From limits to growth to sustainable development or SD (sustainable development) in a SD (system dynamics) perspective

This article highlights the strength of the basic system dynamics tools (system structure, unquantified variables, the reference mode, the leverage points) by testing the original World2 (1970) and World3 (1972) analyses against 30 years of history. Critical feedback structures in those models are revisited in the context of the current ‘sustainable development’ agenda. Time cannot yet confirm or reject the ‘overshoot and collapse’ reference mode of behaviour for the standard world-model run, but the tendencies and pressures that produced it still persist. The article closes with the identification of possible leverage points for attaining sustainable development in the expected fields of education, eco-efficiency, and resource management and energy policies, and speculates on possible others that the new millennium may offer.