ABSTRACT
Ives and Messerli discusses the Himalayas, which many identify as in environmental crisis; their studies indicated little firm evidence that indeed some records show that conditions in certain areas were markedly worse several decades ago and have now improved. Environmental or socio economic change or technological innovation can cause people to become marginalized in situ, for example drought, disease or pests, pollution, decline in demand for produce due to change in fashion or substitution, labour becoming too costly, communications degenerating, marginal land user attitude changes, the arrival of employment opportunities or crops new to the area. Crisis may be a turning-point, a last chance to avoid or mitigate or adapt to undesirable, possibly irreversible change, may merit being called a catastrophe. Models dealing with growth and ecocatastrophe, which appeared from the early 1970s, including those of Meadows et al., were hindered by poor data, untested modelling methods, inadequate computing, incomplete knowledge of the variables, and sometimes lack of objectivity.
