Today’s guest post in our series honoring the 40^th anniversary of the landmark Limits to Growth study is by William Rees. Rees, along with Mathis Wackernagel, originated ecological footprint analysis. My interview with Dr. Rees for GrowthBusters was one of the last conducted before completion of the film. I left that interview thinking I could have saved myself a lot of time and trouble – rather than devoting six years to funding and producing the film, I could have simply recorded this interview and released it. In 40 minutes Bill Rees covered, knowledgeably and eloquently, nearly every topic in the film!

This is part of a paper William Rees presented at the Institute for New Economic Thinking Annual Conference in Bretton Woods one year ago. INET is doing some great work exploring what a sustainable economy looks like and how to get there. The institute’s next annual conference is a few weeks away. . . .

Job creation is THE mantra of every elected official and political candidate these days. Indeed, just about any act – even if foolish or dangerous – is considered desirable if it “creates jobs.” A classic example is this ad campaign funded by the American Petroleum Institute, an oil and natural gas industry trade association:

Today, the industry attempts to gloss over legitimate questions about the public safety of hydraulic fracturing techniques (“fracking”), and misdirect our attention to the creation of jobs and energy independence. Nothing can stand in the way of jobs and cheap, plentiful energy! Job Creation has replaced apple pie as the all-American icon. . . .

One of the joys of growthbusting has been the discovery that living lighter on the planet is very consistent with other values I’ve come to embrace in my quest to live a fulfilling and meaningful life. A constant goal in my life is to be present in the moment, stepping out of the frantic thought patterns that come with life in pursuit of the high-consumption American Dream. Rick Heller has made this connection and has created a website, www.seeingtheroses.org, and a series of videos to help others discover joyful living doesn’t require an iPad, iPod, iPhone, iMac, a Lexus and weekends in Cabo or Vegas. Today’s commentary in our Limits to Growth 40th anniversary series is from Rick. . . .

We’re in the middle of a series of demonstrations, essays and videos related to the topic of limits to growth. This is to recognize the 40th anniversary this year of the landmark Limits to Growth study, first published in March of 1972. That study was commissioned by The Club of Rome and conducted by a team of scientists at MIT.

For some reason, The Club of Rome has not become a household word. Most know almost nothing about The Club or the origins of the study. I met The Club of Rome’s Secretary-General, Ian Johnson, at an event The Club co-hosted with the Smithsonian early this month, Perspectives on Limits to Growth. Here’s a brief part of the conversation we had: . . .

This is day two of our exponential growth demonstration. I hope you’re doing this at home or school or the office. We began two days ago with one grain of wheat. Yesterday we doubled the wheat, and here’s what we got…

Today let’s double that. Here’s a quick summary of Limits to Growth, courtesy of the Club of Rome. Be patient while it loads, and don’t click below on “Click to Play;” for some reason WordPress is not making life easy for me today.

So, what is this Club of Rome that commissioned the Limits to Growth study in 1970? It is actually a pretty amazing and forward-looking group of people. It sprang from an April, 1968 meeting of academics, industrialists, diplomats and other leading thinkers at a villa in Rome. They were invited by Italian industrialist Aurelio Peccei and Scottish scientist Alexander King (King appears briefly in an historical clip in the GrowthBusters movie.) At the villa they discussed the predominance of short-term thinking in international affairs and concerns about increasing resource consumption in what was becoming a global economy. . . .