The Expected WorldCLOSING: 2072
WRITTEN: 1972
If the present growth trends in world population, industrialization, pollution, food production, and resource depletion continue unchanged, the limits to growth on this planet will be reached sometime within the next one hundred years. The most probable result will be a rather sudden and uncontrollable decline in both population and industrial capacity.
Written: 1972
Addressed to: by 2072
Source: The Limits to Growth: A Report for the Club of Rome's Project on the Predicament of Mankind (New York: Universe Books
Author: Donella H. Meadows
Category: Environment & Resources
Annotation
Meadows was the lead author and primary writer of the most controversial environmental forecast of the twentieth century. The report was savaged by economists — particularly Julian Simon and William Nordhaus — as neo-Malthusian doom-mongering. But subsequent analyses, notably Graham Turner's 2008 and 2014 comparisons of actual data against the original scenarios, found that the 'standard run' (business as usual) tracked real-world data with disturbing accuracy through its first forty years.
What Actually Happened
Turner (2008, 2014) at the University of Melbourne found actual global data for 1970–2010 closely matched the 'standard run' scenario. The report's rehabilitation has been gradual but substantial.