The Limits to Growth (1972) was commissioned by the Club of Rome and written by a research team led by Donella Meadows, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). It was not the first work to grapple with the idea that physical limits apply to the human economic and social system, but it drew extensive attention and remains the best-selling environmental book of all time. The book summarized outcomes of modeling work that explored the complex interactions between human civilization and the physical world in which it is inextricably embedded. The MIT team concluded that significant systemic problems were emerging from accelerating industrialization, population growth, under-nutrition, the depletion of non-renewable resources and environmental contamination and decline.
History
Publication title
Encyclopedia of Environmental Health
Editors
J Nriagu
Pagination
533-543
ISBN
9780444639516
Department/School
School of Social Sciences
Publisher
Elsevier
Place of publication
Amsterdam
Extent
12
Repository Status
Restricted
Socio-economic Objectives
Energy storage, distribution and supply not elsewhere classified; Other environmental management not elsewhere classified; Other health not elsewhere classified