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Contents:

1 - Overshoot; 2 - The driving force: exponential growth; 3 - The limits: sources and sinks; 4 - World3: the dynamics of growth in a finite world; 5 - Back from beyond the limits: the ozone story; 6 - Technology, markets and overshoot; 7 - Transitions to a sustainable system; 8 - Tools for the transition to sustainability.

Review:

There can be few students of environmental history who have not met Limits to Growth, the seminal text of the early 1970s which seemed to spell out a disastrous future for humankind based on the models presented. Although the movement towards environmental awareness could rightly be put almost 10 years prior to this, the book (and its less remembered 'companion' Blueprint for Survival) were central in focussing the general public's mind on the future of the environment. In 1992 an update was published: this is the third in the series.

The aim of this book is to provide an update as the title suggests. In the time since 1972 there has been an astounding growth in knowledge and research and so its reasonable to ask how the book stacks up against modern day work. It's obvious from the introduction that much of the original philosophy is still being used. In fairness, much of this was mis-reported at the time and so the central thesis, that one future worldview contains the overuse of resources, is still reasonable. Chapter one puts forward the view that we've already gone over the limits and, like the over-stretched elastic band, rebound is sure to follow. This is due to growth in resource demand, a move beyond the normal limits of the system and the lack of perception that the first two have occurred. Chapter two argues that the chief mechanism of overshoot is exponential growth. As such, this idea has been around since the time of Malthus but harnessed to a wider range of resources as shown here the effect is more obvious. Chapter three considers the limits to resource use. As was considered over 50 years ago with the oil industry the problem is not so much the amount of resource but the cost of getting it (and the problem of disposing of its waste products). Here are the sources and sinks: global data are used to put some statistics into the terms. The main point of the original Limits was that it was based on a computer model. This model is still evolving as we see in chapter four. Here we see the basic outlines of the model, its parameters, flows and feedback systems both positive and negative. Not everything is negative. The authors use chapter five to describe one example they say proves that things can be turned around: ozone depletion. Using the story of ozone changes they conclude that it's possible to reduce problems as well as create them. Clearly more recent data show this in a different light but it stands as a good case. The next case (chapter six) is a study of the role of technology in the model and in the real world. The model has been refined to include more elements of technology. This should put in data where improved technology has helped. However technology also, as the case studies of oil and fish note, still creates difficulties. There's no guarantee that sustainable production can be achieved. It's more than just changing technology. To become sustainable or to use less requires a huge change in personal and societal understanding. Just what this might entail is the subject of chapter 7. Such changes require that we have access to a range of 'tools' to promote a more sustainable world. The final chapter outlines these 'tools' - more a question of more ethical and moral behaviour coupled with a tendency to learn from our past mistakes.

This is a complex book sharing much of the work of the first volume. The message has been upgraded but stays essentially the same - what we are doing is not sustainable in the long term. As such it is a useful addition to the literature.