“The Limits to Growth” Revisited
Ten years have gone by since a great debate was unleashed, in March 1972, by a small book of less than 200 pages, The Limits to Growth. The book, which was issued under the auspices of an organization that called itself the "Club of Rome," caused a tremendous stir and made some dire predictions. The world was in danger of running out of resources. Unless course was changed drastically within the decade of the 1970s, the world would be launched on a path that could only end in collapse, some time during the second half of the 21st century if not earlier. At existing growth rates of population and resource use, catastrophe threatened through exhaustion of raw materials, and if not of raw materials, then of food, and if not of food, then of the entire environment through pollution. Ten years have gone by. How do these doomsday predictions look today?