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Limits
to Growth - The 30 Year Update
Revised
Edition by Donella H. Meadows, Jorgen Randers and
Dennis L. Meadows
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Order
your copy from Earthscan
In 1972,
The Limits to Growth shocked the world and forever
changed the global agenda by demonstrating that unchecked
growth on our finite planet was leading planet earth
towards ecological 'overshoot' and pending disaster.
Employing computer modelling and hard data the book
went on to sell 13 million of copies and ignited a
firestorm of controversy that burns hotter than ever
in our days of soaring oil prices, wars for resources
and human-induced climate change. This substantially
revised, expanded and updated edition follows on from
The Limits to Growth and its sequel Beyond the Limits,
which raised the alarm that we have already over-shot
the planet's carrying capacity.
Marshalling
a vast array of new data, more powerful computer modelling
and incorporating the latest thinking on sustainability,
ecological footprinting and limits, this new book
presents future overshoot scenarios and makes an even
more urgent case for a rapid readjustment of the global
economy toward a sustainable path. This is compelling,
essential and indeed necessary reading for all concerned
with our common future.
So, why
is the update to a 30-year old study -- the famous
(or to some people "infamous") Club of Rome Report
from 1972, which alerted the world to the dangers
of unrestricted, exponential growth in humanity's
use of resources and production of waste -- important
today?
Alan AtKisson,
author of 'Believing Cassandra' points out that the
study has proved to be remarkably accurate.
"If more decision-makers had heeded its message
then, we would not be facing many of the problems
we face today, at least not at the same level of
magnitude. Limits to Growth foresaw many of today's
dangers, ranging from conflict over resources, to
climate change, to the dangerous and widening gap
between the world's poorest and the world's richest
people. When Limits was first published, humanity
was still operating within the ecological limits
of the earth's systems. We had a chance to avoid
"overshoot," the condition of consuming and emitting
more than the earth can sustain in the long term.
The book sold millions of copies, but was successfully
attacked (on false premises) by leading economists
of the day. By the time Beyond the Limits, the 20-year
update, was published in 1992, humanity had already
exceeded many critical ecological limits, including
fishing, the emission of CO2, the emission of CFCs
and other ozone-destroyers, habitat destruction,
and very probably agricultural productivity limits
as well. Today, those tentative and controversial
conclusions are not controversial at all; they are
the problem set faced by governments, corporations,
and citizens alike. These problems, and many more
besides, are the business of sustainable development,
at all levels. I urge you to read this book, even
if you think you are familiar with it. This is a
much revised and improved book. The Preface alone,
which lucidly summarizes the history of Limits and
our current global situation, will help you understand
global issues in new ways, and make clear the magnitude
of the sustainability challenge."
Other leaders
in sustainability say of the book that;
'Not
everything bears repetition, but truth does –
especially when that truth is both denied by entrenched
interests and verified by new information'
HERMAN
E DALY, former World Bank senior economist
and professor, University of Maryland
'It
is time for the world to re-read Limits to Growth!
The message of 1972 is more real and relevant in
2004, and we wasted 30 valuable years of action
by misreading the message of the first book.'
MATTHEW
R SIMMONS, founder, Simmons & Company
International, the world’s largest energy
investment banking firm
'If
you only read one book … make this it!'
L
HUNTER LOVINS, co-author of Natural Capitalism
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