Beyond the Limits: Confronting Global Collapse, Envisioning a Sustainable Future

Beyond the Limits: Confronting Global Collapse, Envisioning a Sustainable Future

Discusses how to prevent the global economic collapse that is possible if current trends don't change A sequel to the Club of Rome's Limits to Growth (1972. o.p.), Beyond the Limits uses a sophisticated computer modeling program to project into the next century the consequences of current rates of resource consumption and population growth. A number of modified scenarios are then illustrated, showing the impact on the global environment of alternative patterns of allocation and consumption. While its graphs and tables may intimidate some, Beyond the Limits is clearly written, nonpolemical, and rewards the patient reader. Particularly interesting is the discussion of the crisis with the ozone layer as exemplary of the ability of the world's governments to respond to environmental crises. However, it is the fundamental principles underlying this book that set it apart. Beyond the Limits recognizes that the future doesn't lie in tinkering with resource use or simply squelching population growth in developing countries. A sustainable future will require profound social and psychological readjustments in the developed and developing world. Highly recommended. - Mary Jane Ballou, Ford Fdn. Lib., New York Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. An impressive sequel to the controversial and influential Limits to Growth (1972) prepared by three of the authors of that environmental clarion call and based on worldwide data compiled during the past 20 years. Donella H. Meadows (Environmental Studies/Dartmouth), Dennis L. Meadows (Management Studies/Univ. of New Hampshire), and Randers (Policy Analysis/Norwegian School of Management) use a vast array of statistics, projections, and charts to assert that global limits have already been exceeded in certain growth areas. Current crop yields can only sustain the world's population at subsistence levels, they point out, while nonrenewable energy resources and fresh water supplies are dwindling, and greenhouse gases and other pollutants increase. But while the prognosis is disaster within decades if nothing is done, there are encouraging signs. Technology offers greater efficiency in energy consumption and pollution control, international response to the ozone crisis has been relatively swift, and recycling efforts are gaining headway. The authors warn, however, that the conditions underlying limit ``overshoots''--population growth and resource depletion in a finite world, for example--remain unaddressed in the corridors of power. Modifying the computer-modeling system employed in their first work, the authors graphically depict plausible futures ranging from utter collapse to manageable growth, each depending on the controls used, and they urgently propose a series of general measures that would commence the long-overdue transition to a sustainable global society. An invaluable update that leaves no doubt that the time to effect meaningful change has grown extremely short, but that nevertheless shuns gloom and doom to be boldly pragmatic about the future. -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. Used Book in Good Condition