Read the passage and answer the questions:
Environmental concerns have a long history; awareness of environmental consequences of economic growth acquired an increasingly political character from 1960s onwards. The Club of Rome, a global think tank, published a book of 1972 entitled Limits to Growth, dramatising the potential depletion of Earth’s resources against backdrop of rapidly growing world population. International agencies, including United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), began holding international conferences and promoting detailed studies to get a more coordinated and effective response to environmental problems. Since then, environment has emerged as a significant issue of global politics. The growing focus on environmental issues within arena of global politics was firmly consolidated at United Nations Conference on Environment and Development held of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, of June 1992. This was also called Earth Summit. The summit revealed that countries of First World, generally referred to as ‘global North’, were pursuing a different environmental agenda than poor and developing countries of Third World, called ‘global South’. Whereas Northern states were concerned with ozone depletion and global warming, Southern states were anxious to address relationship between economic development and environmental management.
What does the book Limits to Growth dramatise?
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 2
The correct answer is Option (2) → Potential depletion of Earth’s resources.
Option (1) Fiscal issues pertaining to environment. — Incorrect. Limits to Growth dealt with the depletion of resources, not fiscal issues.
Option (2) Potential depletion of Earth’s resources. — Correct. The Club of Rome published Limits to Growth in 1972, dramatising the potential depletion of the Earth’s resources against the backdrop of rapidly growing world population.
Option (3) Socio-economic account of the rapidly growing world population. — Incorrect. The growing population is only the backdrop; what Limits to Growth dramatised was the depletion of resources.
Option (4) The world community’s move towards renewable energy — Incorrect. Limits to Growth warned that the Earth’s resources could run out; it was a warning about depletion, not an account of a move to renewable energy.
Note 1: This passage is taken almost word for word from the NCERT chapter ‘Environment and Natural Resources’, the section ‘Environmental Concerns in Global Politics’. Five answers sit in two paragraphs of this chapter, so a careful first reading of the book pays off here.
Note 2: A similar question was also asked in CUET (UG) 2026 on 13-05-2026 (Slot 1).
NCERT (2025-26): “Environmental Concerns in Global Politics … Although environmental concerns have a long history, awareness of the environmental consequences of economic growth acquired an increasingly political character from the 1960s onwards. The Club of Rome, a global think tank, published a book in 1972 entitled Limits to Growth, … dramatising the potential depletion of the Earth’s resources against the backdrop of rapidly growing world population.…” |