“The Limits to Growth”: When the Club of Rome first warned

50 years ago the Club of Rome published the report “The Limits to Growth”. The first comprehensive, scientifically based report on the future of the earth warned of a world designed only for growth.

On March 2, 1972, the Club of Rome published a report entitled “The Limits to Growth”. It was based on the results of a new type of research project: a 17-person research team led by economist Dennis Meadows in the USA at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) carried out complex computer simulations. Funded by the Volkswagen Foundation with $800,000, they examined how five trends would influence each other over time: industrialization, population growth, malnutrition, non-renewable resources and environmental degradation.

Global catastrophe by 2100 at the latest

The aim of this report was not so much to give forecasts for the future. Rather, the researchers wanted to understand which dynamics could arise from exponential growth and the interactions between the individual trends. To do this, they developed ten scenarios, each based on slightly different assumptions. The projections made it very clear that “business as usual” would not be possible without massive crises.

According to the study, if mankind continued to live unchanged as before, a sharp increase in the world population would have to be expected. The raw material reserves would run out in a few decades, or their extraction could become so expensive that it is no longer worth mining. The industry, which has been growing strongly for a long time, would then collapse, environmental pollution would further accelerate the collapse. By 2100 at the latest, a catastrophe for world society would be inevitable.

According to the report “The Limits to Growth”, such a development cannot be stopped by technical progress. Technological advances could increase the time to collapse; but it would only shift the limits of growth a little and not stop it. Technical innovation, concluded the first report to the Club of Rome, must be combined with social and political measures in order to achieve ecological and social balance worldwide.

“Factor human” not considered enough?

Although Meadows and his team worked transparently, disclosed the limitations of their projections and emphasized the incompleteness of their calculations, “The Limits to Growth” also met with massive criticism. Human behavior, as an important factor in such a model, was not sufficiently taken into account. The basic orientation of the study at that time has nevertheless been scientifically confirmed several times since 2008, most recently in 2020.

As a result, the first report to the Club of Rome from 1972 was updated and updated twice: in 1992 and 2012. The study was the prelude to further scientific debates on the consequences of growth within the planetary boundaries. Christian Berg from the German Club of Rome analyzes in his book “Is Sustainability Utopian?”, published in 2020. many hurdles for sustainable action such as false market incentives, political failure, moral deficits or system inertia. He shows how these could be overcome by different ways of thinking and behaving. Others take up individual aspects of the report from that time and analyze specific problems such as the precarious situation of the oceans and forests.

Starting point for many new ideas

In economics and sociology, a preoccupation with the possibilities and conditions of a post-growth society has become established. Based on the thoughts of the report from 50 years ago, the question has been whether growth is still allowed at all, whether economic shrinkage processes can not be compatible with a good life. And if there is growth: what is allowed to grow and what is not?

Fossil energies such as coal power are considered to be obsolete, while renewable energies and green hydrogen are promising. If there can be growth at all without a foreseeable catastrophe, then only growth within clear, sustainable limits, that much seems certain.

Report enhanced development of society

Since the late 1960s, resentment and skepticism about unchecked economic growth at the expense of the environment and human livelihoods had increased. The report to the Club of Rome came at exactly the right time, scientifically substantiated the displeasure in society and strengthened the desire to change something that persists to this day.

It was no coincidence that organizations such as Greenpeace and the BUND for the Environment and Nature Conservation emerged in the 1970s, and also, from 1972, the process within the United Nations that addressed international issues of species and climate protection. This led to the World Commission on Environment and Development (Brundtland Report) in 1983, later to the UN Millennium Development Goals and the Paris Climate Agreement.

Even today, 50 years and many environmental conferences later, the recommendation from that time sounds very topical: In order to avoid a catastrophe, mankind must succeed in establishing an ecological and economic balance and instead of sticking to the principle of “business as usual”, the transformation towards create a more sustainable economic order. Meadows and his team were already certain 50 years ago: the sooner mankind understood this and acted, the more likely it would be to prevent a collapse.