In 1972, a group of researchers at MIT published a report that should have changed everything. The Limits to Growth used computer modelling to simulate the future of humanity on a finite planet — running the numbers on population, pollution, resource depletion and industrial output — and arrived at a conclusion that was as simple as it was uncomfortable: infinite growth is impossible, and if we didn't change course, the consequences would be severe.

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The report was commissioned by the Club of Rome, a nonprofit gathering of scientists, economists, industrialists and thinkers founded in 1968 by Italian industrialist Aurelio Peccei and British scientist Alexander King. It sold over 30 million copies in more than 30 languages. It sparked a worldwide debate. It was dismissed, ridiculed, and ignored by those with the most to lose from taking it seriously. And more than fifty years later, the data is still tracking its projections with uncomfortable accuracy.

 

For the first object in the CLIMATE GOALS series, the Club of Rome has been reimagined as a football club. The researchers are players. The founders are chairman and director. Jay Forrester — the MIT computer engineer whose system dynamics work made the entire study possible — is the architect who built the stadium before anyone else arrived. There is a squad page, a fan shop, a founding story, and Panini cards of the scientists who tried to blow the final whistle on business as usual.

 

The choice of football is deliberate. No language on earth is more universal, more emotional, or more fluent in the vocabulary of teams, time, and high stakes. Climate change is the longest match in history — and we are still playing it. CLIMATE GOALS uses football to tell that story, one object at a time, until at least 2030.

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The Club of Rome was the kick-off. The clock is running.

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Click here for the full experience of Object 01 - The Club of Rome.