The Limits to Growth

The Limits to Growth

The Limits to Growth first edition cover.
Author	Donella H. Meadows Dennis L. Meadows Jørgen Randers William W. Behrens III
Language	English
Published	1972 Universe Books
Pages	205
ISBN
OCLC	307838
Followed by	The First Global Revolution
digital: Digitized 1972 edition

The Limits to Growth is a 1972 book about the computer simulation of exponential economic and population growth with finite resource supplies. Funded by the Volkswagen Foundation and commissioned by the Club of Rome, it was first presented at the St. Gallen Symposium. Its authors were Donella H. Meadows, Dennis L. Meadows, Jørgen Randers, and William W. Behrens III. The book used the World3 model to simulate the consequence of interactions between the Earth's and human systems.

The original version presented a model based on five variables: world population, industrialisation, pollution, food production and resources depletion. These variables are considered to grow exponentially, while the ability of technology to increase resources availability is only linear. The authors intended to explore the possibility of a sustainable feedback pattern that would be achieved by altering growth trends among the five variables under three scenarios. They noted that their projections for the values of the variables in each scenario were predictions "only in the most limited sense of the word," and were only indications of the system's behavioral tendencies. Two of the scenarios saw "overshoot and collapse" of the global system by the mid to latter part of the 21st century, while a third scenario resulted in a "stabilized world."

The book continues to generate fervent debate and has been the subject of several subsequent publications. The most recent updated version was published on June 1, 2004 by Chelsea Green Publishing Company and Earthscan under the name Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update. Donella H. Meadows, Jørgen Randers, and Dennis Meadows have updated and expanded the original version.