‘Anyone who believes that exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist’. Picture: Bloomberg
Fifty years ago this month, a book was published that caused a global firestorm of controversy. Entitled Limits to Growth, it warned that the century from 1972 onwards would, on current growth trends, involve the world reaching and then breaching key boundaries. Those included food production, natural resources, pollution and population.
“The most probable result will be a rather sudden and uncontrollable decline in both population and industrial capacity,” the authors warned in a phrase that...