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The Political Debate

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The Limits to Growth Revisited

Part of the book series: SpringerBriefs in Energy ((ENERGYANALYS))

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Abstract

The publication of “The Limits to Growth” in 1972 had a very strong impact on the public opinion; so much that some feared it would spread out of control. For instance, K.R.L. Pavitt wrote about LTG: “.... neo-Malthusians are bound to increase in numbers and to be right about the end of economic growth sometime in the future. In the industrially advanced countries, this should be relatively soon” (Cole et al. 1973, p. 155).

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Note also that Krugman seems to have forgotten that, when Forrester had the idea of “doing economics with equations” in the mid 1960s, digital computers where still such a novelty that Forrester had to use a special computer he himself had developed. Therefore, it is unlikely that any economist could have “thought of that” or “learned” about that earlier than Forrester.

  2. 2.

    (1) That of confusing the “Club of Rome” with the actual authors of LTG, (2) that the book had been written 10 years before instead of 15, (3) that LTG had predicted oil prices (4) that the LTG study had predicted shortages by the time Goodman was writing and (5) that LTG had predicted famines to occur soon.

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Correspondence to Ugo Bardi .

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© 2011 Ugo Bardi

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Bardi, U. (2011). The Political Debate. In: The Limits to Growth Revisited. SpringerBriefs in Energy(). Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-9416-5_10

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