David Suzuki has a short video clip, 3 minutes, 27 seconds long, in which he describes exponential growth when it hits the 59th minute and can no longer be sustained.
As a mind exercise, he uses a test tube with one bacteria in minute 1, and then describes how quickly the test tube fills in different time intervals. As Suziki points out, it's not until the 55th minute that the test tube is 3% full. The 56th minute the test tube is 6% full. The 57th minute the test tube is 12% full, and in the 58th minute, the test tube 24% full, and by the 59th minute, the test tube is almost half-full leading bacteria to think (if they could think) "Look at how long it took us to get to only half full, we can continue to live this way and put off the hard decisions later."
In reality, in the 60th minute, the test tube will be full, and as Suzuki postulates, the only way for the bacteria to continue exponentially growing is to fund scientists to build say three new test tubes for the new bacteria to grow into and spread. But here's the problem with that. In the 61st minute, the second test tube fills up. And in the 62nd minute, all four test tubes are filled. If you lay his example over the Earth's population growth, you understand why he's a believer in Peak Growth, that the way we are living is unsustainable:
As a mind exercise, he uses a test tube with one bacteria in minute 1, and then describes how quickly the test tube fills in different time intervals. As Suziki points out, it's not until the 55th minute that the test tube is 3% full. The 56th minute the test tube is 6% full. The 57th minute the test tube is 12% full, and in the 58th minute, the test tube 24% full, and by the 59th minute, the test tube is almost half-full leading bacteria to think (if they could think) "Look at how long it took us to get to only half full, we can continue to live this way and put off the hard decisions later."
In reality, in the 60th minute, the test tube will be full, and as Suzuki postulates, the only way for the bacteria to continue exponentially growing is to fund scientists to build say three new test tubes for the new bacteria to grow into and spread. But here's the problem with that. In the 61st minute, the second test tube fills up. And in the 62nd minute, all four test tubes are filled. If you lay his example over the Earth's population growth, you understand why he's a believer in Peak Growth, that the way we are living is unsustainable:
No comments:
Post a Comment