Department of Political Science
Aula Dottorandi, 4. Floor
Via G. Chiabrera, 199, Rome
On March 12, 1972 “The Limits to Growth. A Report for the Club of Rome’s Project on the Predicament of Mankind” was launched at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington. This groundbreaking document aimed at providing world leaders with some new essential analytical tools, in order to be able to make decisions for the future of mankind.
The LtG report was issued just a few weeks before the convening in Stockholm United Nations Conference on the Human Environment. The debate on the “limits to growth” marked a watershed in the economic, political and intellectual discourse on human development and sustainability and challenged the model of development that had triggered unprecedented industrial and consumer growth in Western countries after the end of the Second World War.
This international workshop aims at reconstructing the role and reactions to the 1972 LtG by Governments, economic actors and intellectuals. Bringing together scholars across different disciplines, the workshop focuses on three main aspects: the making of The Limits to Growth Report, including most recent research on the Club of Rome and Aurelio Peccei’s biography; the LtG’s reception in European, as well as international politics and industry; the reaction of economists to the reshaping of the concepts of “growth” and “development”.
Program
November 11, 2022
h. 10.00 Opening Remarks
h. 10.30 Panel 1 - The Making of the of the LtG Report
Chair: Leopoldo Nuti (Università Roma Tre)
- Luigi Piccioni (Università della Calabria), The Making of the “Limits to Growth”
- Bernando Isola (Scuola Normale), From ‘Growthism” to its Critics. Aurelio Peccei’s Shift and the Origins of the Club of Rome
- Laura Fasanaro (Università Roma Tre), The Diplomacy of Sustainability. Aurelio Peccei’s Portrait in an International History Perspective
h. 13.00 Lunch
h. 14.30 Panel 2 - The Reception of the LtG Report
Chair: Dieter Schlenker (Historical Archives of the EU)
- Sara Lorenzini (Università di Trento), Sicco Mansholt, the Limits to Growth and the Origins of a European Environmental Policy
- Thomas Turnbull (Max Planck Institute) Nandita Badami, (Penn State/Rachel Carson Center), The Best Defence is Offence: The Neoliberal Counter-Movement Against “Limits to Growth”
- Odinn Melsted (University of Maastricht), The Reception of the Limits to Growth in the Oil Industry of the 1970s
h. 16.00 – 16.30 Coffee-break
- Elke Seefried (RWTH Aachen Universität), The "Limits to Growth" Report and its Reception in West Germany and Western Europe
- Fabio Masini (Università Roma Tre), Neomalthusianism vs Neoclassicism. Economists' Reaction to the Club of Rome Report
h. 20.00 Dinner
November 12, 2022
h. 9.30 Panel 3 - Growth, Sustainability and the Economics of the LtG Report
Chair: Laura Fasanaro (Università Roma Tre)
- Stephen J. Macekura (Indiana University Bloomington), The Limits to Growth and the future of international order during the 1970s
- Glenda Sluga (European University Institute), From Planetary to Global: Reframing the Limits to Growth and Sustainable Thinking
- Riccardo Mastini (Institute of Environmental Science and Technology (ICTA) - Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona), A Green New Deal Without Growth
- Ndongo Samba Sylla (Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, Dakar office), The Myth of Economic Development: Celso Furtado's (structuralist) critique of Limits to Growth
11.30-11.45 Coffee-break
Conclusions - “The limits to growth” 50 years on: Archival Research and Current Perspectives
- Gilda Nicolai (Università della Tuscia, Viterbo), La ricerca storica su Aurelio Peccei e il Club di Roma
- Gianni Paoloni (Università La Sapienza), Archival Research on Sustainable Development
Scientific Committee: Laura Fasanaro, Giuliano Garavini, Leopoldo Nuti
to partecipate via Microsoft Teams: Link identifier #identifier__199178-1https://bit.ly/3fBz0YJ
Link identifier #identifier__26523-2Locandina