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The Club of Rome's Till Kellerhoff: Earth4All and The Limits to Growth | Rik's Mind Ep 110

Global Warming is the biggest reckoning the human race has yet to encounter.

As the United States is still caught in the throes of denial of climate change and “doom & gloom” reigns, there are groups that are trying to solve this problem. One of those groups is the Club of Rome. Building on their groundbreaking report “The Limits to Growth”, released in 1972, the Club has convened a new group to help humanity grow out of our fossil fuel addiction. Their new report “Earth4All” started as a vibrant collective of leading economic thinkers, scientists, and advocates, convened by The Club of Rome, the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, the Stockholm Resilience Centre and the Norwegian Business School.

With more and more people and organisations joining, Earth4All has become a platform to connect and amplify the chorus of voices that want to upgrade our economies. We are not starting from scratch. The momentum is growing. Communities and policy makers across the world are already changing the way we think about economics.

Earth4All builds on the legacies of The Limits to Growth and the Planetary Boundaries frameworks. Science is at the heart of their work. They rethink capitalism and move beyond GDP for a safe, secure and prosperous future in the Anthropocene.

Till Kellerhoff

Program Director of the Club of Rome and Coordinator & National Engagement Lead of the Earth4All initiative

To help us work our way through Earth4All, we are joined by the Club of Rome’s Till Kellerhoff. Till is the Program Director of the Club of Rome and Coordinator & National Engagement Lead of the Earth4All initiative as well as contributing author of Earth for All: A Survival Guide for Humanity. Before joining The Club of Rome, he studied Politics, Economics and International Relations at the University of Erfurt (Germany), the National Autonomous University of Mexico (Mexico) and the London School of Economics (UK). He is mostly working on themes around "Rethinking Economics" and concepts around societal wellbeing for all within planetary boundaries. You can follow Till on his Twitter @TKellerhoff and the Club of Rome on their twitter @ClubOfRome.

About the Club of Rome:

Most influential organizations begin with the meeting of a few like minds. In 1965, Aurelio Peccei, an Italian industrialist, made a speech that proved inspirational to Alexander King, the Scottish Head of Science at the OECD. The two found that they shared a profound concern for the long-term future of humanity and the planet, what they termed the modern ‘predicament of mankind’.

Three years later, King and Peccei convened a meeting of European scientists in Rome. Although this first attempt failed to achieve unity, a core group of like-minded thinkers emerged. Their goal: to advance three core ideas that still define the Club of Rome today: a global and a long-term perspective, and the concept of “problematique”, a cluster of intertwined global problems, be they economic, environmental, political or social.

At the group’s first major gathering in 1970, Jay Forrester, a systems professor at MIT, offered to use computer models he had developed to study the complex problems which concerned the group more rigorously. An international team of researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology began a study of the implications of unbridled exponential growth. They examined the five basic factors that determine and, in their interactions, ultimately limit growth on this planet – population, agricultural production, non-renewable resource depletion, industrial output and pollution.

In 1972, the Club’s first major Report, The Limits to Growth was published. It sold millions of copies worldwide, creating media controversy and also impetus for the global sustainability movement. This call for objective, scientific assessment of the impact of humanity’s behavior and use of resources, still defines the Club of Rome today. While Limits had many messages, it fundamentally confronted the unchallenged paradigm of continuous material growth and the pursuit of endless economic expansion. Fifty years later, there is no doubt that the ecological footprint of humanity substantially exceeds its natural limits every year. The concerns of the Club of Rome have not lost their relevance.

Today, the Club continues to be at the forefront of challenging and controversial global issues. Propelled by a new mission and organisational structure, which today includes 35 National Associations, the Club of Rome has now published over 45 Reports. They continue to challenge established paradigms and advocate for policies that can practically address the many emergencies facing society and the planet today. The Club remains true to its historical intent, while it attempts to lay the foundations for long-term systemic shifts in global social, environmental and economic systems. In short, it is an established, respected, international think-tank positioned to face the core challenges of the 21st Century.

The organization includes around 100 active full members with a full-time secretariat in Winterthur, Switzerland with a satellite office in Brussels, Belgium.