The Limits to Growth: A Report for the Club of Rome's Project on the Predicament of Mankind (Paperback)

~ (Author), Dennis Meadows (Editor)

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Universe Pub; 2nd edition (June 1972)
• ISBN-10: 087663918X
• ISBN-13: 978-0876639184
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,494,689 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Limits to Growth, June 6, 2001

By	Smitu Kothari "smitu" (Hightstown, NJ United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Limits to Growth; A Report for the Club of Rome's Project on the Predicament of Mankind (Hardcover)

"Limits to Growth," was the pathbreaking report to the Club of Rome. It caused outrage worldwide. Released just before the first oil crisis in 1973, the Report drew on the growing awareness of environmental impacts of human activity and predicted dire consequences if the then present rate and scale of natural resource consumption was not tempered.

The Report was also pathbreaking because it used a sophisticated simulation model that showed that intervention in one part of the ecological system has unexpected impacts on other pasrts of that system.

The Report should be required reading for all those interested in the human footprint. Justifiably, it generated heated controversy, with many labeling the Club of Rome as neo-Malthusian doomsayers. The fact that the analysis of the Report is still relevant today is an indication of its historic significance.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fundamental Reference from 1970's When Government Betrayal of the Public Trust Began, October 11, 2008

By	Robert D. Steele (Oakton, VA United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)

This review is from: The Limits to Growth (Paperback)

Although there are those who remain in denial about the foresight and wisdom of this book, today we are left in no doubt: there *are* limits to growth, and those who refuse to accept such realities accelerate the demise of our planet while also ignoring the depradations upon the public of corporations, religions, crime families and networks, and the "states" whose officials they all bribe and subvert.

The good news is that an entire literature has developed from this one little book, and there is a growing public awareness--as well as growing financial and corporate awareness--of the urgency of harmonizing our human behavior with the larger Earth system of which we are a part.

On the dark side:
Pandora's Poison: Chlorine, Health, and a New Environmental Strategy
The Blue Death: Disease, Disaster, and the Water We Drink
High Tech Trash: Digital Devices, Hidden Toxics, and Human Health
High Noon 20 Global Problems, 20 Years to Solve Them

A handful of current references that can trace their heritage back to this book, which is still worth reading today:
Ecological Economics: Principles And Applications
Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature
Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution
Green to Gold: How Smart Companies Use Environmental Strategy to Innovate, Create Value, and Build Competitive Advantage
Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things

4 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars No one likes to hear hard facts....., March 15, 2004

By	Michael Casteel (New London, CT USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Limits to Growth (Paperback)

Read this book with an unbiased mind and you will sleep much less soundly.....The rabid first reviewer of this book needs to read it again and then examine the world as it exists today. The conclusions of this seminal work are being born out in front of our very eyes. Prediction: Violent conflict over shrinking resources...ever hear of the Middle East and Oil? Prediction: New diseases create modern epidemics as nature fights back...uh, AIDs, SARS, the rise of anti-biotic resistant bacteria? Prediction: The rapid growth of industrialism and consumerism in Third World countries where the vast majority of the world's population lives will use up this planet's resources at a geometrically increasing pace. The US uses 45% of the world's energy. What happens when one billion Chinese all have a car?
The most frightening aspect of this book is the authors' willingness to include their critics wildest assumptions in their mathematical models. The point the authors are making is indisputable; it is not a matter of IF we are going to use up this planet's resources, it a matter of when.