THE LIMITS TO GROWTH, Donella H. Meadows, Dennis L. Meadows, Jorgen Randers, William W. Behrens III The message of this book is urgent and sobering: The earth's interlocking resources- the global system of nature in which we all live- probably cannot support present rates of economic and population growth much beyond the year 2100, if that long, even with advanced technology. In the summer of 1970, an international team of researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology began a study of the implications of continued worldwide growth. They examined the five basic facts that determine and, in their interactions, ultimately limit growth on this planet- population increase, agricultural production, nonrenewable resource depletion, industrial output, and pollution generation. The MIT team fed data on these five factors into a global computer model and then tested the behavior of the model under several sets of assumptions to determine alternative patters for mankind's future.