The Limits to Growth

In 1972, three scientists from MIT created a computer model that analyzed global resource consumption and production. Their results shocked the world and created stirring conversation about global 'overshoot, ' or resource use beyond the carrying capacity of the planet. Now, preeminent environmental scientists Donnella Meadows, Jorgen Randers, and Dennis Meadows have teamed up again to update and expand their original findings in "The Limits to Growth: The 30 Year Global Update,"Meadows, Randers, and Meadows are international environmental leaders recognized for their groundbreaking research into early signs of wear on the planet. Citing climate change as the most tangible example of our current overshoot, the scientists now provide us with an updated scenario and a plan to reduce our needs to meet the carrying capacity of the planet.Over the past three decades, population growth and global warming have forged on with a striking semblance to the scenarios laid out by the World3 computer model in the original "Limits to Growth," While Meadows, Randers, and Meadows do not make a practice of predicting future environmental degradation, they offer an analysis of present and future trends in resource use, and assess a variety of possible outcomes.In many ways, the message contained in "Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update" is a warning. Overshoot cannot be sustained without collapse. But, as the authors are careful to point out, there is reason to believe that humanity can still reverse some of its damage to Earth if it takes appropriate measures to reduce inefficiency and waste.Written in refreshingly accessible prose, "Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update" is a long anticipated revival ofsome of the original voices in the growing chorus of sustainability. "Limits to Growth: The 30 Year Update" is a work of stunning intelligence that will expose for humanity the hazy but critical line between human growth and human development.

From The Publisher:

Just over 30 years ago a path-breaking book was published called The Limits to Growth. It posited the then controversial idea that unlimited growth on a finite planet would inevitably lead to ecological collapse. The book became a surprise international best-seller and was translated into more than a dozen languages. In 1992 Chelsea Green published Beyond the Limits bringing the data and the systems analysis up to date. Now Limits to Growth: The 30 year Update takes the analysis into the first decade of the 21st century to show that while the situation remains precarious, there is still time to bring the Earth back from the brink of ecological collapse.