A Study Ahead of Its Time.
In 1970, scientist Dennis Meadows and an international team of researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology began a groundbreaking study — commissioned by the Club of Rome and financed by the Volkswagen Foundation — that already foresaw many of the problems we face today, including climate change, overpopulation, and resource depletion. The results of this extensive research were published in The Limits to Growth, a book that has since been translated into more than 30 languages and sold over 30 million copies worldwide.
“The message of this book still holds today: The earth’s interlocking resources – the global system of nature in which we all live – probably cannot support present rates of economic and population growth much beyond the year 2100, if that long, even with advanced technology” (Club Of Rome, 2020).
Yet alongside these warnings, the book also offers a message of hope: “Man can create a society in which he can live indefinitely on earth if he imposes limits on himself and his production of material goods to achieve a state of global equilibrium with population and production in carefully selected balance” (ibid).
According to Meadows and his colleagues, addressing the global crisis requires more than technological innovation — it depends on cultural and social change, and on designing resilient systems capable of maintaining a sustainable balance between humanity and the planet.
