Limits to Growth: Encyclopedia II - Limits to Growth - Criticism

Limits to Growth - Criticism

Limits to Growth attracted controversy as soon as it was published. Yale economist Henry C. Wallich labeled the book "a piece of irresponsible nonsense" in his March 13, 1972 Newsweek editorial. Wallich's main complaints are that the book was published as a publicity stunt with great fanfare at the Smithsonian in Washington, and that there was insufficient evidence for many of the variables used in the model. According to Wallich, "the quantitative content of the model comes for the authors' imagination, although they never reveal the equations that they used." Considering that the detailed model and Meadows et al justifications were not published until 1974 (two years after Limits to Growth) in the book Dynamics of Growth in a Finite World, Wallich's complaint about "the peculiar presentation of their work and by their unscientific procedures" has merit.

Similar criticisms were made by others. Robert M. Solow from MIT, complained about the weak base of data on which Limits to Growth's predictions were made (Newsweek, March 13, 1972, page 103). Dr. Allen Kneese and Dr. Ronald Riker of Resources for the future stated "the authors load their case by letting some things grow exponentially and others not. Population, capital and pollution grow exponentially in all models, but technologies for expanding resources and controlling pollution are permitted to grow, if at all, only in discrete increments."(Newsweek, March 13, 1972, page 103)

Writing for the Michigan Law Review, Alex Kozinski, a Reagan-appointed judge, discussed Limits to Growth at length at the beginning of his review of The Skeptical Environmentalist, calling the authors 'a group of scientists going by the pretentious name “The Club of Rome”.' [2]. Another harsh critic of Limits to Growth was Lyndon LaRouche, who authored a 1983 book There Are No Limits to Growth and included the Club of Rome prominently in his view of a global Malthusian conspiracy. [3]

The debate over the book often takes a form that somebody critizises the authors of making wrong predictions and then authors or their defenders claim, that they actually did not reprsent any accurate predictions in the book but only gave a set of estimations based on varying assumptions.

Nevertheless, many today think that the overall message was accurate: the resources of the Earth are finite and are thus, inevitably, subject to natural limits.[4]

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Criticism", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki