I n 1972 a collective of grandees known as the Club of Rome set out to establish the limits to economic growth. Worried about the state of the planet, they fed a computer all they knew about farming yields, natural resources, population trends and so on. The rudimentary machine crunched the data and spouted a grim answer: given ecological constraints, the highest standard of living possible was one stagnating at half the American level of the time. Anything beyond that risked imminent disaster, a “sudden and uncontrollable decline in both population and industrial capacity”.
1972年，一家名为罗马俱乐部的大国集团（Grandees）着手建立经济增长的限制。担心地球的状态，他们为一台计算机提供了有关农业产量，自然资源，人口趋势等的所有知识。基本的机器将数据处理并提出了严峻的答案：鉴于生态限制，最高的生活水平是一个停滞不前的一半。除此之外的任何事情都危害着即将发生的灾难，这是“人口和工业能力的突然和无法控制的下降”。
