Limits to growth

I was a freshman in college in 1972. That year, a book came out called Limits to Growth about the challenge of harmonizing our aspirations for getting richer with the fact that the Earth’s natural resources are finite. I was assigned the book as a college freshman, so the issue has been on my mind since the earliest days that I began studying economics.

Economics is about how we use our resources— including our natural resources, our brain power, and the goods we produce in our factories. The goal of economics is to determine how to best use our resources and technology so that everyone is able to benefit from them. Human- induced climate change is a central challenge in that quest. It’s caused by how we are using our natural resources, notably fossil fuels and forests, and its consequences could be disastrous unless brought quickly under control. I don’t think it’s possible to be concerned about the big questions of economics without also being concerned about climate change as one of the most important challenges we face.

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