On Growth: The Crisis of Exploding Population and Resource Depletion

At the historic moment when the crisis of resource depletion, especially energy, has become the overwhelming anxiety of mankind, a book appears by the world's foremost thinkers and scientists focused directly on the subject. "On Growth" is the creation of some seventy intellectuals who discuss every conceivable aspect of the crisis, with emphases that range from despair to high optimism. What is so invaluable here is the lucidity of their presentations - a tribute to the skilled interviewing techniques of Editor Willem Oltmans - and the fact that this book touches every one of us. For all of us are implicated. Each of our individual lives is about to be decisively affected by the momentous transformation of the globe we have hitherto taken for granted. The pressure of an exploding world population now coincides with a cataclysmic growth in the per capita consumption of energy and finite raw materials. When MIT Professor Jay W. Forester's study team produced the report "The Limits of Growth" on the world's dynamic pattern of population growth and resource use based upon a sophisticated computerized model, it was an immediate best seller. It provoked worldwide controversial discussion throughout 1971 and 1972. "On Growth" is the sequel a concerned world has been waiting for, at a time when comprehension of the issues of growth and the implications of the energy crisis may be crucial to our standard of living for generations to come.