A 1973 booklet on the OECD's approach to environmental issues stated that the role of governments in "an acceptable human environment must now be developed in the framework of policies for economic growth".The OECD had given up on the Club of Rome, and set its course on a trajectory of unfettered growth.[4]

1974–present

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Even before The Limits to Growth was published, Eduard Pestel and Mihajlo Mesarovic of Case Western Reserve University had begun work on a far more elaborate model (it distinguished ten world regions and involved 200,000 equations compared with 1,000 in the Meadows model).The research had the full support of the club and its final publication, Mankind at the Turning Point, was accepted as the official "second report" to the Club of Rome in 1974.[9][10] In addition to providing a more refined regional breakdown, Pestel and Mesarovic had succeeded in integrating social as well as technical data.The second report revised the scenarios of the original Limits to Growth and gave a more optimistic prognosis for the future of the environment, noting that many of the factors involved were within human control and therefore that environmental and economic catastrophe were preventable or avoidable.