The Meadows report is 50 years old

The Earth’s circumference is 40,000 km, and all human ingenuity will never add a single metre more,” Françoise d’Eaubonne used to say. We live in a finite world. Yet Patriarchy and Capital blindly pursue infinite growth in production, exponential consumption and limitless demographics.

The Meadows Report is 50 years old. Limits to Growth (its real title) was written in 1972 at the request of the Club of Rome (a think-tank bringing together scientists, economists and national and international civil servants). Françoise had probably read it when she became aware of the ecological emergency in the early 1970s. On the occasion of its reissue (published a few days ago by Rue de l’échiquier), the online daily Reporterre published an interview on March 3 with emeritus researcher Dennis Meadows, one of the report’s authors.
*** Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version) ***

He created a worldwide sensation. It is often considered one of the monuments of political ecology. Yet the ideas of the ground-breaking 1972 report Limits to Growth, better known as the Meadows Report, have been little or never taken up by the world’s leaders. It demonstrated for the first time that the economy could not continue to grow indefinitely in a finite world.

50 years on, where do we stand? The 2022 report by the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) has just taken stock, focusing on the consequences of climate change and how societies can prepare for them. The msn portal interviewed one of its contributors, ecologist and geographer Wolfgang Cramer.

Today, there are concrete examples of adaptation to climate change everywhere. Among these, there are some interesting options that can be put forward. Agroecology is one of them. In many regions, this model of agricultural production (which relies as much as possible on the functionalities offered by natural ecosystems and seeks to reduce pressure on the environment as much as possible) is now seen as an important avenue for adaptation.
(Translated with www.Deep)