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The Iconoclast from Halifax, Canada writes: The leaders, economists and CEOs of the world urgently need a lesson in exponential growth.
The lesson is simple: Unlimited exponential growth is impossible in a finite world.
Anything that grows by a certain percentage each year is exponential growth. And anything growing exponentially doubles every N years. The number of years, N, to each doubling is given by 70 divided by the growth rate in percent.
The economies of China and India are both growing at 10%. This means both countries are doubling their consumption every 7 years.
World population is growing at 1.5%. This means the world population is doubling every 60 years.
Every species in Nature, when introduced into a new environment with food, grows exponentially (doubling every N years) until it exceeds the limits of its food supply. Then there is a sudden population collapse (dieoff) when many individuals starve to death.
The human race is growing exponentially and is now approaching the limits of its energy supply, oil, and also the limits of its food supply. To make matters worse, our food supply depends on oil.
So Bush is complaining that we can't keep growing exponentially. Someone should break the news to him that we can't break the Laws of Nature no matter what economists say. Growth has to stop or we will run out of oil and run out of food. The results of that won't be pretty at all.
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* Posted 17/05/08 at 11:52 AM EDT | Alert an Editor | Link to Comment
The Iconoclast from Halifax, Canada writes: The leaders, economists and CEOs of the world urgently need a lesson in exponential growth.
The lesson is simple: Unlimited exponential growth is impossible in a finite world.
Anything that grows by a certain percentage each year is exponential growth. And anything growing exponentially doubles every N years. The number of years, N, to each doubling is given by 70 divided by the growth rate in percent.
The economies of China and India are both growing at 10%. This means both countries are doubling their consumption every 7 years.
World population is growing at 1.5%. This means the world population is doubling every 60 years.
Every species in Nature, when introduced into a new environment with food, grows exponentially (doubling every N years) until it exceeds the limits of its food supply. Then there is a sudden population collapse (dieoff) when many individuals starve to death.
The human race is growing exponentially and is now approaching the limits of its energy supply, oil, and also the limits of its food supply. To make matters worse, our food supply depends on oil.
So Bush is complaining that we can't keep growing exponentially. Someone should break the news to him that we can't break the Laws of Nature no matter what economists say. Growth has to stop or we will run out of oil and run out of food. The results of that won't be pretty at all.
===
* Posted 17/05/08 at 11:52 AM EDT | Alert an Editor | Link to Comment