Must read 2010-01-09

Reviewer: T. Amodio

if you have not read any club of rome or other versions of this book, start here. current, even ahead of it time in its predictions. put this book into your library and use as resource for you future planning for next steps in "sustainability"

Fundamental Reference from 1970's When Government Betrayal of the Public Trust Began 2009-12-31

Reviewer: Robert D. Steele

Although there are those who remain in denial about the foresight and wisdom of this book, today we are left in no doubt: there *are* limits to growth, and those who refuse to accept such realities accelerate the demise of our planet while also ignoring the depradations upon the public of corporations, religions, crime families and networks, and the "states" whose officials they all bribe and subvert.

The good news is that an entire literature has developed from this one little book, and there is a growing public awareness-as well as growing financial and corporate awareness-of the urgency of harmonizing our human behavior with the larger Earth system of which we are a part.

On the dark side:
Pandora's Poison: Chlorine, Health, and a New Environmental Strategy
The Blue Death: Disease, Disaster, and the Water We Drink
High Tech Trash: Digital Devices, Hidden Toxics, and Human Health
High Noon: 20 Global Problems, 20 Years to Solve Them [HIGH NOON] [Paperback]

A handful of current references that can trace their heritage back to this book, which is still worth reading today:
Ecological Economics: Principles And Applications
Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature
Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution
Green to Gold: How Smart Companies Use Environmental Strategy to Innovate, Create Value, and Build Competitive Advantage
Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things

For easier access to all of my reviews grouped in 98 categories, visit Phi Beta Iota the Public Intelligence Blog. All reviews lead back to Amazon but are vastly easier to sort out by specifics (e.g. Environmental Problems versus Environmental Solutions).

Limits to Growth reviewed 2009-10-04

Reviewer: T. Botella Yaquero

The book is a very good background to think about key aspects of Earth's future

The Ability to Cope 2009-09-05

Reviewer: Samuelson

This book is truly groundbreaking. I first read the original version in 1989 when I was a student and it made sense of a very uneasy feeling I had had as a child and which only became stronger the older I got. My uneasy feeling centered on three questions: where does all this stuff we've got come from?; where does it all go when we throw it away?; and will we one day run out of stuff, or places to put used stuff in? This book more than answered those questions. I remember lying in the grass in the late summer sun and having to put the book down every couple of pages or so to digest yet another horrifying revelation. I would then look around at the children playing, mothers shopping and people going about their work and business, and get this awful feeling in the pit of my stomach: they just have no idea, I kept thinking to myself, they just have no idea. The Thirty Year Update is just as fresh and compelling - the only problem is, we've wasted the last thirty years and are now in an even more dire predicement. Nevertheless, as many people as possible should read this book so we will at least have a fighting chance of moving to a more sustainable future. There are a couple of key points worth mentioning against the critics. First of all, the original version did not make any specific predictions about resource depletion or pollution. It simply described the generic properties of a system and explained what the system tended to do under various conditions. This generated a number of possible scenarios and a number of them ended in collapse. For the record, as the authors point out in the preface to this edition, the standard model run of World3 (which does end in collapse) bears a pretty close resemblence to the actual development of the world since 1972. Importantly, the standard run predicts continued growth until the second decade of this century so it won't start to diverge from the business as usual scenarios until about 2010: so even if you treat it as a prediction you won't be able to verify it for another 5-10 years. This brings me to my second point against the critics. The authors have never claimed that natural resources (or pollution sinks) will simply run out. What they argue is much more subtle - that we will run out of something else entirely, namely, the ability to cope. I leave you with the most chilling quote from the book (p223): 'When problems arise exponentially and in multiples, problems that could be dealt with one by one can overwhelm the ability to cope.' I have a hunch that peak oil, climate change, depletion of fish stocks etc. are all not so faint signals of impending limits, and we are getting perilously close to several big limits simultaneously. More and more of our industrial production (that is, our ability to cope) will then be devoted to solving problems we have created until the entire edifice comes crashing down around us. Read this book and change your life.

Global warming and the Club of Rome-Al Gore is a Member 2009-06-08

Reviewer: J. Lauve

This is a book published by The Club of Rome.
According to this book, "It would seem that humans need a common motivation, namely a common adversary, to organize and act together in the vacuum; such a motivation must be found to bring the divided nations together to face an outside enemy, either a real one or else one invented for the purpose....The common enemy of humanity is man....Democracy is no longer well suited for the tasks ahead" and "In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine etc., would fit the bill."
Global warming is a political agenda, get educated NOW!