Beyond the Limits

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Beyond the Limits
Beyond the Limits first edition cover.
Author	Donella Meadows Dennis Meadows Jorgen Randers
Publisher	Chelsea Green
Publication date	1992
ISBN	ISBN 0-930031-62-8

Beyond the Limits was a 1992 book continuing the modeling of the consequences of a rapidly growing global population that was started in Limits to Growth. Donella Meadows, Dennis Meadows, and Jorgen Randers are the authors and all were involved in the original Club of Rome study as well. Beyond the Limits (Chelsea Green Publishing Company) addressed many of the criticisms of the Limits of Growth book, but still has caused controversy and mixed reactions.

The following paragraphs are edited excerpted quotes from the editorial reviews for which a link is provided below.

"Society has gone into overshoot, … a state of being beyond limits without knowing it. These limits are more like speed limits than barriers at the end of the road: the rate at which renewable resources can renew themselves, the rate at which we can change from nonrenewable resources to renewable ones, and the rate at which nature can recycle our pollution. … [W]e are overshooting such crucial resources as food and water while overwhelming nature with pollutants like those causing global warming."

"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."

"Current crop yields can only sustain the world's population at subsistence levels, … 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. [However] … the conditions underlying limit overshoots--population growth and resource depletion in a finite world, for example--remain unaddressed in the corridors of power."