Alternative Approaches to the Environmental Crisis

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
The author compares the results of two qualitatively different types of analyses of the resource/environmental quality problem: (a) the approach, exemplified by The Limits to Growth, which accepts, as given, world statistical summaries of trends in population size, agricultural and industrial pro duction, and rates of pollutant emission; extrapolates these trends into the future; and determines the outcome by means of a computer model that encompasses certain assumed interactions among them: and (b) the approach, illustrated in this article, which assembles data on the scale on which, in the real world, the relevant system operates and derives from these data the relationships that appear to govern the interactions among the various parameters, leading to generalizations about the mechanisms that mediate the interdependence of human society and the earth's resources.

This publication has 1 reference indexed in Scilit: