council for Sustainable Development -- President's Council for Sustainable Development

PG&E -- Pacific Gas and Electric Company -- Pacific Gas and Electric Company

RMI -- Rocky Mountain Institute

UNCED -- United Nations Conference on Environment and Development

UNDP -- United Nations Development Program -- United Nations Development Program

UNEP -- United Nations Environment Program

WCED -- World Commission for Environment and Development

WRAP -- Waste Reduction Always Pays -- Waste reduction always pays off.

Introduction

Get more with less

Exciting prospects for progress

In a few words, "factor four" means that resource productivity can and should quadruple. The wealth extracted from one unit of natural resources can quadruple. Thus, we can live twice as well and at the same time spend half as much.

This idea is both new and simple.

It is new because it heralds nothing more than a new direction of scientific and technological progress. In the past, progress has been about increasing productivity. We believe that resource performance is just as important and should be treated as a top priority.

Our idea is simple, and we propose an approximate quantitative formula for it. This book describes technologies that can quadruple resource performance or more. Progress, as we know at least since the World Environmental Congress in Rio de Janeiro, must meet the criterion of sustainable development. "Factor Four" provides this.

The idea is also exciting. Some aspects of this revolution in efficiency are already being realized at lower costs, ie. can be used to advantage. Countries that revolutionize efficiency win in international competition.

This applies not only to the developed countries of the North. This is especially true for China, India, Mexico or Egypt - countries that have an abundance of cheap labor but lack energy. Why should they learn from the US and Europe how to waste energy and materials? Their path to prosperity will be smoother, faster and safer if they make the efficiency revolution the cornerstone of technological progress.

The revolutionary rise in efficiency is sure to become a global trend. As is always the case with new opportunities, who paves the way in a new direction reaps the greatest harvest.

Moral and material reasons

Book cannot change the direction of progress. This must be done by people - consumers and voters, leaders and engineers, politicians and journalists. People don't change their habits unless there is good reason to do so. A critical mass of people must feel an overwhelming need, otherwise there will not be enough momentum to change the course of our civilization.

The reasons for changing the direction of scientific and technological progress are both moral and material. We believe that the majority of readers share our opinion: the preservation of physical life support systems is one of the highest moral priorities for humanity. The ecological state of the world requires urgent action. We will discuss this in the third part of the book. We shy away from talking about doom and gloom, but some environmental facts and trends are indeed very disturbing. They should be quantified. We will show that there is a fourfold gap between what can be and what should be ahead of us, and this gap must be overcome (see Fig. 1).

Otherwise, the world may face unprecedented disasters and catastrophes. Is it possible to cross such a gigantic abyss at all? You can, thanks to Factor Four.

The countries that start first will benefit the most. Countries that hesitate are likely to suffer huge losses in their capital, which will be quickly depleted away from the main routes of resource efficiency.

Treating the Disease of Waste with Efficiency

Why do we believe it? Mainly because we see our society in the arms of a serious but curable disease. It is not much different from the disease that our grandparents called "consumption" * * A play on words: consumption is simultaneously translated as "consumption" and as "consumption". -- Note. transl. because he made his victims waste* ** A play on words: waste away means "waste" and "waste" at the same time. -- Note. transl.*. Today's economic tuberculosis does not deplete our bodies or our resources (waste energy and resources remain useless environmental pollutants), but its impact on people and the planet is just as detrimental, costly and contagious.

We were told that industrialization was the result of increasing levels of efficiency and productivity. The productivity of human labor has, of course, increased many times over since the beginning of the industrial revolution. We have increased our production capacity by replacing human labor with machines. However, this change has gone too far. We over-consume resources such as energy, raw materials, water, soil and air. The gain in "productivity" achieved in this way destroys living systems that not only provide us with basic resources, but must also absorb the waste of our civilization.

A popular argument in the current controversy is that any solution to environmental problems will be very costly. The revolution in resource efficiency discussed in this book makes this argument fallacious. Increasing resource efficiency and curing the "waste disease" is indeed a great economic opportunity. Such treatment causes almost no pain and has a calming effect on both natural systems and the social structure of world civilization.

When people think of waste, they think of their household waste, car exhaust, and dumpsters near businesses and construction sites. If you ask how much material is wasted every year, most people will find this amount not too much. In reality, we waste resources more than ten times more than we use them. A study commissioned by the US National Academy of Engineering found that approximately 93% of the materials we buy and "spend" never materialize into products that meet market demands. Moreover, 80% of goods are thrown away after a single use, and a significant part of the rest of the products do not serve the entire prescribed period. Reformist economist Paul Hawken estimates that 99% of the raw materials used in the manufacture of goods in the United States or contained in these goods become waste within six weeks of being sold.

Most of the energy, water and transport services often also lost before we get them; we pay for them, and they do not bring any benefit. Heat dissipated through the attic floors of houses with poor insulation; energy from a nuclear or coal-fired power plant, only 3% of which is converted into light in incandescent lamps (70% of the energy in the original fuel is lost before it reaches the lamp, which in turn converts only 10% of the electricity into light); 80-85% of automotive fuel that is lost in the engine and drive system before it sets the wheels in motion; water that evaporates or flows out drop by drop before reaching the roots of plants; the senseless movement of goods over vast distances for the sake of a result that can just as well be obtained locally - all these are useless expenses.

Such losses are unreasonably high. The average American, for example, pays nearly $2,000* per year* *Unless otherwise noted, prices below are in US$* for energy either purchased directly for the family or embodied in manufactured goods and services. Add to this the waste of metal, soil, water, wood, fiber, and the cost of transporting all these materials, and we find that the average American loses thousands of dollars every year. These losses, multiplied by 250 million people, add up to at least a trillion dollars a year wasted. On a global scale, the amount of losses can reach 10 trillion dollars a year. Such losses impoverish families (especially the poor), reduce competition, jeopardize resource supplies, poison water, air, soil and people, generate unemployment, and stifle economic viability.

Efficiency treatment

And yet the disease of waste is curable. Healing comes from laboratories, from workstations and production lines created by skilled scientists and technologists, from the skillful design of cities by planners and architects, from the ingenuity of engineers, chemists and farmers, and from the intelligence of each person. Healing is based on advanced science, sound economics, and common sense. The cure is to use resources efficiently, achieve more with less. This will not be a retreat or a "return" to the old means. This is the beginning of a new industrial revolution in which we will achieve a dramatic increase in the productivity of resources.

Over the past few years, the number of paths to success has increased significantly. Completely unexpected opportunities for entrepreneurship and for society have opened up. This book introduces new opportunities for efficient use of resources, describes them and calls for action. Shown here are practical, profitable ways to use resources at least four times more efficiently than we do now. In other words, we can do everything we do today just as well, or even better, with only one quarter of the energy and materials that are currently in use. This would make it possible, for example, to double the standard of living on Earth, while halving the consumption of resources. Reality is becoming clearer and economic efficiency other, even more ambitious and large-scale projects.

Doing more with less is not the same as doing less, doing worse, or doing nothing. Efficiency does not mean cutting back, inconveniencing, or depriving something. When several U.S. presidents proclaimed, “Energy saving means hotter summers and colder winters,” they overlooked the efficient use of energy that would give us more comfort in better buildings for less energy or money. To avoid this common confusion, we refrain from using the ambiguous term "resource conservation" in this book and replace it with the terms "resource efficiency" or "resource productivity".

Seven Arguments for Efficient Use of Resources

The moral and material reasons we have given for moving towards efficiency may seem somewhat abstract. Now we will be more specific, pointing out seven reasons for doing just that.

Live better. Efficient use of resources improves the quality of life. We can see better with efficient lighting systems, keep food fresher longer in efficient refrigerators, produce better quality products in efficient factories, travel more safely and comfortably in efficient vehicles, feel better in efficient buildings, and eat more efficiently in an efficient manner. grown agricultural products.

Less polluting and depleting. Everything has to go somewhere. Waste resources pollute the air, water or land. Efficiency fights waste and therefore reduces pollution, which is essentially the diversion of resources. Efficient use of resources can make a significant contribution to solving problems such as acid rain and climate change, deforestation, loss of soil fertility and crowding in the streets. Efficient energy use plus productive, sustainable agriculture and forestry alone could eliminate up to 90% of today's environmental problems, not at a cost, but - under favorable conditions - at a profit. Efficiency can free up a lot of time, and during this time we will learn how to solve the world's problems thoughtfully, intelligently and consistently.

Get profit. Efficient use of resources usually pays off: you don't have to pay for resources now, and because they don't become pollutants, you don't have to pay to clean them up later.

Enter the markets and attract entrepreneurs. Since the efficient use of resources can be profitable, much of the efficiency can be realized through the market mechanism, driven by individual choice and firm competition, rather than government directives on how we should live. Market forces can theoretically drive the efficiency of resources. However, we still have a significant task ahead of us in removing the obstacles and reversing the reckless aspirations that keep the market from working at its full potential.

Increase the use of scarce capital. The money freed up by loss prevention can be used to solve other problems. In particular, developing countries have an excellent opportunity not to invest scarce capital in inefficient infrastructure, but to make better use of it. If a country buys equipment to produce very energy efficient lamps or windows, it can provide energy for as little as one-tenth of what it would take to build more power plants. These investments pay off at least three times faster, and by re-investing capital in other industries, the volume of services provided by the invested capital can be increased by more than 30 times. (According to some estimates, the savings could be even higher). For many developing countries, this is the only realistic way to achieve relatively rapid prosperity.

Enhance security. Competition for resources causes or exacerbates international conflicts. Efficient use saves resources and reduces the unhealthy dependence on them that is a source of political instability. Efficiency can reduce the number of international conflicts over oil, cobalt, forests, water - everything that someone has and someone else wants to have. (Some countries pay the price of military spending as well as directly for their dependence on resources: one-sixth to a quarter of the US military budget is allocated to forces whose main task is to gain or maintain access to foreign resources.) Energy conservation can even indirectly prevent nuclear proliferation. weapons through the use of cheaper and militarily safer energy sources instead of nuclear power plants and related dual-use materials, skills and technologies.

Be fair and have more jobs. Waste of resources is the flip side of a warped economy that splits society into those who have jobs and those who don't. If human energy and talent do not find their proper application, this is a tragedy. And yet the main reason for the waste of human resources is the erroneous and wasteful way of scientific and technological progress. We are making fewer people "productive" by consuming more resources and effectively marginalizing one-third of the world's workforce. We need a sound economic stimulus that will solve two pressing problems at once: create employment for more people and save resources. Enterprises should get rid of unproductive kilowatt-hours, tons and liters, and not their employees. This would happen much faster if we reduced the taxation of labor and increased taxes on the use of resources accordingly.

This book contains a set of tools for modern resource efficiency. Here are fifty examples of at least a fourfold increase in resource efficiency. In these examples, you will be able to get acquainted with the available methods, learn how they work, what they are capable of and how to put them to good use in practice. Each of us—whether at work, at home or school, in the private, public, or nonprofit sectors, in interactions with others, or in our personal lives—can pick up these tools and take action.

What's new in efficiency?

Efficiency is a concept as old as the human race. The progress of mankind in all societies was determined primarily by new methods that make it possible to do more with less effort, to use all types of resources more productively. But over the past 150 years, much of the technological effort has been focused on increasing labor productivity, even if it requires a lot of natural resources. Recently, there has been a conceptual and practical revolution in the efficient use of resources, but most people have not yet heard about its new potential.

Since the oil crisis of the 1970s, every five years we have learned how to use electricity about twice as efficiently as before. Each time, this doubled efficiency theoretically cost two-thirds less. Similar progress is being made today through new technologies and especially through understanding how to select and combine existing technologies. Thus, the progress in increasing the return of resources while reducing costs is enormous. They can be compared to the revolution in computers and consumer electronics, where everything is constantly getting smaller, faster, better and cheaper. However, energy and material resource experts have not yet begun to think in terms of ever-increasing energy efficiency. It appears that the conversations in official energy policymakers are still focused on how much coal should be replaced by nuclear power and at what cost, i.e. energy production. Meanwhile, the revolution in energy consumption makes this reasoning obsolete and irrelevant.

There is a widespread preconception that saving more energy always costs more. It is generally assumed that beyond the known zone of “diminishing profits” there is a wall beyond which further savings will be prohibitively expensive. In the past, this has been true for both resource conservation and pollution control, and fits perfectly into mainstream economics.

However, today there are not only new technologies, but also new ways to tie them together, so that large energy savings can often be achieved at less cost than small savings. When a series of coherent, efficient technologies is implemented in the proper sequence, in the right way, and in the right proportions (like step-by-step cooking of a good recipe), a new unified process emerges from separate technological details, promising economic benefits.

This is strikingly contrary to worldly wisdom, according to which "you get what you pay for" - the more expensive the better. A slightly more efficient car costs more to build than a conventional car, while a super-efficient car costs less to build than a conventional car - how can that be? There are five main reasons for this. These are discussed in the detailed examples of energy efficiency in the first chapter.

The Purpose of This Book Is Practical Change

The ideas presented here are not too complicated, but rather unusual. So far, few people understand them, and even fewer apply them. The traditional way things are done seems to hold the practice in a vice. In addition, most architects and engineers are paid based on how much they spend, not how much they save. Therefore, the savings may lower their income, so that they have to work harder for less wages, which are directly or indirectly determined by a fixed percentage of the project cost.

Factor of international trade and problems of development of competition

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The theory of international trade pays great attention to how the opening of the economy, changes in the world price of exported goods and foreign trade regulation of the state affect the behavior of domestic companies within each

Factors contributing to the onset of the "troubled" time in Russia

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In the last days of his life, Ivan the Terrible created a regency council, which included the boyars. The council was created in order to govern the state on behalf of his son, Tsar Fedor, who was unable to do it on his own.

Roman club- an international public organization created by the Italian industrialist Aurelio Peccei (who became its first president) and the OECD Director General for Science Alexander King on April 6-7, 1968, uniting representatives of the world political, financial, cultural and scientific elite. The organization has made a significant contribution to the study of the prospects for the development of the biosphere and the promotion of the idea of harmonizing the relationship between man and nature.

Forester's book World Dynamics (1971), it stated that the further development of mankind on a physically limited planet Earth would lead to an ecological catastrophe in the 20s of the next century.

D. Meadows project ( en

) "Limits to Growth" (1972) - the first report to the Club of Rome, completed Forrester's study. But the "system dynamics" method proposed by Meadows was not suitable for working with a regional world model, so the Meadows model was criticized fiercely. Nevertheless, the Forrester-Meadows model was given the status of the first report of the Club of Rome.

In 1974 the second report of the Club was published. It was headed by members of the Club of Rome M. Mesarovich ( en

) and E. Pestel. "Humanity at the Crossroads" proposed the concept of "organic growth", according to which each region of the world should perform its own special function, like a cell of a living organism. The concept of "organic growth" was fully adopted by the Club of Rome and still remains one of the main ideas it advocates.

report J. Tinbergen"Revising the International Order" Tinbergen presented in his report a project for restructuring the structure of the world economy.

the work of the president of the Club A. Peccei "Human qualities" (1980). Peccei proposes six, as he calls "starting" goals, which are related to the "outer limits" of the planet; "inner limits" of the person himself; cultural heritage of peoples; formation of the world community; environmental protection and reorganization of the production system.

A special place among the reports to the Club of Rome is occupied by Eduard Pestel's report "Beyond Growth" (1987), dedicated to the memory of Aurelio Peccei. It discusses the current problems of "organic growth" and the prospects for the possibility of their solution in a global context, taking into account both the achievements of science and technology, including microelectronics, biotechnology, nuclear power and the international situation.

In 1991, for the first time, a report appeared on behalf of the Club of Rome itself, written by its president Alexander King (en ) and General Secretary Bertrand Schneider - "The First Global Revolution". Summing up the results of its twenty-five years of activity, the Council of the Club again and again refers to the recent changes in the world and characterizes the current state of global issues in the context of the new situation in international relations that have arisen after the end of the long confrontation between East and West; a new economic situation emerging as a result of the creation of new blocs, the emergence of new geostrategic forces; new priorities in global issues such as population, environment, resources, energy, technology, finance, etc.

In 1997, another report of the Club of Rome “Factor Four. Costs - half, return - double ", which was prepared by Weizsacker E. (de ), Lovins E., Lovins L. The purpose of this work was to solve the questions posed in previous works of the Club of Rome and, above all, in the first report "The Limits to Growth". The main idea of this report aroused unprecedented interest around the world. Its essence lies in the fact that modern civilization has reached a level of development at which the growth of production in virtually all sectors of the economy can be carried out in a progressive economy without attracting additional resources and energy. Humanity 'can live twice as rich with only half the resources'

BILLION THEORY

The golden billion consumes the lion's share of all resources on the planet. If at least half of humanity begins to consume resources in the same volume, they will obviously not be enough.

Until the end of the last century, the main consumer of mineral raw materials remained the "golden billion" - approximately one sixth of humanity living in developed countries. The overconcentration of demand was especially characteristic of the raw material elite - non-ferrous metals. Due to their high cost (lead is three times, and nickel is forty times more expensive than iron) and their predominant use in technically complex industries and innovative products, the consumption of basic non-ferrous metals in medium-developed countries was an order of magnitude, and in underdeveloped countries, two or three orders of magnitude inferior to Western countries. . In the 70s - 80s of the last century, highly developed countries consumed 90% of all aluminum, 85% of copper and 80% of nickel .

The idea of limited resources first appeared in the works Thomas Malthus. He predicted a global crisis due to the fact that population grows in geometric progression, and resource industries - in arithmetic, and will have to be exhausted in the foreseeable future ( Malthusianism).

IN XX century There has been a significant increase in productivity in agriculture(albeit at the expense of a huge increase in energy consumption), many new materials have been developed that have reduced the need for raw materials, due to technical progress also reduced material consumption in those industries in which it was not possible to replace natural raw materials with synthesized ones. At the same time, there was a rapid growth explored reserves mineral. However, in the middle of the 20th century it was predicted peak oil.

According to S. Kara-Murza, behind the term "golden billion" is a certain, integral geopolitical, economic and cultural concept: developed countries, while maintaining a high level of consumption for their population, will use political, military and economic measures to keep the rest of the world in an industrially undeveloped state as an appendage of raw materials, a zone for dumping hazardous waste and a source of cheap labor.

According to S. Kara-Murza, the Golden Billion, as a concept, involves manipulation of public consciousness, to save " sustainable growth" in the countries of the golden billion - and disconnecting "raw material appendages" from the possibility of independent development, independent penetration into the capitalist market, from the information, technological and financial capabilities of the "civilized world".

Question #13

Noosphere - sphere of interaction societies And nature, within which intelligent human activity becomes the determining factor development(this sphere is also denoted by the terms "anthroposphere", " biosphere»).

The noosphere is supposedly a new, higher stage of evolution biosphere, the formation of which is associated with the development societies which has a profound effect on natural processes. According to V. I. Vernadsky, “in the biosphere there exists a great geological, perhaps cosmic force, the planetary action of which is usually not taken into account in ideas about outer space… This power is intelligence human, aspiring and organized will him as a social being.

In the noospheric teaching, a person appears rooted in nature, and the “artificial” is considered as an organic part and one of the factors (increasing in time) of the evolution of the “natural”. Summarizing human history from the standpoint of a naturalist, Vernadsky concludes that humanity, in the course of its development, is turning into a new powerful geological force, transforming the face of the planet with its thought and labor. Accordingly, in order to preserve itself, it will have to take responsibility for the development of the biosphere, turning into the noosphere, and this will require from it a certain social organization and a new, ecological and at the same time humanistic ethics.

The noosphere can be characterized as the unity of "nature" and "culture". Vernadsky himself spoke of it either as a reality of the future, or as a reality of our days, which is not surprising, since he thought in terms of geological time. “The biosphere has repeatedly passed into a new evolutionary state…- notes V. I. Vernadsky. - We are experiencing this even now, over the past 10-20 thousand years, when a person, having developed a scientific thought in the social environment, creates a new geological force in the biosphere, which has never been seen in it. The biosphere has passed or, rather, is moving into a new evolutionary state - into the noosphere - being processed by the scientific thought of a social person.("Scientific thought as a planetary phenomenon"). Thus, the concept of "noosphere" appears in two aspects:

1. the noosphere in its infancy, developing spontaneously from the moment of the appearance of man;

2. developed noosphere, consciously formed by the joint efforts of people in the interests of the comprehensive development of all mankind and each individual

The concept of "noosphere" was proposed professor mathematics SorbonneEdouard Leroy(1870-1954), who interpreted it as a "thinking" shell, formed by human consciousness.

The most complete embodiment of Leroy's theory was found in the development of Teilhard de Chardin, who shared not only the idea abiogenesis(revival of matter), but also the idea that the end point of the development of the noosphere will be a merger with God. The development of the noospheric doctrine is associated primarily with the name of Vernadsky.

If the concepts of "living matter" and "biosphere" are accepted by science, then the concept of "noosphere" still causes controversy in scientific circles. Critics of the doctrine of the noosphere mainly point out that this doctrine is utopian and is not scientific, but religious and philosophical in nature. In particular, d.b.s. F. R. Shtilmark from the Institute of Ecology and Evolution Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences believes: “thoughts about the Noosphere as a Society of Reason ... are already deeply religious in their very essence and so far remain utopian.”

The American environmental historian D. Wiener calls the doctrine of the noosphere "a utopian and scientifically untenable idea."

Question #14

During the 20th century, the growth of the population in the world increased so much that the demographic problem turned into one of the most acute and difficult global problems - along with food, energy, raw materials, environmental, etc. In the last third of the 20th century, a unique situation developed: the population of the Earth doubled.

World population growth (in million people)
1800 952
1900 1,656
1950 2,557
1960 3,041
1970 3,708
1980 4,441
1990 5,274
2000 6,073
2007 6,605

Demographers predict that in 2050 the world population will approach 9.4 billion people, including 8.2 billion people in less developed regions and 1.2 billion people in developed regions. This means that in half a century the population of the world will increase by one and a half times.
Population growth depends on many factors: natural,
economic, social, cultural, religious, etc. This is a multifactorial process that is difficult to show in one article. Demographers believe that population growth goes through four or five historical stages. In the first stage - before industrialization and the industrial revolution - there was a high birth and death rate. In the second stage, after industrialization, the birth rate declines as a result of advances in technology, education, and health care. In the third stage (in the second half of the 20th century), the increase in the birth rate decreases as a result of the use of contraceptives, urbanization, income growth and education. During this period, most women begin to be more attracted to an interesting job and career than having children. The fourth stage (post-industrial society) - characterized by low growth in fertility and mortality. Finally, in the fifth stage, the low birth rate does not exceed the loss from mortality and the population does not increase (as in Germany, Japan, Italy, Spain, etc.). This is characteristic of society at the present stage of information technology.
The main driver of population growth at the end of the 20th century was the so-called "population explosion" in the less developed countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America. From 1970 to 2007, the population in these regions almost doubled. At the end of the 70s, 75% of the world's population lived there, and in 2000 it was already 80%. (with up to half of the population being children under 15).

Good example in carrying out demographic policy showed China, where population growth did not exceed 0.6% per year in recent years, and its population in 2005 was 1.3 billion people. Birth control in India has led to a steady growth rate of 1.6% per annum and the population is approaching 1.1 billion. The population of China and India exceeds half of the population of all Asian countries, where two-thirds of the world's population lives. As a result of this policy, China and India in last years The twentieth century, for the first time in modern history, managed to feed their population through their own agriculture (as a result of technological progress and increased land productivity).
Vast areas of chronic poverty, malnutrition and hunger still remain in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Moreover, the statistics of developing countries in this respect are inaccurate, so one can doubt that there are about 100 million hungry people there. Most likely this is the number of those who need emergency care, but an ambulance cannot solve the problems of age-old backwardness, archaic social relations, pre-capitalist and even tribal traditions in the village. It is likely that the number of hungry is three times higher, given the spread of poverty, overpopulation, chronic unemployment, etc.

In the countries of Western Europe, population growth has averaged over the past 15–20 years: 0.1% in Spain, 0.3% in Great Britain, 0.4% in France, etc. In a number of other countries of Western Europe, population growth rates remain close to those of the leading EEC countries. The rate of population growth has stabilized there for a long time and this does not raise questions. But a new phenomenon has emerged: zero population growth, when the birth rate barely covers the natural population decline. Thus, in the current decade, the population of Germany (82 million), Italy (58 million) and Poland (38.5 million) remains unchanged. In Japan, too, the population growth is zero, and the population is about 127 million people.
Against this background, the negative rates of population growth in 2000-2007 are striking. in Russia (-0.5%), Ukraine, as well as in a number of other former Soviet republics: Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, etc. This, apparently, is a direct result of the difficult and difficult living conditions after perestroika, privatization and the rupture of economic ties. Emigration from these countries also affected. Governments are taking measures to increase the birth rate, but so far there have been few results. Similar processes are observed in Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, the Czech Republic, etc., where there are also negative population growth rates for 2000-2007. It can be hoped that the success of the market economy will lead to overcoming the negative demographic trends in these countries.

Question number 15

Based on the fact that the "natural" greenhouse effect is a well-established, balanced process, it is quite logical to assume that an increase in the concentration of "greenhouse" gases in the atmosphere should lead to an increase in the greenhouse effect, which in turn will lead to global warming. The amount of CO 2 in the atmosphere has been steadily increasing for more than a century due to the fact that various types of fossil fuels (coal and oil) have become widely used as an energy source. In addition, other greenhouse gases, such as methane, nitrous oxide and a range of chlorine-containing substances, are released into the atmosphere as a result of human activity. Although they are produced in smaller quantities, some of these gases are far more dangerous in terms of global warming than carbon dioxide.

Today, few scientists dealing with this problem dispute the fact that human activity leads to an increase in the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. According to the Intergovernmental Commission on Climate Change, “an increase in the concentration of greenhouse gases will lead to a heating of the lower layers of the atmosphere and the surface of the earth ... Any change in the Earth’s ability to reflect and absorb heat, including those caused by an increase in the content of greenhouse gases and aerosols in the atmosphere, will lead to change in the temperature of the atmosphere and the world's oceans and disrupt stable patterns of circulation and weather."

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the average annual global temperature was above normal for several consecutive years. This raised fears that human-caused global warming had already begun. There is a consensus among scientists that over the past hundred years, the average annual global temperature has risen by 0.3 to 0.6 degrees Celsius. However, there is no agreement among them as to what exactly caused this phenomenon. It is difficult to say with certainty whether global warming is happening or not, since the observed increase in temperature is still within the limits of natural temperature fluctuations.

Uncertainty about global warming breeds skepticism about the looming danger. The problem is that when the hypothesis of anthropogenic factors of global warming is confirmed, it will be too late to do anything.

The Club of Rome is an international non-governmental organization whose activities are aimed at stimulating the study of global problems. It was founded in 1968 by the Italian manager and public figure A. Peccei.

Essence and typology of global problems. Phenomena commonly referred to as "global problems" arose in the middle of the 20th century and were recognized by the scientific community 20 years later. Global problems are problems that concern (to one degree or another) all countries and peoples, the solution of which is possible only through the combined efforts of the entire world community. The very existence of terrestrial civilization, or at least its further development, is connected with the solution of these problems.

Rice. one.

Global problems are complex in nature, closely intertwined with each other. With a certain degree of conventionality, two main blocks can be distinguished (Fig. 1):

1) problems associated with the contradiction between society and the environment (the "society - nature" system);
2) social problems associated with contradictions within society (the "man - society" system).

The listed problems matured asynchronously. The English economist T. Malthus as early as the beginning of the 19th century. made a conclusion about the danger of excessive population growth. After 1945, the threat of the development of weapons of mass destruction became obvious. The gap in the world between the advanced "rich North" and the backward "poor South" was recognized as a problem only in the last third of the 20th century. The problem of international organized crime became acute only at the end of the 20th century.

Nevertheless, it is correct to consider the middle of the 20th century as the moment of the birth of global problems. It is during this period that two processes are unfolding that seem to be the main root causes of modern global problems. The first process is the globalization of socio-economic and political life, based on the formation of a relatively unified world economy. The second is the deployment of the scientific and technological revolution (NTR), which has multiplied many times all the possibilities of man, including self-destruction. It is in the course of these processes that problems that previously remained local become global. For example, the danger of overpopulation affected all countries when waves of migrants from developing countries poured into developed countries, and the governments of these countries began to demand a “new international order” - gratuitous aid as payment for the “sins” of the colonial past.

The Club of Rome played a primary role in understanding global problems and finding ways to solve them. Organization of the activities of the Club of Rome. The Club began its activities in 1968 with a meeting at the Accademia dei Lincei in Rome, from where the name of this non-profit organization came from. Its headquarters is in Paris. The Club of Rome has no staff and no formal budget. Its activities are coordinated by an executive committee consisting of 12 people. A. Peccei, A. King (1984-1991) and R. Diez-Hochleitner (since 1991) have successively held the post of club president.

According to the rules, no more than 100 people from different countries of the world can be full members of the Club. The members of the Club are dominated by scientists and politicians from developed countries. In addition to actual members, there are honorary and associate members. The work of the Club of Rome is facilitated by more than 30 national associations of the Club of Rome, which promote the club's concepts in their countries. Russia in the early 2000s is represented in the Club by three people: M. Gorbachev is an honorary member of the club, D. Gvishiani and S. Kapitsa are full members. Previously, members of the Club were E.K. Fedorov, E.M. Primakov and Ch. Aitmatov. In 1989, the Association for Assistance to the Club of Rome was created in the USSR; after the collapse of the USSR, it was reformed into the Russian Association for Assistance to the Club of Rome (President - DV Gvishiani).

The main "product" of the Club's activities are its reports on priority global problems and ways to solve them. By order of the Club of Rome, prominent scientists prepared more than 30 reports. In addition, in 1991 the leaders of the Club prepared the first report on behalf of the Club of Rome itself - "The First Global Revolution".

The methods of the neoclassical economic theory, which is dominant in economics and is based on the principle of rational individualism, seem to the members of the Club to be ineffective in understanding these problems. His research widely uses computer modeling and institutional methodology based on an interdisciplinary approach and paramount attention to institutions - organizations and cultural values. The concept of synergetics proposed by I. Prigogine (a full member of the Club), the which are connected with each other by numerous interdependencies.

If initially the Club of Rome focused on the contradictions between society and nature, then it began to give priority to social problems. The Club of Rome's influence on world public opinion reached its peak in the 1970s and 1980s. Under the influence of his activities, globalistics was formed as an interdisciplinary social science discipline. In the 1990s-2000s, the ideas of global studies entered the scientific culture, but the activity of the Club of Rome and public attention to it have noticeably dropped. Having fulfilled its role as a "pioneer" in the study of global problems of our time, the Club of Rome has become one of the many international organizations that coordinate the exchange of views between intellectuals on topical issues of our time.

Analysis by the Club of Rome of global problems in the "society - nature" system. The severity of global problems associated with the contradictions between society and the environment is due to their connection with the safety of the earth's civilization. The modern highly developed technological civilization has lost the ability to self-regenerate, which was possessed by more primitive ancient and medieval societies. If it collapses as a result of any cataclysm, then it will be almost impossible to restore it. Even if mankind survives, it will not be able to return to the Iron Age, since most of the main mineral resources have already been depleted to such an extent that their extraction will require complex technologies that require metal-intensive equipment. In the event of the death of the current "world of technology", the new civilization can only be agrarian, but will never become industrial.

It was with the analysis of the relationship between society and the environment that the work of the Club of Rome began. The initial work at the suggestion of the Club was carried out by an American specialist in computer modeling, J. Forrester. The results of his research, published in the book World Dynamics (1971), showed that the continuation of the previous rates of consumption of natural resources will lead to a global environmental catastrophe in the 2020s.

Created under the guidance of the American specialist in systems research D. Meadows, the report to the Club of Rome Limits to Growth (1972) continued and deepened the work of J. Forrester. This report has gained a reputation as a scientific bestseller, it has been translated into several dozen languages, its very name has become a household word.

The authors of this report, the most famous published by the Club of Rome, have developed several models based on extrapolation of observed trends in population growth and the depletion of known natural resources.

According to the standard model, if there are no qualitative changes, then at the beginning of the 21st century. first, a sharp decline in per capita industrial production will begin, and then the population of the planet (Fig. 2). Even if the amount of resources doubles, the global crisis will only be pushed back until about the middle of the 21st century. (Fig. 3). The only way out of the catastrophic situation was the transition to the globally planned development according to the global equilibrium model (in fact, “zero growth”), that is, the conscious conservation of industrial production and population (Fig. 4).

Rice. 2. "Limits to Growth": The Standard Model Source: Weizsäcker E., Lovins E., Lovins L. Factor Four. The cost is half, the return is double. M., Academia, 2000. S. 341.

Rice. 3. The Limits to Growth Model: Double Resource Model. Source: Weizsacker E., Lovins E., Lovins L. Factor four. The cost is half, the return is double. M., Academia, 2000. S. 342.

Rice. 4. "Limits to growth": a model of global equilibrium. Source: Weizsacker E., Lovins E., Lovins L. Factor four. The cost is half, the return is double. M., Academia, 2000. S. 343.

The developers of the report to the Club of Rome, Mankind at the Turning Point, M. Mesarovic and E. Pestel (1974), deepened computer modeling of the development of the world economy, considering the development of the main regions of the planet. They concluded that if current trends continue, a series of regional catastrophes will occur even sooner than Forrester and Meadows thought. However, the “survival strategy”, according to the authors of the new report, is not to achieve a “state of global equilibrium”, as proposed in The Limits to Growth, but to move towards “organic growth” - the systemic interdependent development of various parts of the world system, as a result of which it is possible to achieve balanced development of all mankind. This position was reflected in another report to the Club of Rome, Beyond Growth by E. Pestel (1988). It is important to note that both models - both "global equilibrium" and "organic growth" - assumed the rejection of spontaneous self-development in favor of conscious regulation.

The first reports of the Club of Rome caused a heated discussion, both among social scientists and politicians. Economists pointed out that the scientific and technological revolution accelerates not only the consumption of non-renewable resources and environmental pollution, but also the development of new resources, the introduction of resource-saving and environmentally friendly technologies.

Rice. five. A model for the development of the world economy with an annual increase in resource productivity by 4%. Source: Weizsacker E., Lovins E., Lovins L. Factor four. The cost is half, the return is double. M., Academia, 2000. S. 350.

Under the influence of criticism of forecasts of a global environmental catastrophe, the developers of subsequent reports to the Club of Rome began to focus not on describing impending threats, but on analyzing ways to prevent them. The authors of the report Factor Four: Doubling Wealth, Doubling Resources (1997) E. Weizsacker, E. Lovins and L. Lovins, after analyzing the development of resource-saving technologies, came to the conclusion that instead of a global catastrophe after 2050, one can expect simultaneous stabilization of the population and industrial production while reducing the level of environmental pollution.

Global problems in the "individual - society" system. The emergence of global social problems is mainly due to the contradictions between the developed countries of the "rich North" and the developing countries of the "poor South". Developing countries used to be the colonial and semi-colonial periphery, and now they remain most often on the periphery of the world economy. Underdevelopment in comparison with developed countries is the most common characteristic of these countries, and it is this phenomenon that has become the main social global problem since the end of the Cold War.

Since the 1940s, special world institutions for socio-economic regulation (IMF, IBRD, UN economic organizations) began to be created to help lagging countries. However, the development of global regulation slowed down already in the 1970s, as evidenced by the fate of the 3rd report to the Club of Rome, Revision of the International Order (1976), prepared by a group led by the Dutch economist J. Tinbergen.

This report contained a program of comprehensive measures for the qualitative strengthening of supranational global regulation. The developers of the report proposed the creation of several new world economic organizations: a world bank that would have the right to carry out international taxation and dispose of the collected funds; mineral resources agency responsible for the use of minerals in global scale; a global agency responsible for the development and dissemination of technology, etc.

However, the proposals of the J. Tinbergen group did not receive support. Developing countries were afraid of infringement of their national sovereignty, and developed countries had enough already existing forms of supranational regulation.

Since the 1980s, under the influence of the "conservative counter-revolution", the attitude in developed countries to the idea of supranational regulation with social priorities has generally seriously deteriorated. It came to be seen as a dangerous form of international bureaucratic regulation. Therefore, later reports to the Club of Rome on social problems began to focus not on centralized regulation measures, but on the self-sufficiency of developing countries and changing cultural stereotypes under the general slogan "think globally, act locally."

So the report to the Club of Rome, No Limits to Learning (1979), was devoted to the prospects for the development of mass education, which can significantly reduce the gap in the level of culture of people of various social groups and countries of the world. The report Barefoot Revolution (1988) examined the results and prospects for the development in the "third world" of small informal entrepreneurship aimed at meeting the needs of local residents.

The general position of the Club of Rome regarding the prospects for solving global social problems is expressed in the title of A. Peccei's book Human Qualities (1977). The founder of the Club of Rome believed that success is possible, first of all, by changing the qualities of a person, which can be achieved by educating a "new humanism" that includes globality, a love of justice and an aversion to violence.

Reports to the Club of Rome devoted to social global problems could not play such a significant role in the development of global studies and in the practical solution of global problems as reports on environmental problems. However, they made an important contribution to the understanding of the social "ailments of mankind."

issues global development can be represented as a kind of system - a set of interrelated components of civilization and nature, which arose and develops as a result of the activities of individuals, social and cultural communities and all mankind. One of the most important features of the global system is the multitude of actors with different needs, interests and goals. Contradictions naturally arise between different goals, between goals and results of activity, which give rise to problems characteristic of each major stage in the development of the system. Trying to understand a system of great complexity, consisting of many diverse in characteristics and, in turn, complex subsystems, scientific knowledge proceeds through differentiation, studying the subsystems themselves and ignoring their interaction with the large system in which they enter and which has a decisive influence on the entire system. the global system as a whole. But complex systems are not reducible to the simple sum of their parts; to understand the integrity, its analysis must certainly be supplemented by a deep systemic synthesis; an interdisciplinary approach and interdisciplinary research are needed here, and a completely new scientific toolkit is needed.

In order to comprehend the laws that govern human activity, it was important to learn how to understand in each specific case the general context for the perception of immediate tasks, how to bring into a system (hence the name “system analysis”) initially disparate and redundant information about a problem situation, how to coordinate and deduce one from the other representations and goals of different levels related to a single activity.

The systematic approach developed, solving a triune task: accumulation in general scientific concepts and concepts of the latest results of social, natural and technical sciences concerning the systemic organization of objects of reality and methods of their cognition; integration of the principles and experience of the development of philosophy, primarily the results of the development of the philosophical principle of consistency and related categories; application of the conceptual apparatus and modeling tools developed on this basis for solving urgent complex problems.

In the spring of 1968 Aurelio Peccei, an Italian economist, public figure and businessman, a member of the management of the Fiat company and vice-president of the Olivetti company, sent out an invitation to 30 prominent European scientists and representatives of the business world to participate in the discussion of urgent problems. On April 6-7 of the same year in Rome, in the old National Academy dei Lincei, a meeting of invitees was held, at which discussions unfolded on the most pressing problems of our time. Those participants of the meeting who supported the idea of creating an international organization united in the Club of Rome. The organization assumed the status of a non-governmental organization, not associated with political parties, classes, ideologies. The Club of Rome builds its work in the form of organizing meetings, symposiums, seminars, meetings with famous scientists, political leaders, and influential businessmen. Here are the main goals that the figures of the "Club of Rome" have set for themselves:

to give society a methodology by which it would be possible to scientifically analyze the "difficulties of mankind" associated with the physical limitations of the Earth's resources, the rapid growth of production and consumption - these "principal limits of growth";

convey to mankind the concern of the Club's representatives regarding the critical situation that has developed in the world in a number of aspects;

"prompt" the society what measures it should take in order to "do business wisely" and achieve "global balance".

At the initiative of the Club of Rome, a number of research projects have been carried out, the results of which are published in the form of reports. The most famous of them, which caused heated scientific discussions, is “Limits to Growth”, 1972. (supervisor D. Meadows), “Strategy of Survival”, 1974. (headed by M. Mesarovic and E. Pestel), “Revisiting the International Order”, 1976 (headed by J. Tinbergen), “Goals for Humanity”, 1977. (headed by E. Laszlo), “There are no limits to learning”, 1979. (headed by J. Botkin, M. Elmanjra, M. Malica), “Routes leading to the future”, 1980. (B. Gavrylyshyn), “Microelectronics and Society”, 1982 (headed by G. Friedrichs, A. Schaff), “The Barefoot Revolution”, 1985. (B. Schneider) and others.

The purpose of these reports is to achieve an understanding of the difficulties identified by the Club of Rome as “global problems” that arise in the way of human development, to influence public opinion about these problems. From the day of its foundation until the day of his death (1984), the president of the Club of Rome was Aurelio Peccei. Faith in the uniqueness and significance of a person, in his intellectual and moral potential helped Peccei to highlight the main thing in life. He believed that a world that had accumulated enough knowledge and means to ensure the well-being of mankind should be ruled by people with "human qualities" (Pecchei's main work is called "Human qualities"). This means that each of us should think, first of all, about changing the person himself, i.e. himself. We must realize the fact that to be called a modern man means to comprehend the art of becoming better.

Aurelio Peccei searched for a long time for suitable associates with whom he could begin this project. In 1967, he came across Alexander King in a roundabout way. “It all started,” King later said, “that one of my colleagues, a scientist from the Soviet Union, leafing through a magazine while waiting for a plane at one of the airports, accidentally stumbled upon an article about Aurelio Peccei’s speech at a conference of industrialists in Buenos Aires. Interested in what he read, he sent me this issue of the magazine with a brief postscript: "This is worth thinking about." That was the first time I heard Peccei's name, and it didn't tell me anything. I made inquiries about him and immediately wrote, offering to meet. Right away, about a week later, we had our first conversation.”

A good preliminary document was needed to stir up the imagination of colleagues. And here, as in many other undertakings, the question came down to where to find a talented person with free time who would translate into convincing language what seemed reasonable to us thoughts. This request was addressed to Erich Jancz. At that time, Aurelio Peccei did not yet know him, but, having got to know him better, he realized that Jancs was endowed not only with a rare mind, but also with the ability to dissect the future so soberly and ruthlessly that it involuntarily acquired the character of a severe warning. An astronomer by education, he sometimes, as it were, looked at his fellow planets from transcendental heights. The paper he produced, titled An Attempt to Establish World Planning Principles from General Systems Theory, was well thought out and convincing, though not always easy to understand.

To express the essence of the document created by Jancz in just a few sentences, it boils down to the following: “We are now beginning to recognize human society and its environment as a single system, the uncontrolled growth of which causes its instability. The current absolute level of this uncontrolled growth determines the high inertia of the dynamic system, thereby reducing its flexibility and ability to change and adapt. It became quite obvious that in this system there are no internal cybernetic mechanisms and no "automatic" self-regulation of macroprocesses is carried out. This cybernetic element of the evolution of our planet is man himself, capable of actively influencing the formation of his own future. However, it can actually accomplish this task only under the condition of control over the entire complex systemic dynamics of human society in the context of its environment ... which may herald the entry of mankind into a new phase of psychological evolution.

Following this, Aurelio Peccei, having secured the financial support of the Agnelli Foundation, selected with King about thirty European scientists - naturalists, sociologists, economists, planners and wrote to them, inviting everyone to come to Rome on April 6-7, 1968 to discuss many questions. Hoping that this meeting would be a momentous event, I asked the president of the Accademia Academia Academia dei Lincei, founded in 1603 and therefore the oldest of the existing ones, to grant us his premises, which would be a worthy place for a meeting.

Even during his trip to Washington in late 1966, Aurelio Peccei lectured on a topic that he called the Requirements of the 1970s for the modern world. In these lectures, he touched upon problems that were not yet as obvious then as they are now: global interdependence, the threat of a future aggravation of global macroproblems, and the inadmissibility of replacing such problems with momentary needs that are not correlated with a holistic and comprehensive picture of ongoing changes. They did this for two purposes. First, that it is impossible to assess the prospects for world development or properly prepare for it without the joint, concentrated efforts of all mankind, including also communist and developing countries, and that such efforts must be urgently undertaken. And second, that systems analysis and other state-of-the-art methods, in which the United States has become a leader in developing them, should be widely applied to solve large-scale and complex aerospace and defense problems, and that these achievements should be applied to the study of equally large-scale and complex problems put forward by public and international life. During the preparation of the memorandum, which urged the establishment of a joint international project to explore the practical implementation of the ideas I expressed, Aurelio Peccei had the opportunity to discuss them in the State Department and the White House. This project was to be as apolitical as possible and carried out through non-governmental organizations. Aurelio Peccei believed that the independence of such an enterprise could be achieved if it were organized, say, under the auspices of the Ford Foundation. Vice President Humphrey readily supported Peccei and wrote to McGeorge Bundy, President Kennedy's former National Security Adviser (who had recently been appointed president of the Ford Foundation). The further history of this undertaking only emphasizes the slowness of human reactions to the breathtaking swiftness of the development of world events.

Then it took seven years of effort and tireless work to finally give birth to the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis - IIASA. It was founded in October 1972 and was initially attended by the United States, Soviet Union, Canada, Japan, Germany and East Germany, Poland, Bulgaria, France, Great Britain and Italy. Several countries strongly stated that the Institute should be located on their territory. It was necessary to create a special group that would deal with this issue, prepare a lot of meetings and conduct detailed and detailed surveys. And the final decision of the issue was fairly delayed. Finally, the choice was made in favor of the Laxenburg Castle near Vienna, proposed by the Austrian government. The Institute carried out a deep, reasoned review and analysis of the two main projects of the Club of Rome.

In September 1969, a meeting took place in Alpbach. Here in Alpbach, beginning in 1945, the Austrian College hosted the traditional summer meeting, where several hundred invitees discussed their problems - mostly young people from Western European countries, although there were also representatives from the East and Americans. That fall, the main theme was: "The future is foresight, study, planning." It was decided to organize a special meeting related to this general theme and dedicated to discussing the joint responsibility of developed countries for solving the problems of the future of the whole world.

After considering several very different possibilities, Erich Jancz, Alexander King. Eduard Pestel, Conrad Waddington (Scottish biologist), Paul Weiss (also a biologist, teacher and popularizer of science), Detlev Bronk (honorary president of the US Academy of Sciences, also deceased) and Hasan Ozbekhan eventually came to a rather unanimous opinion that the most promising way to achieve our goals lies through the presentation and analysis of global issues through the systematic use of global models. Never before have mathematical models been used to describe human society with all its surroundings as a single integral system, the behavior of which can even be modeled and studied.

A specific project was suggested to us by Hassan Ozbekhan, a Turkish-born cybernetician, planner, and philosopher who at the time headed one of the California think tanks. He was quite well aware of the goals that the Club of Rome had set for himself, but had not previously taken part in its activities.

It was decided to conduct a series of studies under the general name of "the difficulties of mankind." But the project led by Ozbekhan failed, although the general principles of applying system analysis to civilization were formulated.

For the first forecasts about the prospects for the development of science and technology, the “Delphi method” was used, the essence of which is to interview experts who identify and interpret the problem, giving appropriate recommendations. Hasan Ozbekhan presented his modification of the Delphi method. However, on some reflection, experts did not consider this method suitable - in order to work, the model had to take into account, in addition to relatively easily quantifiable economic, also environmental, social and political aspects, and, in addition, correspond to the scale of global problems.

In July 1970, after Ozbekhan's failed attempt, the Club of Rome began work that would eventually lead to the well-known report on The Limits to Growth.

The Club of Rome remained small - no more than 100 members - which should have facilitated at least minimal permanent contact with each other - although this is not always easy to maintain even with such numbers. It doesn't have to be an organization - there are already enough organizations of all kinds in the world, I don't necessarily need to replenish their number in order to be able to turn to one of them if necessary. It must exist on its own, even if meager, budget, so as not to depend to any extent on any sources of funding. It must be truly transcultural - appeal to all possible scientific disciplines, ideologies and value systems, without tying itself to any of them. It should not be political, in the sense that I will explain later. It should be truly informal and promote the most free exchange of views among its members. And finally, it must be ready to disappear as soon as it is no longer needed: there is nothing worse than ideas or institutions that have outlived their usefulness.

The club was conceived as an action-oriented society rather than discussion for the sake of discussion. In accordance with the planned action program, the Club was given two main goals, which it had to gradually implement. The first goal is to promote and assist in making people as clearly and deeply as possible aware of the difficulties of mankind. It is obvious that this goal includes the study of those limited and very doubtful prospects and options that will remain for humanity if it does not urgently correct the current trends in world development. And the second goal is to use all available knowledge to stimulate the establishment of new relationships, policies and institutions that would help correct the current situation.

To serve this dual purpose, the Club of Rome strove in its composition to represent, as it were, a cross section of modern progressive humanity. Its members were prominent scientists and thinkers, statesmen, representatives of the education sector, teachers and managers from more than thirty countries of the world. All of them differed from each other in education and life experience, occupied different positions in society and adhered to different beliefs and views. Among them are biologists Karl-Göran Haden from Stockholm (Sweden), Aklila Lemma from Addis Ababa (Ethiopia), Marxist philosopher and sociologist Adam Schaff (Poland), Brazilian political scientist Helio Jagaribe, US Senator Claiborne Pall and Canadian Senator Maurice Lamontana, former President of the Swiss Confederation Nello Celio, Professor of Psychology at the University of Ibadan in Nigeria Adeoye Lambo, who served as Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Vice-Chairman of the Polish Planning Committee Joseph Pajestku, Japanese urbanist Kenzo Tange, naturalist from Cairo Mohammed Kassas University, director of Australia's largest medical research institute, Gus Nossal, and John Platt, an employee of the Ann Arbor Institute of Mental Health in Michigan.

The Club of Rome, by its very nature, cannot serve the interests of any particular country, nation, or political party, and does not identify itself with any ideology; the mixed composition does not allow him to fully join the position of one of the parties in the disputable international affairs tearing humanity apart. He does not and cannot have a unified system of values, a unified point of view, he does not strive for unanimity at all. The conclusions of the projects organized by him reflect the thoughts and results of the work of entire groups of scientists and in no way can be regarded as the position of the Club. Nevertheless, the Club of Rome is by no means apolitical; moreover, it can just be called political in the truest, etymological sense of the word. For, by facilitating the study and understanding of the long-term interests of mankind, it actually helps to lay new, more solid and consonant with the times, the foundations for making important political decisions and at the same time makes those on whom these decisions depend realize the full depth of responsibility that lies with them.

Professor Forrester (Forrester Jay - Professor of Applied Mathematics and Cybernetics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Author of works on the study of economic processes using mathematical models) joined the activities of the Club of Rome in June 1970. At that time, a year-long meeting was held in Bern, and the main topic of our discussions was Ozbekhan's proposal, which, for all its temptation, aroused many doubts in us. Here Forrester said that he could in a very short time develop and put into action a model that imitates world processes and fully corresponds to the wishes of the Club. At first, the club intended to touch on too many issues, but then they realized that it was impossible to capture the attention of the public by saying too much at once.

Forrester's compelling, essentially engineering approach, as well as his previous work, gave us some assurance that the structure and logic of the model he conceived were adequate for the purpose. This model involved the application of the system dynamics method, which he had been developing for many years. In an incredibly short four-week period, Forrester created a very primitive but fairly comprehensive mathematical model that could roughly mimic the development of the world situation using five main interdependent variables: population, capital investment, use of non-renewable resources, pollution, and food production.

Forrester believed that a systematic analysis of the dynamic trends of these variables - which are characterized by rapid and often exponential growth - and their interactions would make it possible to recreate and trace the behavior under various conditions of the entire system. For quantification values of these five decisive factors, he used many data from the book "In front of the abyss" and some articles by Aurelio Peccei on world macro problems. After choosing the acceptable levels of interaction, he explored the cross-influence of these processes on each other. The analytical foundations for building a model designed to simulate world processes were considered in his previous work on the study of industrial and urban systems, so the real quantum leap was to move from such microsystems to a global macrosystem. He gave this new technique the name world dynamics.

The decisive meeting took place in July 1970 and Cambridge (USA), at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The working program was designed for ten days, and, having arrived in Cambridge, the members of the Club learned that the mathematical world model had already passed a series of trial tests on the machine. This model, which Forrester called "MIR-1", consisted of more than forty non-linear equations describing the interdependence of selected variables; several trial runs on the machine allowed us to check the consistency of the model and identify some errors and inaccuracies. Then he reformulated the model, turning it into MIR-2, and set about checking it. Thus was born the first generation of computer models designed to study long-term trends in world development.

Even the very first models - for all their primitiveness and sometimes imperfection - could quite convincingly and impressively imitate the dynamics of the real world. In the process of studying the five selected critical parameters and their interaction at higher levels, conclusions appeared about an imminent catastrophe that required immediate measures aimed at stopping the dangerous tendency of the human system to grow. Undoubtedly, Forrester intuitively foresaw these preliminary conclusions in advance, which somewhat shook his confidence in their correctness, since the conclusions of the simulation are usually the opposite of what is expected, that is, "counter-intuitive." As for me, I have long been convinced that the rapid processes that have covered wide areas cannot lead to anything other than situations that are uncontrollable and undesirable.

On the advice of Forrester, the Club of Rome was invited by Professor Dennis L. Meadows (Meadows Dennis - cybernetician, professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, specialist in system dynamics, member of the Club of Rome.), Forrester's young assistant, then not yet known to us, to lead the group that was to to turn the MIR-2 model into the subsequently famous MIR-3. Without losing ties with MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), this project was later financed by the Volkswagen Foundation, which before that had finally rejected Ozbekhan's proposal. For the first time, the Fund's money crossed the Atlantic Ocean in the opposite direction - from Europe to the USA. While retaining overall direction of the project, Jay Forrester published a few months later the book World Dynamics, summarizing his contributions to the creation of the first machine models that analyzed the global system.

From now on, Dennis Meadows provided brilliant scientific and administrative leadership, showing not only exceptional dedication, but also the ability to get concrete results. He grew with the project, assisted by a multinational group of scientists, whose average age did not exceed thirty years. March 12, 1972 in Washington, DC, at the Smithsonian Institution, the public was first presented the book "The Limits to Growth. Report to the Club of Rome”, containing the conclusions of the project. Despite the delay, the project was eventually completed in record time, as only 21 months had passed since our first meeting in Cambridge. Another characteristic feature The project had an extremely modest budget, totaling only $250,000. It's hard to believe that total cost operations totaled less than one thousandth of a percent of the amount the United States annually invests in research and development.

The Limits to Growth report was built on the basis of Forrester's World-3 models.

As for the content of the Meadows report, as I expected, it confirmed and developed Forrester's preliminary conclusions. In a few words, this can be expressed as follows: while maintaining the current growth trends in the conditions of a finite planet, the next generations of mankind will reach the limits of demographic and economic expansion, which will lead the system as a whole to an uncontrollable crisis and collapse. It is still possible, the report says, to avoid disaster by taking steps to contain and manage growth and reorient its goals. However, the further, the more painful these changes will be and the less chances for ultimate success will remain.

Here are the main findings of this report:

1. If current trends in population growth, industrialization, pollution, food production and resource depletion continue, the world will come to the limits of growth over the next century. The result is likely to be an unexpected and uncontrolled decline in population and a sharp drop in output.
2. Growth trends can be reversed and long-term sustainable economic and environmental stability can be achieved. The state of global equilibrium can be set at a level that allows you to meet the basic material needs of each person and gives each person equal opportunities to realize their personal potential.

Of course, neither I nor Meadows claimed to be prophets. And the report itself did not set itself the goal of predicting or prescribing anything. His task was rather educational and cautionary. In essence, it was to identify the catastrophic consequences of existing trends and stimulate political changes that would help to avoid them. By warning people in time and giving them the opportunity to visually see how quickly they are rushing to the abyss, you can prepare humanity for the need for urgent changes. The draft did not specify the nature of these changes and did not set such goals. It gave only the most general view of the planet, comparable only to a photograph taken from a satellite, and under no circumstances allowed any specific recommendations. Indicators of the growth of population and industrial production on the planet, as well as the average level of pollution, food consumption and depletion of natural resources were quite suitable for demonstrating the general state of the human system, but were clearly unsuitable for developing policy programs acceptable to specific countries and regions. Nevertheless, many saw much more in the report than it said, which not only gave food for unjustified illusions, but also served as a basis for undeserved accusations.

The concept of Earth's limitations is by no means new. However, the report's conclusion that the finiteness of the planet necessarily implies the limits of human expansion ran counter to the growth orientation prevailing in world culture and became a symbol of a new way of thinking that was both welcomed and subjected to unmerciful curses. The successes of revolutionary transformations in the material sphere have made world culture arrogant. It was and remains a culture that prioritizes quantity over quality, a civilization that not only does not want to take into account the real possibilities of life support on the planet, but also thoughtlessly squanders its resources without ensuring the full and reasonable use of human capabilities.

The limits that Meadows pointed out in his study relate mainly to non-renewable natural resources, such as geological reserves of minerals, billions of years of accumulation of organic matter that are now fossil fuels, and soil, air and water - all this is on the planet and is available only in limited quantities. That is, his reasoning was based on information about the physical quantities of exploitable non-renewable resources, and assumptions about the rate of their depletion in the process of use. Later estimates called for a revision of the original assumptions, showing that the Earth is generally more generous than Meadows thought. In addition, the study did not properly take into account the influence of the price mechanism. Meanwhile, it is this mechanism that explains the use of unprofitable deposits, if there are no other ways to meet the demand for this type of resource.

However, even some fair criticisms cannot refute the essence of Meadows' conclusions. Even if the earth has enough of everything that we need, all the same, there are fewer types of mineral raw materials in it than others, and some are very few. The cost of first using, preserving or recycling many resources is now skyrocketing and may well become a limiting factor. Of course, then new, more advanced technological methods can come to our aid, but they will also require some sacrifices from us, for example, an increase in energy consumption, which in the end will simply shift the problem to another area.

In April 1972, Queen Juliana of Holland opened an exhibition dedicated to the ideas of the Club of Rome in the center of Rotterdam. Shortly thereafter, Valerie Giscard d'Estaing, then French Finance Minister, organized a series of international meetings with prominent figures from various countries to discuss "where growth is taking us." In the same year, Aurelio Peccei and Manfred Siebker prepared for European parliamentarians on At the request of the European Council, the report “The Limits to Growth in Perspective”, which summed up all the points of view expressed during the debate “for” and “against” the positions of the Club of Rome In 1973, in the historic St. to the club the Peace Prize for its "international and worldwide activity" that contributes to people's awareness of the current situation and the preparation of conditions for peace.

Mention should be made here of the ten-year program "Alternatives to Growth", which was supposed to attract the attention of the world scientific community to the study and discussion of new alternative approaches to growth and its goals. The main idea of the program was to explain that growth by itself does not provide a solution to the various social and economic problems facing humanity. It was decided every two years in the state of Texas in the town of Woodland near Houston to hold international conferences- the first took place in 1975 - they were supposed to discuss the search for alternative ways for the future development of society, which could be carried out quite realistically and at the same time would not be based on a continuous striving for growth. An international competition was also established: every two years, five the best works in this area are nominated for the Mitchell Prize.

The "Second Report to the Club of Rome" was first presented by Mikhailo Mesarovich (Mesarovich Mikhailo - American mathematician, professor at the University of Cleveland) and Eduard Pestel at the annual meeting of the Club of Rome in West Berlin in October 1974. The title of the book - "Humanity at the Crossroads" (Mesarovic M. and Restel E. Mankind at the Turning Point, New York, 1974.) - extremely well reflected its content. It very clearly characterized the situation of all mankind, which found itself in the mid-1970s before a dramatic alternative - either to create a truly global society based on solidarity and justice, diversity and unity, interdependence and self-reliance, or to be everything (at best ) in the face of the collapse of the human system, which will be accompanied first by regional and then by global catastrophes. The groups of Mesarovich and Pestel came to these conclusions as a result of a three-year intensive scientific study of the prospects for the development of mankind.

The technical details of this project can be found in a detailed report based on their week-long presentation of their work to 100 international scientists at IIASA, published in six volumes under the title Multilevel Computer Model of World Development System, IIASA, Laxenburg, Austria, 1974).

In 1971, Mikhailo Mesarovich Eduard Pestel decided to contribute to the activities of the Club of Rome and tried to create a new methodology and new models in order to analyze in detail a wide range of possible future options for a modern person. Club members fully supported this undertaking and do not regret it at all. Theoretical basis The Mesarovic-Pestel project was inspired by the previous works of Mesarovic, who created a subtle technique for analyzing and calculating complex systems, which he called the theory of multilevel hierarchical systems. Pestel brought with him his vast experience and knowledge of various approaches to the study of world problems, including both the early works of the Club of Rome, and his purely German ability for accurate, meticulous, detailed analysis. These two, complementing each other perfectly, organized two research groups - one in the American city of Cleveland, Ohio, the other in Hanover (Germany), - gathering around them first-class young scientists and securing the necessary financial support from the Volkswagen Foundation.

During the implementation of the project, special attention was paid to basing all research on the most reliable and reliable factual information about all the processes taking place in the world. The adequacy of the data used was repeatedly checked and rechecked with the help of specialized institutions and private consultants representing a wide variety of scientific fields. And all these measures were eminently justified. After all, it is difficult to overestimate the importance of objective, reliable quantitative information in the creation and use of any planning system of this kind.

To reflect the reality of our fragmented, fragmented world, the global system has been divided into ten regional subsystems. They were organic, interconnected cells of a single system. Since the dynamics and behavior of the global human system are largely determined by the dynamics and behavior of all its regions, taken separately, and their influence on each other, the principles of identifying these regions and regionalizing the world are of particular importance in such studies. To the extent possible, factors such as established historical and cultural traditions, way of life, level of economic development, socio-political conditions and the prevalence and relevance of the main, most important problems were taken into account here. And it is not surprising that the following countries and groups of countries turned out to be the ten largest regions of the world: the United States of America and Canada, Western Europe, Japan, the Soviet Union and the countries of Eastern Europe, Latin America, North Africa and the Middle East, Central Africa minus those already mentioned above sub-regions, South and South-East Asia, China and, finally, the tenth region - Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. Of course, in our time, this kind of regionalization cannot but be very conditional and approximate and serve exclusively research purposes, because it is well known that most of the really important decisions are made exclusively at the national level. Therefore, when creating such an instrument, it is necessary to proceed, first of all, from the fact that it serves as a sufficiently effective aid in decision-making precisely at the level of individual countries. The Mesarovic-Pestel model fully satisfies this requirement and, with the availability of appropriate quantitative data, can serve as a decision-making tool within individual countries.

In order to provide a rational basis for assessing possible options for the development of the future, the method of analyzing alternative scenarios was used. We are not in a position to predict what will happen in the future, what new technical discoveries will appear; even less predictable are issues that depend on personal or social choice, because they are associated with the unpredictability of human behavior. Moreover, it is quite logical to assume the existence of several different and quite probable variants of the future at once, which will be determined by a number of very different factors. The scenario is just such a combination of possible future events and alternative socio-political decisions. Without hoping that even one of the scenarios created will accurately represent the real picture of the future, we at the same time - provided that all our preparatory work has been done in good faith - may well expect that this real future lies somewhere. then within the set of possible scenarios we are considering.

In essence, the use of the Mesarovic-Pestel method made it possible to model the dynamics of each of the scenarios and assess what possible consequences on a global or regional scale could result from certain specific measures aimed either at achieving a “preferred future” or at avoiding development any undesirable phenomena or processes. And in this sense, the method represents the most important potential breakthrough in the technique of managing human activity. Of course, this methodology can and should be significantly improved, in particular, it should more flexibly and adequately reflect the evolution of social conditions and people's social behavior. It is hoped that in the future new methods of rational decision-making will be developed, better and more perfect than this. However, the created tool has extremely great potential in the current conditions.

Although the Club of Rome decided from the very beginning to limit its activities to the main, fundamental problems of mankind, it is often asked to take part in the discussion of other topical issues. In principle, I am not opposed to this, provided, of course, that the Club has the time and opportunity to make a truly original, constructive contribution to the development of these issues and that they are approached on a long-term, global basis. Speaking of "long-term", we mean the time interval that is used in the UN forecasts of the doubling of the world population, namely the next 30-40 years. This period approximately corresponds to the time required for the change of generations in the management of the world.

In 1990, the first report of the Club of Rome was prepared under the title The First Global Revolution. Let us reiterate the main principles on which this report is based:

the assertion that it is necessary to involve and participate everyone in the search for ways to overcome the interconnected set of modern problems;

recognizing that the possibility of constructive change is rooted in the motives and values that guide our behavior;

understanding that the behavior of nations and societies reflects the behavior of individual members of these societies;

acceptance of the postulate that one should hardly expect cardinal answers to problems from government leaders: thousands of small but wise decisions are needed that reflect a new level of consciousness of millions of ordinary people;

enforcement of the requirement that every kind of privilege at the individual or national level must be accompanied by a corresponding responsibility.

Reports to the Club of Rome. Factor four cost - half, return - double new report to the Club of Rome translation a

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FACTOR FOUR

Ernst von WEIZSACKER, Amory B. LOVINS, L. Hunter LOVINS

Translation

A.P. Zavarnitsyn and V.D. Novikov

Weizsacker E., Lovins E., Lovins L. FACTOR FOUR. The cost is half, the return is double. New report to the Club of Rome. Translation by A.P. Zavarnitsyn and V.D. Novikov, ed. Academician G.A. Months. M.: Academia, 2000. 400 p.

The book is addressed to a wide range of readers.

ISBN 5-874444-098-4

BBC 65

© Authors, 1997

© A.P. Zavarnitsyn, V.D. Novikov, 2000

© Publishing house «Academia», 2000

From the translation editor

Preface to the Russian edition* * Translated by N. Sen

Foreword

On behalf of the Club of Rome, I express my sincere hope that this new report will contribute to an international discussion involving both politicians and experts.

Madrid, December 1996

Ricardo Dies HOCHLEITNER,

President of the Club of Rome

Introduction

List of abbreviations

GDP -- Gross Domestic Product -- Gross Domestic Product, GDP

WMO -- World Meteorological Organization -- World Meteorological Organization, WMO

GNP -- Gross National Product -- Gross National Product, GNP

WTO -- World Trade Organization -- World Trade Organization, WTO

GATT -- General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade -- General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, GATT

GDS -- German Dual System -- Duales System Deutschland, DSD

ISEW -- Index ofSustainable Economic Welfare, ISEW

KOCP -- United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, UNCED

KSEG -- Corporate Average Fuel Economy -- Corporate Average Fuel Economy, CAFE

IMF -- International Monetary Fund -- International Monetary Fund, IMF

IPCC -- Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change -- IPCC

MKHP -- International Conference on Population and Development, ICPD

MCK -- Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee, INC

MCHC -- International Council of Scientific Unions, ICSU

ICC -- International Chamber of Commerce -- International Chamber of Commerce, ICC

OPEC -- Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, OPEC

OECD -- Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development -- Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, OECD

UNFCCC -- Framework Convention on Climate Change, FCCC

SMOG -- Alliance of Small Island States -- Alliance of Small Island States, AOSIS

FNE -- New Economics Foundation -- New Economics Foundation, NEF

HUVR -- Chlorinated Hydrocarbon (CHC) Solvents

ENR -- Ecological Tax Reform, ETR

ACT2 -- Advanced Customer Technology Test for Maximum Energy Efficiency

CAFE -- Corporate Average Fuel Economy -- Corporate Average Fuel Economy, KSEG

ISEW -- Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare

MIPS -- Material Inputs Per Service Unit -- Material consumption of a service, material costs per unit of work

NAFTA -- North American Free Trade Agreement -- North American Free Trade Agreement

PCSD -- President's Council for Sustainable Development -- President's Council for Sustainable Development

PG&E -- Pacific Gas and Electric Company -- Pacific Gas and Electric Company

RMI -- Rocky Mountain Institute

UNCED -- United Nations Conference on Environment and Development

UNDP -- United Nations Development Program -- United Nations Development Program

UNEP -- United Nations Environment Program

WCED -- World Commission for Environment and Development

WRAP -- Waste Reduction Always Pays -- Waste reduction always pays off.

Introduction

Get more with less

Exciting prospects for progress

In a few words, "factor four" means that resource productivity can and should quadruple. The wealth extracted from one unit of natural resources can quadruple. Thus, we can live twice as well and at the same time spend half as much.

This idea is both new and simple.

It is new because it heralds nothing more than a new direction of scientific and technological progress. In the past, progress has been about increasing productivity. We believe that resource performance is just as important and should be treated as a top priority.

The idea is also exciting. Some aspects of this revolution in efficiency are already being realized at lower costs, ie. can be used to advantage. Countries that revolutionize efficiency win in international competition.

The revolutionary rise in efficiency is sure to become a global trend. As is always the case with new opportunities, who paves the way in a new direction reaps the greatest harvest.

Moral and material reasons

Otherwise, the world may face unprecedented disasters and catastrophes. Is it possible to cross such a gigantic abyss at all? You can, thanks to Factor Four.

The countries that start first will benefit the most. Countries that hesitate are likely to suffer huge losses in their capital, which will be quickly depleted away from the main routes of resource efficiency.

Treating the Disease of Waste with Efficiency

Efficiency treatment

Seven Arguments for Efficient Use of Resources

The moral and material reasons we have given for moving towards efficiency may seem somewhat abstract. Now we will be more specific, pointing out seven reasons for doing just that.

Get profit. Efficient use of resources usually pays off: you don't have to pay for resources now, and because they don't become pollutants, you don't have to pay to clean them up later.

What's new in efficiency?

The Purpose of This Book Is Practical Change

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FACTOR FOUR

From the translation editor

Preface to the Russian edition

Foreword