THE LIMITS TO GROWTH
Limits to Growth is a study about the future of our planet. On behalf of the Club of Rome, Donnella Meadows, Dennis Meadows, Jorgen Randers and their team worked on systems analysis at Jay W. Forrester's institute at MIT. They created a computing model which took into account the relations between various global developments and produced computer simulations for alternative scenarios. Part of the modelling were different amounts of possibly available resources, different levels of agricultural productivity, birth control or environmental protection.

12 million copies were distributed in 37 languages.

Most scenarios resulted in an ongoing growth of population and of the economy until to a turning point around 2030. Only drastic measures for environmental protection proved to be suitable to change this systems behaviour, and only under these circumstances, scenarios could be calculated in which both world population and wealth could remain at a constant level. However, so far the necessary political measures were not taken.  

 

First edition
 

Limits to Growth              Grenzen des Wachstums


Limits to Growth, the first report to the Club of Rome, stimulated a world-wide controversial discussion.  

 

Das 20-Jahre Update
 

Beyond the Limits              Die neuen Grenzen des Wachstums
 

 

Das 30-Jahre Update
 

Limits to Growth 30 Year Update              Grenzen des Wachstums 30-jahre update

a summary is available for download.

In order to find information about the update in various languages, please follow this link.