The Limits to Growth

The Limits to Growth (LTG) is a 1972 report that discussed the possibility of exponential economic and population growth with finite supply of resources, studied by computer simulation. The study used the World3 computer model to simulate the consequence of interactions between the earth and human systems. The model was based on the work of Jay Forrester of MIT, as described in his book World Dynamics. Commissioned by the Club of Rome, the findings of the study were first presented at international gatherings in Moscow and Rio de Janeiro in the summer of 1971. The report's authors are Donella H. Meadows, Dennis L. Meadows, Jørgen Randers, and William W. Behrens III, representing a team of 17 researchers. The report concludes that, without substantial changes in resource consumption, "the most probable result will be a rather sudden and uncontrollable decline in both population and industrial capacity". Although its methods and premises were heavily challenged on its publication, subsequent work to validate its forecasts continue to confirm that insufficient changes have been made since 1972 to significantly alter their nature. Since its publication, some 30 million copies of the book in 30 languages have been purchased. It continues to generate debate and has been the subject of several subsequent publications. Beyond the Limits and The Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update were published in 1992 and 2004 respectively, in 2012, a 40-year forecast from Jørgen Randers, one of the book's original authors, was published as 2052: A Global Forecast for the Next Forty Years, and in 2022 two of the original Limits to Growth authors, Dennis Meadows and Jørgen Randers, joined 19 other contributors to produce Limits and Beyond. In commissioning the MIT team to undertake the project that resulted in LTG, the Club of Rome had three objectives: Gain insights into the limits of our world system and the constraints it puts on human numbers and activity. Identify and study the dominant elements, and their interactions, that influence the long-term behavior of world systems.