A few days back we talked about how a recent study showed that society today as it is was right on track towards civilization collapse. The initial study was done by the folks at MIT back in 1972 which predicted that society would eventually collapse in the mid 21st century. The timeline of that old study was confirmed to be true by KPMG’s Gaya Herrington. Herrington undertook the research as a personal project to see how well the MIT model was and well, they were right. You can catch up on the story here.
Gaya Herrington is the Sustainability and Dynamic System Analysis Lead of KPMG and it seems that nothing can make the researcher budge from her conclusion. Herrington stands by her forecast which according to her analysis is surely going to happen given how society is growing economically. Herrington spoke to the reporters over at Guardian and she said that “The MIT scientists said we needed to act now to achieve a smooth transition and avoid costs. That didn’t happen, so we’re seeing the impact of climate change”.
The impact she’s talking about leads to a grim demise of the civilization as we know it. Herrington has a degree in econometrics from the University of Amsterdam and a master’s in sustainability from Harvard. She believes that her findings are something that can be acted upon. Her motivation stems from the desire to safeguard the well-being of future generations. She said that “I would like ‘the kids to be OK’, even if none of them were mine. I am driven by a passion for sustainability. Always have been”.
Herrington looked at multiple variables from a variety of data. The variables included population, fertility rates, mortality rates, industrial outputs, food production, and many more. The key finding of her research is that we might still have a chance at redemption. While the world is on track for collapse, nothing is inevitable, the future can be changed. According to her “The key finding of my study is that we still have a choice to align with a scenario that does not end in collapse”.
She further added that “With innovation in business, along with new developments by governments and civil society, continuing to update the model provides another perspective on the challenges and opportunities we have to create a more sustainable world”. This means that MIT’s model isn’t the end-all, it was merely a prediction of how things could be if nothing changed for the better. Multiple companies and governments around the world are beginning to realize just how significant the climate issue really is.
Carbon neutrality initiatives have started worldwide. Herrington also believes that the world can be saved. “We’re totally capable of making huge changes, and we’ve seen with the pandemic, but we have to act now if we’re to avoid costs much greater than we’re seeing”.