Review: Limits to Growth, the 30-Year update

'Limits to Growth' first appeared in the 1972, when students of Jay W. Forrester (the founder of system dynamics) unleashed a fundamentally important discussion on whether the planet could continue to sustain growing populations and ever growing levels of consumption and industrialisation. Unfortunately, this discussion has rarely been honest, serious or rational. All that most economists seem to know about the book is that its predictions have been proven wrong, mostly without being able to reproduce what exactly were those predictions.

The truth is that the authors of 'Limits to Growth' did not make any predictions at all. They describe what they call the fundamental problems of overshoot that result from our population-economy system's sustained growth and its reliance and impact on the world's ecology. To get some idea of what might happen in the 21st century, they set up different computer models that extrapolate different paths that humankind might take. And in stead of refuting the authors' intuitions, the experience of the 30 years after writing the first edition verified their concerns. Much more alarming information has become known on diverse issues as climate change, resource depletion, overfishing, top soil degradation, desertification, the limits and changes of the water cycle, and many more issues that are critical in ecology, economics, and society.

However careful the 'Limits to Growth' authors were with making exact predictions of the future, their view of the human predicament is quite clearly summarised in this paragraph:
"To reach sustainability, humanity must increase the consumption levels of the world's poor, while at the same time reducing humanity's total ecological footprint. There must be technological advance, and personal change, and longer planning horizons. There must be greater respect, caring, and sharing across political boundaries. This will take decades to achieve even under the best of circumstances. No modern political party has garnered broad support for such a program, certainly not among the rich and powerful, who could make room for growth among the poor by reducing their own footprints. Meanwhile, the global footprint grows larger day by day."

One of the major virtues of this book is that it views the economy as embedded in the world ecology. From the theoretical point of view of the 'Limits to Growth' authors one does not think in dichotomies like economy versus ecology, rather we see the two intimately related. The economy is ultimately restrained by the sources and sinks of our planet. If it outgrows the limits of the sources of energy and materials, or clogs natural sinks that process pollution, the result is problems of overshoot. There is much more to ecological concerns than just global warming and the disappearance of animal species, though they are part of the puzzle. The fundamental question of ecology posed in this book is whether humanity will clash disastrously with the natural boundaries it has already crossed, or whether it learns to minimise the damage and start living in accordance with the carrying capacity of our planet. 'Limits to Growth, The 30-year Update' is without question a book you simply have to know of if you want to be aware of the fundamental predicaments that humanity confronts in these times.

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