are nurtured. That resources set, implicated in development
withconservation, is presented in box 3.2 as Resources within
ecosystems.
European concerns in the eighteenth century related to con-
tinued survival for a global population of less than a billion
people, which in lengthy hindsight shows how misinformed was
the Malthusian perspective on resources, geographical space and
technological potential. The specific projections made by Malthus
in 1798 were from the data available to him about human
numbers, and his understanding at that time of the remaining ter-
ritories from which edible grains could be produced. His ‘arith-
matic’ reasoning foretold the equivalent of a crossover when food
production, which had previously kept ahead of population
growth, would decline relative to population growth; assertions based on inade-
quate geographical facts, an inadequate insight into the future of agricultural
science and ever-improving food storage science. But now, over two hundred
years later, with the global population bound to grow beyond eight (maybe ten)
billion, the scientific certainty is that there actually is no more geographical space,
nor large and accessible oil and gas fossil energy sources, to exploit, although vol-
umetric food production to feed that population is less problematic. Viewed from
off-planet as it were, the challenge for twenty-first-century humankind is about a
global course for survival. The macro-pattern role in this, for OECD nations, is to
manage sustainable development, fair burden-sharing, North–South trade, and
environmental conservation.
A Second Coming of the Malthusian apparition, this
time altogether more scientific, was promoted in the
1960s and grew into a virtual ‘limits to growth indus-
try’. The seminal work was produced by a four-person
Massachusetts Institute of Technology team led by
Donella and Dennis Meadows. The early style of com-
puter printouts, the large typeface and simple parables
(for example, the lily plant exponential growth depic-
tion) remain fresh and appealing. The Meadows text,
The Limits to Growth(1972, followed by numerous
reprints), was intended to be read in conjunction with
other MIT works less charismatic yet also important,
notably Jay Forrester’s World Dynamics (1970). The
provocative approach of the two Meadows and Forrester led to many counter-
claims of ‘doom watching’ and ‘Malthus with a Computer’ vindicated, in the view
of some, by the ‘apparent’ low-price fossil-fuel bonanza.^19 In 1992, Meadows and
others in their Beyond the Limits, expressed the previous arguments again, notably
as ‘Overshoots’ with all factors (consumer goods, services, food and life expectancy)
in decline from about 2020.^20
The main counter-thesis, Cole’s Critique of The Limits to Growth(1973) was con-
cerned to point out the ‘tremendous potential of changing technology along with
Charter for Conservation with Development 91Keynes, writing in 1933
(Yale Review, 1983: 758)
on the social benefits of
full employment,
expressed the case for
self-sufficiency in these
words: ‘let goods be
homespun whenever it
is reasonable and
conveniently possible,
and above all, let finance
be primarily national.
We do not wish,
therefore, to be at the
mercy of world forces.’The Limits to Growth logo