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                            The Limits to Growth

                   Abstract established by Eduard Pestel
                 by Donella H. Meadows, Dennis L. Meadows,
                   Jorgen Randers, William W. Behrens III

                    A Report to The Club of Rome (1972)



                   Short Version of the Limits to Growth


     Our world model was built specifically to investigate five major
     trends of global concern - accelerating industrialization, rapid
     population growth, widespread malnutrition, depletion of
     nonrenewable resources, and a deteriorating environment.

     The model we have constructed is, like every model, imperfect,
     oversimplified, and unfinished.

     In spite of the preliminary state of our work, we believe it is
     important to publish the model and our findings now. (...) We feel
     that the model described here is already sufficiently developed to
     be of some use to decision- makers. Furthermore, the basic
     behavior modes we have already observed in this model appear to be
     so fundamental and general that we do not expect our broad
     conclusions to be substantially altered by further revisions.

     Our conclusions are :

       1. If the present growth trends in world population,
          industrialization, pollution, food production, and resource
          depletion continue unchanged, the limits to growth on this
          planet will be reached sometime within the next one hundred
          years. The most probable result will be a rather sudden and
          uncontrollable decline in both population and industrial
          capacity.

       2. It is possible to alter these growth trends and to establish
          a condition of ecological and economic stability that is
          sustainable far into the future. The state of global
          equilibrium could be designed so that the basic material
          needs of each person on earth are satisfied and each person
          has an equal opportunity to realize his individual human
          potential.

     If the world's people decide to strive for this second outcome
     rather than the first, the sooner they begin working to attain it,
     the greater will be their chances of success.

     All five elements basic to the study reported here -- population,
     food production, and consumption of nonrenewable natural resources
     -- are increasing. The amount of their increase each year follows
     a pattern that mathematicians call exponential growth.

     A quantity exhibits exponential growth when it increases by a
     constant percentage of the whole in a constant time period.

     Such exponential growth is a common process in biological,
     financial, and many other systems of the world.

     Exponential growth is a dynamic phenomenon, which means that it
     involves elements that change over time. (...) When many different
     quantities are growing simultaneously in a system, however, and
     when all the quantities are interrelated in a complicated way,
     analysis of the causes of growth and of the future behavior of the
     system becomes very difficult indeed.

     Over the course of the last 30 years there has evolved at the
     Massachusetts Institute of Technology a new method for
     understanding the dynamic behavior of complex systems. The method
     is called System Dynamics. The basis of the method is the
     recongnition that the structure of any system -- the many
     circular, interlocking, sometimes time-delayed relationships among
     its components -- is often just as important in determining its
     behavior as the individual components themselves. The world model
     described in this book is a System Dynamics model

     Extrapolation of present trends is a time-honored way of looking
     into the future, especially the very near future, and especially
     if the quantity being considered is not much influenced by other
     trends that are occuring elsewhere in the system. Of course, none
     of the five factors we are examining here is independent. Each
     interacts constantly with all the others. We have already
     mentioned some of these interactions. Population cannot grow
     without food, food production is increased by growth of capital,
     more capital requires more resources, discarded resources become
     pollution, pollution interferes with the growth of both population
     and food.

     Furthermore, over long time periods each of these factors also
     feeds back to influence itself.

     In this first simple world model, we are interested only in the
     broad behavior modes of the population-capital system. By behavior
     modes we mean the tendencies of the variables in the system
     (population or pollution, for example) to change as time
     progresses.

     A major purpose in constructing the world model has been to
     determine which, if any, of these behavior modes will be most
     characteristic of the world system as it reaches the limits to
     growth. This process of determining behavior modes is "prediction"
     only in the most limited sense of the word.

     Because we are interested at this point only in broad behavior
     modes, this first world model needs not be extremely detailed. We
     thus consider only one general population, a population that
     statistically reflects the average characteristics of the global
     population. We include only one class of pollutants -- the
     long-lived, globally distributed family of pollutants, such as
     lead, mercury, asbestos, and stable pesticides and radioisotopes
     -- whose dynamic behavior in the ecosystem we are beginning to
     understand. We plot one generalized resource that represents the
     combined reserves of all nonrenewable resourCes, although we know
     that each separate resource will follow the general dynamic
     pattern at its own specific level and rate.

     This high level of aggregation is necessary at this point to keep
     the model understandable. At the same time it limits the
     information we can expect to gain from the model.

     Can anything be learned from such a highly aggregated model? Can
     its output be considered meaningful? In terms of exact
     predictions, the output is not meaningful.

     On the other hand it is vitally important to gain some
     understanding of the causes of growth in human society, the limits
     to growth, and the behavior of our socio-economic systems when the
     limits are reached.

     All levels in the model (population, capital, pollution, etc.)
     begin with 1900 values. From 1900 to 1970 the variables agree
     generally with their historical value to the extent that we know
     them. Population rises from 1.6 billion in 1900 to 3.5 billion in
     1970. Although the birth rate declines gradually, the death rate
     falls more quickly, especially after 1940, and the rate of
     population growth increases. Industrial output, food and services
     per capita increase exponentially. The resource base in 1970 is
     still about 95 percent of its 1900 value, but it declines
     dramatically thereafter, as population and industrial output
     continue to grow.

     The behavior mode of the system is that of overshoot and collapse.
     In this run the collapse occurs because of nonrenewable resource
     depletion. The industrial capital stock grows to a level that
     requires an enormous input of resources. In the very process of
     that growth it depletes a large fraction of the resource reserves
     available. As resource prices rise and mines are depleted, more
     and more capital must be used for obtaining resources, leaving
     less to be invested for future growth. Finally investment cannot
     keep up with depreciation, and the industrial base collapses,
     taking with it the service and agricultural systems, which have
     become dependent on industrial inputs (such as fertilizers,
     pesticides, hospital laboratories, computers, and especially
     energy for mechanization). For a short time the situation is
     especially serious because population, with the delays inherent in
     the age structure and the process of social adjustment, keeps
     rising. Population finally decreases when the death rate is driven
     upward by lack of food and health services. The exact timing of
     these events is not meaningful, given the great aggregation and
     many uncertainties in the model. It is significant, however, that
     growth is stopped well before the year 2100. We have tried in
     every doubtful case to make the most optimistic estimate of
     unknown quantities, and we have also ignored discontinuous events
     such as wars or epidemics, which might act to bring an end to
     growth even sooner than our model would indicate. In other words,
     the model is biased to allow growth to continue longer than it
     probably can continue in the real world. We can thus say with some
     confidence that, under the assumption of no major change in the
     present system, population and industrial growth will certainly
     stop within th next century, at the latest.

     To test the model assumption about available resources, we doubled
     the resource reserves in 1900, keeping all other assumptions
     identical to those in the standard run. Now industrialization can
     reach a higher level since resources are not so quickly depleted.
     The larger industrial plant releases pollution at such a rate,
     however, that the environmental pollution absorption mechanisms
     become saturated. Pollution rises very rapidly, causing an
     immediate increase in the death rate and a decline in food
     production. At the end of the run resources are severely depleted
     in spite of the doubled amount initially available.

     Is the future of the world system bound to be growth and then
     collapse into a dismal, depleted existence? Only if we make the
     initial assumption that our present way of doing things will not
     change. We have ample evidence of mankind's ingenuity and social
     flexibility. There are, of course, many likely changes in the
     system, some of which are already taking place. The Green
     Revolution is raising agricultural yields in non industrialized
     countries. Knowledge about modern methods of birth control is
     spreading rapidly.

     Although the history of human effort contains numerous incidents
     of mankind's failure to live within physical limits, it is success
     in overcoming limits that forms the cultural tradition of many
     dominant people in today's world. Over the past three hundred
     years, mankind has compiled an impressive record of pushing back
     the apparent limits to population and economic growth by a series
     of spectacular technological advances. Since the recent history of
     a large part of human society has been so continuously successful,
     it is quite natural that many people expect technological
     breakthrough to go on raising physical ceilings indefinitely.

     Will new technologies alter the tendency of the world system to
     grow and collapse?

     Let us assume, however, that the technological optimists are
     correct and that nuclear energy will solve the resource problems
     of the world.

     Let us also assume a reduction in pollution generation all sources
     by a factor of four, starting in 1975.

     Let us also assume that the normal yield per hectare of all the
     world's land can be further increased by a factor of two.Besides
     we assume perfect birth control, practiced voluntarily, starting
     in 1975.

     All this means we are utilizing a technological policy in every
     sector of the world model to circumvent in some way the various
     limits to growth. The model system is producing nuclear power,
     recycling resources, and mining the most remote reserves;
     withholding as many pollutants as possible; pushing yields from
     the land to undreamed-of heights; and producing only children who
     are actively wanted by their parents. The result is still an end
     to growth before the year 2100.

     Because of three siumultaneous crises. Overuse of land leads to
     erosion, and food production drops. Resources are severly depleted
     by a prosperous world population (but not as prosperous as the
     present US population). Pollution rises, drops, and then rises
     again dramatically, causing a further decrease in food production
     and a sudden rise in the death rate. The application of
     technological solutions alone has prolonged the period of
     population and industrial growth, but it has not removed the
     ultimate limits to that growth.

     Given the many approximations and limitations of the world model,
     there is no point in dwelling glumly on the series of catastrophes
     it tends to generate. We shall emphasize just one more time that
     none of these computer outputs is a prediction. We would not
     expect the real world to behave like the world model in any of the
     graphs we have shown, especially in the collapse modes. The model
     contains dynamic statements about only the physical aspects of
     man's activities. It assumes that social variables -- income
     distribution, attitudes about family size, choices among goods,
     services, and food -- will continue to follow the same patterns
     they have followed throughout the world in recent history. These
     patterns, and the human value they represent, were all established
     in the growth phase of our civilization. They would certainly be
     greatly revised as population and income began to decrease. Since
     we find it difficult to imagine what new forms of human societal
     behavior might emerge and how quickly they would emerge under
     collapse conditions, we have not attempted to model such social
     changes. What validity our model has holds up only to the point in
     each output graph at which growth comes to an end and collapse
     begins.

     The unspoken assumption behind all of the model runs we have
     presented in this chapter is that population and capital growth
     should be allowed to continue until they reach some "natural"
     limit. This assumption also appears to be a basic part of the
     human value system currently operational in the real world. Given
     that first assumption, that population and capital growth should
     not be deliberately limited but should be left to "seek their own
     levels", we have not been able to find a set of policies that
     avoids the collapse mode of behavior.

     The hopes of the technological optimists center on the ability of
     technology to remove or extend the limits to growth of population
     and capital. We have shown that in the world model the application
     of technology to apparent problems of resource depletion or
     pollution or food shortage has no impact on the essential problem,
     which is exponential growth in a finite and complex system. Our
     attempts to use even the most optimistic estimates of the benefits
     of technology in the model did not prevent the ultimate decline of
     population and industry, and in fact did not in any case postpone
     the collapse beyond the year 2100.

     Unfortunately the model does not indicate, at this stage, the
     social side-effects of new technologies. These effects are often
     the most important in terms of the influence of a technology on
     people's lives.

     Social side-effects must be anticipated and forestalled before the
     large-scale introduction of a new technology.

     While technology can change rapidly, political and social,
     insitutions generally change very slowly. Furthermore, they almost
     never change in anticipation of social need, but only in response
     to one.

     We must also keep in mind the presence of social delays -- the
     delays necessary to allow society to absorb or to prepare for a
     change. Most delays, physical or social reduce the stability of
     the world system and increase the likelihood of the overshoot
     mode. The social delays, like the physical ones, are becoming
     increasingly more critical because the processes of exponential
     growth are creating additional pressures at a faster and faster
     rate. Although the rate of technological change has so far managed
     to keep up with this accelerated pace, mankind has made virtually
     no new discoveries to increase the rate of social, political,
     ethical, and cultural change.

     Even if society's technological progress fulfills all
     expectations, it may very well be a problem with no technical
     solution, or the interaction of several such problems, that
     finally brings an end to population and capital growth.

     Applying technology to the natural pressures that the environment
     exerts against any growth process has been so successful in the
     past that a whole culture has evolved around the principle of
     fighting against limits rather than learning to live with them.

     Is it better to try to live within that limit by accepting a
     self-imposed restriction on growth? Or is it preferable to go on
     growing until some other natural limit arises, in the hope that at
     that time another technological leap will allow growth to continue
     still longer? For the last several hundred years human society has
     followed the second course so consistently and successfully that
     the first choice has been all but forgotten.

     There may be much disagreement with the statement that population
     and capital growth must stop soon. But virtually no one will argue
     that material growth on this planet can go on forever. At this
     point in man's history, the choice posed above is still available
     in almost every sphere of human activity. Man can still choose his
     limits and stops when he pleases by weakening some of the strong
     pressures that cause capital and population growth, or by
     instituting counterpressures, or both. Such counterpresures will
     probably not be entirely pleasant. They will certainly involve
     profund changes in the social and economic structures that have
     been deeply impressed into human culture by centuries of growth.
     The alternative is to wait until the price of technology becomes
     more than society can pay, or until the side-effects of technology
     suppress growth themselves, or until problems arise that have no
     technical solutions. At any of those points the choice of limits
     will be gone.

     Faith in technology as the ultimate solution to all problems can
     thus divert our attention from the most fundamental problem -- the
     problem of growth in a finite system -- and prevent us from taking
     effective action to solve it.

     On the other hand, our intent is certainly not to brand technology
     as evil or futile or unnecessary. We strongly believe that many of
     the technological developments mentioned here -- recycling,
     pollution-control devices, contraceptives -- will be absolutely
     vital to the future of human society if they are combined with
     deliberate checks on growth. We would deplore an unreasoned
     rejection of the benefit of technology as strongly as we argue
     here against an unreasoned acceptance of them. Perhaps the best
     summary of our position is the motto of the Sierra Club : "Not
     blind opposition to progress, but opposition to blind progress".

     We would hope that society will receive each technological advance
     by establishing the answers to three questions before the
     technology is widely adopted. The questions are:

        * What will be the side-effects, both physical and social, if
          this development is introduced on a large scale?

        * What social changes will be necessary before this development
          can be implemented properly, and how long will it take to
          achieve them ?

        * If the development is fully successful and removes some
          natural limits to growth, what limit will the growing system
          meet next? Will society prefer its pressures to the ones this
          development is designed to remove?

     We are searching for a model that represents a world system that
     is:

       1. sustainable without sudden and uncontrollable collapse; and

       2. capable of satisfying the basic material requirements of all
          of its people

     The overwhelming growth in world population caused by the positive
     birth-rate loop is a recent phenomenon, a result of mankind's very
     successful reduction of worldwide mortality. The controlling
     negative feedback loop has been weakened, allowing the positive
     loop to operate virtually without constraint. There are only two
     ways to restore the resulting imbalance. Either the birth rate
     must be brought down to equal the new, lower death rate, or the
     death rate must rise again. All of the "natural" constraints to
     population growth operate in the second way -- they raise the
     death. Any society wishing to avoid that result must take
     deliberate action to control the positive feedback loop -- to
     reduce the birth rate.

     But stabilizing population alone is not sufficient to prevent
     overshoot and collapse; a similar run with constant capital and
     rising population shows that stabilizing capital alone is also not
     sufficient. What happens if we bring both positive feedback loops
     under control simultaneously? We can stabilize the capital stock
     in the model by requiring that the investment rate equal the
     depreciation rate, with an additional model link exactly analogous
     to the population-stabilizing one.

     The result of stopping population growth in 1975 and industrial
     capital growth in 1985 with no other changes is that population
     and capital reach constant values at a relatively high level of
     food, industrial output and services per person. Eventually,
     however, resource shortages reduce industrial output and the
     temporily stable state degenerates. However, we can improve the
     model behavior greatly by conbining technological changes with
     value changes that reduce the growth tendencies of the system.

     Then the stable world population is only slightly larger than the
     population today. There is more than twice as much food per person
     as the average value in 1970, and world average lifetime is nearly
     70 years. The average industrial output per capita is well above
     today's level, and services per capita have tripled. Total average
     income per capita (industrial output, food, and services combined)
     is about half the present average US income, equal to the present
     average European income, and three times the present average world
     income. Resources are still being gradually depleted, as they must
     be under any realistic assumption, but the rate of depletion is so
     slow that there is time for technology and industry to adjust to
     changes in resource availability.

     If we relax our most unrealistic assumption -- that we can
     suddenly and absolutely stabilize population and capital,
     replacing them with the following:

       1. The population has access to 100 percent effective birth
          control.

       2. The average desired family size is two children.

       3. The economic system endeavors to maintain average industrial
          output per capita at about the 1975 level. Excess industrial
          capability is employed for producing consumption goods rather
          than increasing the industrial capital investment rate above
          the depreciation rate.

     We do not suppose that any single one of the policies necessary to
     attain system stability in the model can or should be suddenly
     introduced in the world by 1975. A society choosing stability as a
     goal certainly must approach that goal gradually. It is important
     to realize, however, that the longer exponential growth is allowed
     to continue, the fewer possibilities remain for the final stable
     rate.

     Many people will think that the changes we have introduced into
     the model to avoid the growth-and collapse behavior mode are not
     only impossible, but unpleasant, dangerous, even disastrous in
     themselves. Such policies as reducing the birth rate and diverting
     capital from production of material goods, by whatever means they
     might be implemented, seem unnatural and unimaginable, because
     they have not, in most people's experience, been tried, or even
     seriously suggested. Indeed there would be little point even in
     discussing such fundamental changes in the functioning of modern
     society if we felt that the present pattern of unrestricted growth
     were sustainable into the future. All the evidence available to
     us, however, suggests that of the three alternatives --
     unrestricted growth, a self-imposed limitation to growth, or a
     nature-imposed limitation to growth -- only the last two are
     actually possible.

     Achieving a self-imposed limitation to growth would require much
     effort. It would involve learning to do many things in new ways.
     It would tax the ingenuity, the flexibility, and the
     self-discipline of the human race. Bringing a deliberate,
     controlled end to growth is a tremendous challenge, not easiliy
     met. Would the final result be worth the effort? What would
     humanity gain by siuuch a transition, and what would it,lose? Let
     us consider in more detail what a world of nongrowth might be
     like.

     We have after much discussion, decided to call the state of
     constant population and capital, by the term "equilibrium".
     Equilibrium means a state of balance or equality between opposing
     forces. In the dynamic terms of the world model, the opposing
     forces are those causing population and capital stock to increase
     (high desired family size, low birth control effectivness, high
     rate of capital investment) and those causing population and
     capital stock to decrease (lack of food, pollution, high rate of
     depreciation or obsolescence). The word "capital" should be
     understood to mean service, industrial, and agricultural capital
     combined. Thus the most basic definition of the state of global
     equilibrium is that population and capital are essentially stable,
     with the forces tending to increase or decrease them in a
     carefully controlled balance.

     There is much room for variation within that definition. We have
     only specified that the stocks of capital and population remain
     constant, but they might theoretically be constant at a high level
     or a low level -- or one might be high and the other low. The
     longer a society prefers to maintain the state of equilibrium, the
     lower the rates and levels must be.

     By choosing a fairly long time horizon for its existence, and a
     long average lifetime as a desirable goal, we have now arrived at
     a minimum set of requirements for the state of global equilibrium.
     They are:

       1. The capital plant and the population are constant in size.The
          birth rate equals the death rate and the capital investment
          rate equals the depreciation rate.

       2. All input and output rates -- birth, death, investment, and
          depreciation -- are kept to a minimum.

       3. The levels of capital and population and the ratio of the two
          are set in accordance with the values of the society.They may
          be deliberately revised and slowly adjusted as the advance of
          technology creates new options.

     An equilibrium defined in this way does not mean stagnation.
     Within the first two guidelines above, corporations could expand
     or fail, local populations could increase or decrease income could
     become more or less evenly distributed. Technological advance
     would permit the services provided by a constant stock of capital
     to increase slowly. Within the third guideline, any country could
     change its average standard of living by altering the balance
     between its population and its capital. Furthermore, a society
     could adjust to changing internal or external factors by raising
     or lowering the population or capital stocks, or both, slowly and
     in a controlled fashion, with a predetermined goal in mind. The
     three points above define a dynamic equilibrium, which need not
     and probably would not "freeze" the world into the population

     Capital configuration that happens to exist at present time. The
     object in accepting the above three statements is to create
     freedom for society, not to impose a straitjacket.

     What would life be like in such an equilibrium state? Would
     innovation be stifled? Would society be locked into the patterns
     of inequality and injustice we see in the world today? Discussion
     of these questions must proceed on the basis of mental models, for
     there is no formal model of social conditions in the equilibrium
     state. No one can predict what sort of institutions mankind might
     develop under these new conditions. There is, of course, no
     guarantee that the new society would be much better or even much
     different from that which exists today. It seems possible,
     however, that a society released from struggling with the many
     problems caused by growth may have more energy and ingenuity
     available for solving other problems. In fact, we believe, that
     the evolution of a society that favors innovation and
     technological development, a society based on equality and
     justice, is far more likely to evolve in a state of global
     equilibrium than it is in the state of growth we are experiencing
     today

     Population and capital are the only quantities that need be
     constant in the equilibrium state. Any human activity that does
     not require a large flow of irreplaceable resources or produce
     severe environmental degradation might continue to grow
     indefinitely. In particular, those pursuits that many people would
     list as the most desirable and satisfying activities of man --
     education, art, music, religion, basic scientific research,
     athletics, and social interactions -- could flourish.

     All of the activities listed above depend very strongly on two
     factors. First, they depend upon the availability of some surplus
     production after the basixc human needs of fod and shelter have
     been met. Second, they require leisure time. In any equilibrium
     state the relative levels of capital and population could be
     adjusted to assure that human material needs are fulfilled at any
     desired level. Since the amount of material production would be
     essentially fixed, every improvement in production methods could
     result in increased leisure for the population -- leisure that
     could be devoted to any activity that is relatively nonconSuming
     and nonpolluting, such as those listed above

     Technological advance would be both necessary and welcome in the
     equilibrium state. The picture of the equilibrium state we have
     drawn here is idealized, to be sure. It may be impossible to
     achieve in the form desribed here, and it may not be the form most
     people on earth would choose. The only purpose in describing it at
     all is to emphasize that global equilibrium need not mean an end
     to progress or human development. The possibilities within an
     equilibrium state are almost endless.

     An equilibrium state would not be free of pressures, since no
     society can be free of pressure. Equilibrium would require trading
     certain human freedoms, such as producing unlimited numbers of
     children or consuming uncontrolled amounts of resources, for other
     freedoms, such as relief from pollution and crowding and the
     threat of collapse of the world system. is possible that new
     freedoms might also arise -- universal and unlimited education,
     leisure for creativity and inventiveness, and, most important of
     all, the freedom from hunger and poverty enjoyed by such a small
     fraction of the world's people today.

     We can say very little at this point about the practical, day
     by-day steps that might be taken to reach a desirable, sustainable
     state of global equilibrium. Neither the world model nor our own
     thoughts have been developed in sufficient detail to understand
     all the implications of the transition from growth to equilibrium.
     Before any part of the world's society embarks deliberately on
     such a transition, there must be much more discussion, more
     extensive analysis, and many new ideas contributed by many
     different people.

     The equilibrium society will have to weigh the trade-offs
     engendered by a finite earth not only with consideration of
     present human values but also with consideration of future
     generations. long-term goals must be specified and short term
     goals made consistent with them.

     We end on a note of urgency. We have repeatedly emphasized the
     importance of the natural delays in the population-capital system
     of the world. These delays mean, for example, that if Mexico's
     birth rate gradually declined from its present value to an exact
     replacement value by the year 2000, the country's population would
     continue to grow until the year 2060. During that time the
     population would grow from 50 million to 130 million. We cannot
     say with certainty how much longer mankind can postpone initiating
     deliberate control of its growth before it will have lost the
     chance for control. We suspect on the basis of present knowledge
     of the physical constraints of the planet that the growth phase
     cannot continue for another one hundred years. Again, because of
     the delays in the system, if the global society waits until those
     constraints are unmistakably apparent, it will have waited too
     long.

     If there is cause for deep concern, there is also cause for hope.
     Deliberately limiting growth would be difficult, but not
     impossible. The way to proceed is clear, and the necessary steps,
     although they are new ones for human society, are well within
     human capabilities. Man possesses, for a small moment in his
     history, the most powerful combination of knowledge, tools, and
     resources the world has ever known. He has all that is physically
     necessary to create a totally new form of human society -- one
     that would be built to last for generations. The two missing
     ingredients are a realistic, long-term goal that can guide mankind
     to the equilibrium society and the human will to achieve that
     goal. Without such a goal and a commitment to it, short-term
     concerns will generate the exponential growth that drives the
     world system toward the limits of the earth and ultimate collapse.
     With that goal and that commitment, mankind would be ready now to
     begin a controlled, orderly transition from growth to global
     equilibrium.




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