Limits to Growth

Limits to Growth is a phrase coined by Donella Meadows and collegues in their 1972 book, The Limits to Growth: A Report for the Club of Rome's Project on the Predicament of Mankind. The research, commissioned by the Club of Rome, models the world system to examine the consequences of economic growth and development when that growth does not account for the scarcity of the Earth's resources and its capacity to absorb wastes. The model, World3, was designed to examine the impact of accelerating industrialization, rapid population growth, food production, depletion of nonrenewable resources, and environmental degradation. The report concludes that humans will inevitably overshoot the Earth's ability to support the total human population, or carrying capacity, if growth continues unsustainably. The result would be ...