Back in the early 1970s, while living and working in Bermuda, I was becoming increasingly perplexed by the way what had been a sub-tropical island paradise was steadily turning into a busy mid-ocean metropolis. Primeval Bermuda was giving way to acres of houses, resorts, golf courses and so on. The pink coral sand of its world-class beaches were becoming polluted by oil and floating debris. The bird hosts of the past were long gone. What was the underlying cause? Growth. Obviously. But, I wondered, what kind of growth, and how could it be moderated? In this context, the Limits to Growth (LtG) study was a pioneering attempt to find answers and begin the search for solutions. But, very unfortunately, these efforts, and those that followed over the following decades, were viewed by powerful actors as threats and every effort was made to undermine and delegitimise them. This article was written for Compass, the quarterly journal of the Association of Professional Futurists (APF), before I acquired a new work, Limits and Beyond, that takes a fresh view of the LrG over the past 50 years. A response to this new anthology will appear here in due course. In the meantime here are some reflections on the significance of the original work then and now. Continue reading…