The Limits to Growth

Commissioned by the Club of Rome, this slim report used the World3 computer model to ask a simple question: what happens when exponential growth in population, industry, and resource use meets a finite planet? The scenarios showed that without deliberate change, growth tends to overshoot limits and collapse — not because any single resource runs out, but because of delays in the feedback loops that would otherwise signal restraint.

The book sold millions of copies, was attacked for decades as doomsaying, and had its scenarios routinely misread as failed predictions — Meadows insisted the models were tools for understanding, not prophecy. That argument over what a model is for, and how societies should act on uncertain long-range projections, is the same argument now running through AI forecasting and safety.