Forty years ago, a shocking report tagged economic growth as the catalyst for environmental collapse. Now, a new article claims the world's responses to that forecast failed to make things better.
Today, not only have the predictions in the Club of Rome�s 1972 �Limits to Growth� been proven wrong, but they have also sent the world down the wrong path of dealing with environmental and economic challenges, according to Bjorn Lomborg in Foreign Affairs. He argues that behavior responses to supposed environmental limits�like recycling and buying organic food, for example�have diverted attention from what actually improves people's lives: economic growth.
That is not to say that economic growth has not been pursued at all. It has, aggressively. While Lomborg acknowledges the rise of the global middle class, without which we would have seen no massive improvements in health, longevity and quality of life for billions of people worldwide, his argument that solutions have focused largely away from growth is incomplete.
Environmental efforts were spurred by reports like �Limits to Growth,� but have not existed void of a concurrent focus on growth. But he is correct that there are still large segments of the global population who will benefit from continued growth
