ABSTRACT
Among the Russian scientists, N. TimofeevRessovsky should be noted for raising the problem of limits to growth and also finding the approaches to its solution corresponding with philosophical traditions and peculiarities of the Russian spiritual culture. In the article “Biosphere and Mankind” [7] published in 1968, before the release of the first reports of the Club of Rome, the priority for the significance of environmental factors and the population growth for human development prospects were defined, and the directions were shown for a humanitarian solution to the problem of the natural scarcity; the role of mathematics and cybernetics was assessed to overcome the challenges that would hinder the growth. N. Timofeev-Ressovsky said that there are enough places on the Earth for 30 to 50 billion, and even more, people. The question that modern scientific belief put forward that when the economy is rationally organized, is the Earth able to support and provide about 10-12 billion people with the necessary raw materials. Therefore, through the next hundred years, half of the global population will be short on food as well as the biological raw materials needed for various industries. It is not too distant future as it might seem at the first glance.
