Knowra Limits to Growth Limits to Growth Limits to Growth is a 1972 report that used computer models to examine how continued growth in population, industrialization, pollution, food production, and resource use could interact with finite planetary resources.
World3 : A system-dynamics computer model developed to study interactions among global population, industry, agriculture, resources, and pollution. This model generated the report’s scenarios and traced their feedback loops.
Club of Rome : An international organization founded in 1968 to examine global problems and long-term human prospects. The organization commissioned the study that became Limits to Growth.
Business as Usual scenario : A World3 scenario in which prevailing growth trends continue without major changes in policy or technology. It illustrates the report’s central warning about continued growth under existing trends.
Malthusianism : A tradition of thought, originating with Thomas Malthus, that population growth can outstrip food supply and other resources. The report’s concern about growth and finite resources echoes this older debate.
System dynamics : A method for modeling how stocks, flows, feedback, and delays shape the behavior of complex systems. It supplied the modeling framework behind the report’s global feedback structure.
Jay Forrester : An American engineer who pioneered system dynamics and developed early models of urban and industrial systems. His modeling approach and early global model shaped the project’s method.
World3 standard run : The World3 simulation using its central assumptions about population, capital, resources, and pollution. This commonly discussed run shows industrial and food production eventually declining after overshoot.
Cornucopianism : The belief that human ingenuity, markets, and substitution can overcome resource scarcity and environmental constraints. It challenges the report’s emphasis on biophysical limits and possible overshoot.
Exponential growth : Growth in which a quantity increases at a rate proportional to its current size. The report examined how sustained compounding growth strains finite resources.
Donella Meadows : An American environmental scientist and systems analyst who led the team that wrote Limits to Growth. She was the report’s lead author and a central interpreter of its model.
Show all 23