Limits

The idea that there are natural thresholds that cannot be exceeded without risking the health of the entire system. Limits are essential to the idea that natural capital must be conserved. The concept is also at the heart of several prominent economic theories and many people’s inability to regard change or conservation as necessary since they don’t recognize that limits exist on natural capital.
Limits to Growth was a 1972 book by Donella and Dennis Meadows and Jørgen Randers, modeling the consequences of a rapidly growing world population. It prompted many changes in the 1970s with regard to resource use in order to avoid the projections in the book. The most recent updated version was published in June 2004 by Chelsea Green Publishing Company under the name Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update.