The Limits to Growth: A Report for the Club of Rome's Project on the Predicament of Mankind (1974)

  

Book description

The message of this book is urgent and sobering: The earth’s interlocking resources- the global system of nature in which we all live- probably cannot support present rates of economic and population growth much beyond the year 2100, if that long, even with advanced technology. In the summer of 1970, an international team of researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology began a study of the implications of continued worldwide growth. They examined the five basic facts that determine and, in their interactions, ultimately limit growth on this planet- population increase, agricultural production, nonrenewable resource depletion, industrial output, and pollution generation. The MIT team fed data on these five factors into a global computer model and then tested the behavior of the model under several sets of assumptions to determine alternative patters for mankind’s future. THE LIMITS TO GROWTH is the non-technical report of their findings. The book contains a message of hope, as well: Man can create a society in which he can live indefinitely on earth if he imposes limits on himself and his productions of material goods to achieve a state of global equilibrium with population and production in carefully selected balance. “This book raises life-and-death questions that confront mankind as it strives for achievement of a prosperous and equitable society.” 

 

---Vernon E. Jordan, JR., executive director, National Urban League

 

 

Chapters 

 

- Introduction  

-  I The Nature of Exponential Growth

-  II The Limits of Exponential Growth  

-  III Growth in the World System  

-  IV Technology and the Limits to Growth page  

-  V The State of Global Equilibrium