(Meadows et al., Beyond the Limits, pp. 54-56.) In many places (e.g. Mexico City, Manila, parts of the northwestern US, Bangkok), water tables are falling rapidly because well water is being pumped out of the ground. Now three of the original authors of The Limits to Growth, Donella Meadows, Dennis Meadows, and Jorgen Randers have written Beyond the Limits to help us confront the possibility of global collapse.
MeadowsBeyond the LimitsThreats from population explosion and limits to finite resources?Limits (Meadows et al.)When Meadows et al. Wrote of limits, they were referring to limits to the rates at which modern human lifestyles and associated consumption through capitalism and industrialization can use materials and energy,and limits to the rates at which wastes can be emitted without harm to people, the economy, or the earths processes of absorption, regeneration, and regulation. Gases emitted from your car into the air, tailings from an industrial plant released into soil, chemicals from a paper mill released into a lake - the sustainable rate of emission can be no greater than the rate at which that pollutant can be recycled, absorbed, or rendered harmless by the environment. (For example, sewage can be put into stream or lake at the rate at which the natural ecosystem in the water can absorb its nutrients -the antithesis is represented by some factory farms like chickens in MD.)Sinks To illustrate, lakes, forests, oceans are examples of sinks. For example, forests can absorb carbon, but how well they do this depends on how much carbon and how much forest there isthere are limits!
Sources are obvious e.g. We model these using scientific methods.Carrying capacity Represents the maximum population of a particular species that a given habitat can support over a particular period of time.Renewable resourceE.G.
Soil, water, forest, fish - the sustainable rate of use can be no greaterthank the rate of regeneration. (Thus, for example, fish are harvested sustainably when they are caught at a rate that can be replaced by the remaining fish population.)Nonrenewable resourceE.G. Fossil fuel, high-grade mineral ore, fossil ground water - the sustainable rate of use of which can be no greater than the rate at which a renewable resource, used sustainably, can be substituted for it.