Limits to Growth is a study about the future of our planet. On behalf of the Club of Rome, Donnella Meadows, Dennis Meadows, Jorgen Randers and their team worked on systems analysis at Jay W. Forrester’s institute at MIT. They created a computing model which took into account the relations between various global developments and produced computer simulations for alternative scenarios. Part of the modelling were different amounts of possibly available resources, different levels of agricultural productivity, birth control or environmental protection. 12 million copies were distributed in 37 languages.
Most scenarios resulted in an ongoing growth of population and of the economy until to a turning point around 2030. Only drastic measures for environmental protection proved to be suitable to change this systems behaviour, and only under these circumstances, scenarios could be calculated in which both world population and wealth could remain at a constant level. However, so far the necessary political measures were not taken.
Peak Oil
"We must leave oil before it leaves us"
Fatih Birol, Chief Economist EIA, 2008
Peak Oil represents the point in time when roughly half of the ultimate available oil has already been used.
Many scientists and experts belie... [...] read moreAre there Limits to Growth?
Webcast of Ian Johnson's speech "Limits to Growth - A Re-assessment" in the Seminar Series 2011 - "Is the Planet Full?" at the Oxford Martin School of the University of Oxford now available. [...] read moreModel the Future
What was the message of Limits to Growth
A safe operating space for humanity
Cassandra's curse: how "The Limits to Growth" was demonized
by Ugo Bardi, Professor of Chemistry at the Department of Chemistry of the University of Firenze, Italy.
An account on how the criticism on Limits to Growth developed. [...] read moreRevisiting The Limits to Growth: Could The Club of Rome have been correct after all?
In 2000, Matthew R. Simmons (founder of Simmons & Company International, a private investment bank that specializes in energy research, trading, and capital structuring) published a lengthy article about Limits to Growth, title "Revisting the Limits to Growth: Could the Club of Rome have been correct after all?" [...] read moreThe Limits to Growth Revisited
In "The Limits to Growth Revisited", Ugo Bardi examines both the science and the polemics surrounding this work, and in particular the reactions of economists that marginalized its methods and conclusions for more than 30 years. [...] read more
