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Meadows, D. (et.al.) (1972) The limits to growth
When this book hit the Dutch market in 1972 (was there a market at that time?), ialmost immediately bought and read it.Fifteen years old, the only reason i could afford it, was because the publisher pricedit at 2,50 Dutch guilders (about a US dollar). This, because it was the fifth hundredpublication in the Aula series of Het Spectrum (the publisher). No wonder half of theworld sales came from the Netherlands. And again, fifteen years old, the reason i bought it was because i had read about it inthe woman’s magazine Margriet. It did some articles on environmental pollution andthe world going down the drain. My motives being a mixture of interest in thepossibilities of computer modeling and worry about the environment (mainly the firstthough, although my über-ich sticks to the second).Now I reread it. So, is this a readable book? It is actually. It is well written and wellcomposed; rhetoric means well used to make sure that its message hits the fan.
Reporting on world dynamics
Exponential growth, feed-back loops and time delays
It begins by explaining the nature of exponential growth. The story of the water lilyin a pond that doubles itself every day is central to this. After some time the pond isfilled half by the water lily, how long will it be before it covers the whole of the pond?For variables like the world-population and industrial production, it is important tosee that exponential growth is caused by positive feedback loops in the system.Population growth causes more population growth and industrial growth likewise.They also positively influence each other. Another important aspect is time delay in the system. E.g. DDT put in theenvironment yesterday, will only show up in high levels in our food tomorrow, since ithas to travel along the whole of the food chain first.
Uncontrolled growth breeds disaster
Dennis Meadows and his team construct a ‘dynamic systems’ world model that takesfive main variables as its focus: production, population, food, non renewable resourcesand pollution. In fact production is specified in industrial, services and agriculturalproduction and available land for agriculture is an important variable too. As input for the model they use real-life data and reasonably optimistic estimates tocreate a ‘standard run’ to see what happens to the variables for the period 1900 – 2100 under the assumption that no changes in policy are made.The result is shown in diagram 35 of the book. See next page.
 
2 As non renewableresources are consumed,more investments areneeded to exploit them. Soless can be invested infuture growth. At somepoint less can be investedthan is needed because of deprecation. The systemthen collapses.Now this needs someimagination: whenindustrial investments canno longer be supported, allthat’s dependent on it willquickly melt into thin air. After the worst wars arefought, we will be living inwooden shacks again (if there is wood still).
Technology is not the answer
 After this rather dramatic set-up there follows a section on possible ‘technological’solutions for this outcome, using the model for ‘what-if’ scenario’s. What if resourcesare four times as big as the most optimistic predictions, industry gets cleaner andmachines more durable, recycling is used? What if there’s a dramatic increase in theproductivity of agriculture?The model runs show that this all leads to basically the same diagrams as in figure35; it’s the structure of the feed-back loops in the system that is more important thanexact figure’s about available resources etc.
So we have to change are values and goals, and stop growing 
Now it is time for the
 grand finale
. If in the end technology cannot help us, we haveto change ourselves, our values and goals. We have to be prepared to set controls onindustrial- and population growth. In fact the growth has to be zero. Putting this inthe model shows that it is (only) then that the world system will be in a sustainablesituation. The diagram shows ‘flatliners’ for most variables, whereas the resourcesare only gradually diminishing.
 And don’t wait too long please
So, only when industrial- and population growth will be zero, disasters like figure 35won’t happen in the 21st century. But not only that, a further analysis shows thatwhen the worlds waits too long to take these measures, the disasters will take placeanyway. In fact, taking them in the year 2000 will already be too late!
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One of the main reasons this will happen is because of time delays; the populationwill keep growing for about thirty years after installment of the measures. Evenhaving perfect birth control where no one is allowed to have more than twochildren. In this case, in the end there will be a death for every birth and thepopulation will be stabilized. In the period before that a lot of children get bornthat will live longer. See also theDemographic Transition Model
 
, which is notspecifically about sudden birth control measures however.
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