The Limits to Growth
Topic: Natural Resources: Classification, Planning and Sustainable Use · NCERT: Class 12, Ch 6 "Planning and Sustainable Development in Indian Context"
Meaning
The Limits to Growth is a 1972 report by Donella Meadows and others for the Club of Rome, a think tank founded in 1968. It used computer models to study population, industry and resource use. It warned that if all three kept growing unchecked, the Earth would hit its limits within a century, and food, resources and the environment would fail. The report made resource conservation a world issue and paved the way for sustainable development thinking.
Example
Critics point to India's Green Revolution. From the 1960s, high-yielding varieties of wheat and paddy in Punjab and Haryana raised food output sharply, so the famine forecasts proved wrong. But over-pumping groundwater in Punjab now shows that limits are real.
Don't confuse with
- The Population Bomb (1968): a book by one author, Paul Ehrlich, that focused mainly on population growth and famine. The Limits to Growth was a team's computer study of population, industry, pollution and resources together.