Using the alleged and often repeated number that the US coal reserves are sufficient to last for 500 years, Professor Bartlet exposes the fallacy of “sustainable growth” and how false and dangerously soothing ideas are propagated in the public.

Taking us back to the 1970′es, he analyses the responses and comments of the time to the energy crisis in order to determine how things could turn when it returns: It becomes rapidly obvious that “the experts”, the media and the politicians have no idea and do not understand the effects of growth.

Growth in the rate of consumption of a non-renewable resource, such as a fossil fuel, causes a dramatic decrease in the life-expectancy of the resource. In a world of growing rates of consumption of resources, it is seriously misleading to state the life-expectancy of a nonrenewable resource “at present rates of consumption,” i.e., with no growth. It is dishonest to promote growth in the rate of consumption of a nonrenewable resource while, at the same time, reassuring people about how long the resource will last “at present rates of consumption.”

The more optimistic the prediction, the greater chance that it is based on faulty arithmetic or no arithmetic at all.

Arithmetic, Population and Energy – 5

Sustainable Growth is a world class oxymoron.

Sustainable Growth is an insult to the intelligence of those that possess this rare quality.

An impossible theorem.

View also:

Sustainable growth, premises of an absurdity, part one, part two, part three, part four, part five.

Growth Is Not Development, Is Not Evolution – A distinction between growth, development, and evolution.

Growth, Development, Evolution

A distinction between growth, development, and evolution.

At this point in our series tearing to pieces the fallacy of sustainable growth, it becomes important to distinguish between growth, development, and evolution. Evolution involves a process of directional (but non-directed) change that leads from states closer to thermodynamic and chemical equilibrium to those further removed from it. As such, it describes a tendency toward states further removed from thermodynamic and chemical equilibrium. More simply put, it is “a general way of conceptualizing the self-organizing selection process of the universe displayed in … increasing complexity”. Development really relates more to the world of human affairs, and is part of our socially constructed reality in terms of what we consider to be “desirable” objectives for us or others (and hence allows us to make very subjective and relativistic statements about what and who is developed vs. those that are not). Growth is something that we can measure through definable units of size or scale, and relates to notions of physical size or numerical quantity. It provides a metric that can be applied to many processes of change, but not to those that are qualitative or conditional in nature.

• Growth = an increase in size or quantity.
• Development = an amelioration of conditions or quality.
• Evolution = a tendency toward greater structural complexity and organizational simplicity, more efficient modes of operation, and greater dynamic harmony.

Growth, Development, Evolution

General Evolution Theory (GET)

In recent years, an action-oriented systems approach to the development of human and natural systems has emerged from the study of evolutionary processes in nature and society. It is known as General Evolutionary Systems Theory (or General Evolution Theory (GET), for short). It postulates that the evolutionary trend in the universe constitutes a ‘cosmic process’ specified by a fundamental universal flow toward ever increasing complexity. It is now understood that this dynamic of complexification manifests itself through particular events and sequences of events that are not limited to the domain of biological phenomenon but extend to include all aspects of change in open dynamic systems with a throughput of information and energy. In other words, evolution relates to the formation of stars from atoms, of Homo sapiens from the anthropoid apes, as much as to the formation of complex societies from rudimentary social systems.

View also:

Sustainable growth, premises of an absurdity, part one, part two, part three, part four, part five.

Growth Is Not Development, Is Not Evolution – A distinction between growth, development, and evolution.

Fibonacci Spiral - Sustainable Growth

“I don’t believe that the exponential argument is valid at the local level.”

Really!? Arithmetic doesn’t hold at the local level and is dependent on the beliefs of “some” politician.

Let us review what we learned in part three:

Growth control is very controversial. The problem is that controlled growth just means growth!

Bacteria In A Bottle:

Characteristics of steady growth in a finite environment. A case of ordinary steady growth.

One bacteria divides to become two; the two divide to become four, the four become eight, then 16, 32, etc…

Suppose we have bacteria that double in this way every minute.

At 11:00am there is one bacterium in a bottle.

At 12 noon the bottle is full.

We have a finite environment of one bottle, and a doubling time of one minute.

At what time was the bottle half full?

At what time did the bacteria realize they were running out of space?

… 5 minutes before 12 noon, only 3% of the space in the bottle is occupied and 97% is just yearning for development; at that time, how many of you would be conscious that there is a disastrous problem coming right at us in the next 5 minutes?

Suppose that at 11:58 (2 minutes before disaster), some bacteria realize there is a problem and send out search parties for additional space… and by a stroke of impossible luck, they find 3 more bottles.

How long will these four bottles be able to sustain the rate of growth? (how much time, the collossal dscovery of 3 times more resources than previously available in history bought to the bacteria community? At what time are all 4 bottles full and disaster strikes?)

This type of steady growth is the centerpiece of the entire national and global economy. Think about it!

Fibonacci Spiral - Sustainable Growth

People write books and conduct seminars promoting the restoration of “sustainable growth” to save the world! How more moronic than that could that be?

Economists and politicians would have us believe that we can continue to steadily increase our consumption of fossil fuels, we will always be able to find more resources to fuel that growth. Let’s remember that the only thing that a politician ever learns after entering office, is the exercise of power!

“In the energy crisis, we have a classic case of exponential growth against a finite source.”

James R. Schlesinger – US Secretary Of Energy – April 25th 1977.

Fibonacci Spiral - Sustainable Growth

What time is it when the remaining reserves is 3 times the total of all you’ve used in all of history?

The answer is: it is 2 minutes before 12!

What time is it when the remaining reserve is equal to the total of all that you’ve used in all of history?

The answer is: it is 1 minutes before 12!

There is a belief that if you throw enough money at holes in the ground, oil is sure to come out! As half of the oil ever discovered has been consumed, i/e the remaining reserve is equal to the total of all that has been used in all of history: it is therefore one minute before 12! How likely are we going to now suddenly find more oil than has ever been discovered before?

Arithmetic, Population and Energy – 4

Sustainable Growth is a world class oxymoron.

Sustainable Growth is an insult to the intelligence of those that possess this rare quality.

An impossible theorem.

View also:

Sustainable growth, premises of an absurdity, part one, part two, part three, part four, part five.

Growth Is Not Development, Is Not Evolution – A distinction between growth, development, and evolution.

Fibonacci Spiral - Sustainable Growth

Humans In Universe Water

In Chapter One of Critical Path: Speculative Prehistory Of Humanity, Buckminster Fuller states that because water is essential to all the biological organisms’ ecological systems of regeneration on our planet, the following 4 major facts about water are vitally important: (Please note that number two has been disproved since the book was written)

1. Vital fact number one: Biological life is 50% water. Earthians are hydraulically designed technologies. Their structure consists of a balance interaction between tensive & compressive forces.
2. Vital fact number two: We do not know of any water in Universe other than that on our planet Earth. Even though that fact number two has been disproved since: we now know there is abundant water in Universe – Water in the Solar System – Water in the Universe - Water in Universe – Water in the Universe: Abundant? – it doesn’t really change Bucky Fuller’s observation that the as abundant as it seems on Earth, with the oceans, etc…, on a 12 inches diameter Earth globe, the ocean’s average depth would be smaller than the thickness of the ink used to print them!
3. Vital fact number three: water freezes and boils within close limits – Anywhere in Universe, except inside Earth’s biosphere the water would be either frozen, boiling, evaporated, or incandescent. Our terrestrial biosphere is a unique environment essential to the survival of humans.
4. Vital fact number four: water gains and loses heat more slowly than any known abundant substance. The world ocean’s thermal stability keeps the world’s temperature changes at minimum; they act as a flywheel does to steady rotational speed on a mechanical device.

The importance of water underlined in the first pages of Critical Path will be revisited several times along the pages of the book; Bucky Fuller putting a special emphasis on the influence of water on Human settlements, the development of the Human mind and the birth of Human power structures.

Humans in Universe - Lagoon

Humans In Universe Terrace Farming

Humans In Universe Terrace Farming

"Excuse me Sir, I am prepared to make you an attractive offer for your square."

This is part three of a series that exposes the idiocy that sustainable growth is the future of humanity. See the video at the bottom of the article.

Part two was about the use of semi log scaled paper where a straight line represents steady growth. Projections of future prices were made using a steady rate of inflation…

We saw that in 1986, the world population reached 5 billion people and was growing at the rate of 1.7% per year. The doubling time is 70 / 1.7 = 41 years; That means that at this “modest” rate the world population doubles every 41 years. In 1999, the world population reached 6 billion and we can calculate that the rate of growth has decreased to 1.3% per year… In spite of this reduction, the world population is still growing by over 80,000,000 people every year.

Should this reduced 1.3% population growth rate continue, the world population density would reach one person per square meter of dry land in approximately 780 years!

The lesson is that

ZERO POPULATION GROWTH IS GOING TO HAPPEN!

We can debate whether we like zero population growth or don’t like it, it is going to happen; whether we debate it or not, whether we like it or not, it is absolutely certain that people could not live with that sort of density on the dry land surface of the earth.

therefore, today’s high birth rates will drop & today’s low death rates will rise… till we have exactly the same numbers and zero growth. That will happen in a relatively shorter time compared to 780 years!

What sort of options are available if we wanted to address the problem?

As you can see, the options that make the problem worse are “as sacred as motherhood” and devoted to the humane goal of lowering the death rate, whereas the ones that solve the problem are generally considered distasteful and not considered…

However, zero population growth is inevitable and is going to happen! It is obvious that Nature is goint to choose from the right hand list and we don’t have to do anything… Except be prepared to “live” with whichever option nature choses to solve the problem.

Or we can exercise the one option that is open to us: that option is to choose first from the right hand list.l We have to find something that we can go out and campaign for…

Here is the human dilemna for its future; everything we regard as good makes the problem worse; and everything we regard as bad, helps solve the problem.

Education so far is also making the problem worse as it has not reduced the ignorance of the problem.

Nature is already choosing from the right hand column: we’ve all heard of the ravages of the AIDS epidemic in Africa…

At a 6% rate of growth as in the 70′es & 80′es, Boulder, Colorado, will, in 70 years, be larger than Los Angeles. It is obvious that Boulder valley cannot accomodate the population of Los Angeles; therefore Boulder population growth is going to stop. the only question is: Will we be able to stop it before it is wall to wall to wall and we are all choking to death?

The answer is we probably won’t! Boulder elected officials, as most other elected officials and the rest of the population have no idea and do not comprehend what is going on:

A 1960′es brochure promoting Boulder, reported that “Doubling its population in 10 years, Boulder… is indeed a stable and prosperous community.”

WHAT!?

A doubling of the population in 10 years is stable?

This is indeed an idiotic statement! They don’t even understand the meaning of the words they put down on paper!

But, isn’t a bigger city a better city? The beauty of population problems is that their consequences are already visible around us. Someone that is today 10 years old, will be 60 years old in 50 years; there is no changing that, it is ineluctable and “predictable” – one of those instances where the future is already there – For the price of an airplane ticket, one can easily see what Boulder will be like by going over to Los Angeles.

Arithmetic, Population and Energy – 3

Sustainable Growth is a world class oxymoron.

Sustainable Growth is an insult to the intelligence of those that possess this rare quality.

An impossible theorem.

View also:

Sustainable growth, premises of an absurdity, part one, part two, part three, part four, part five.

Growth Is Not Development, Is Not Evolution – A distinction between growth, development, and evolution.

What does it really mean?

This is part two of a series that tears to shreds the absurdity that sustainable growth and compounded interest are the future of humanity. See the video at the bottom of the article.

In Part One we learned that some human problems are tied to the exponential function which people mostly do not understand in spite of its simplicity. The exponential function describes the size of anything that grows steadily – for instance 5% per year. It is a situation where the time required for a growing quantity to increase by a fixed fraction is a constant. It is ordinary steady growth. If it takes a fixed length of time to grow 5%, then it follows that it takes a longer fixed length of time to grow by 100% – This longer time is called the doubling time.

The doubling time is calculated by dividing 70 by the % growth per unit of time; for instance, for a 5% growth per year, doubling time = 70/5 = 14 years.

doubling time = 70 / growth rate.

The number 70 is approximately 100x Ln(2) = 69.3 (if you wanted to know the tripling time, you would use the natural log of number 3, etc…) but it is not essential to know that, if you just remember the number 70, you’ll know more than 99% of the population. Now, every time you see a percentage growth in a news story, you are able to easily calculate what is the doubling time and make sense of it. For example, if you heard that something has grown 7% per year for a decade, you would not be alerted, right? However, if you saw that “crime has doubled in 10 years”, you might worry and wonder “what the heck is happening?”

You are now able to compare both a 7% increase over 10 years or the doubling of crime in a decade as being exactly the same propositions. Doubling time = 70 / 7 = 10 years —>anything that grows at a 7% rate over 10 years, doubles in size.

More generally, after one doubling time, the growing quantity is up to twice its initial size, two doubling times is 4 times the initial size, three doubling times is 8 times, four is 16 times, five 32 times, six 64, seven 128, 256, 512… After just 10 doubling times, it is 1000 times larger than when it started!

One other powerful property of a steady growth is that the growth in any doubling time is greater than the total of all the preceding growth. i/e every time that the growing quantity doubles, it takes more than all that you’ve used in all the preceding growth. This is what President Carter was referring to in his famous speech on energy in 1977:

…”and in each of those decades (the 1950’s and 1960’s) more oil was consumed that in all of mankind’s previous history.”…

President Jimmy Carter, April 18th 1977

Last, we learned of an easy to calculate consequence of a steady growth over the length of a human life time (approx 70 years): at 1% growth, the quantity would double over a human lifetime; at 2%, it would be 4 times larger in a human lifetime; at 3%, 8 times more; at 4% 16 times, 5% 32 times, 6% 64 times, 7% 128 times, etc… Hummm, as Einstein remarked on the power of compounded growth, he may have mis-estimated its consequences…

Most people have zero understanding of the consequences of the simple arithmetic of steady growth.

Arithmetic, Population and Energy – 2

Sustainable Growth is a world class oxymoron.

A “Sustainable Growth” is an insult to the intelligence of those that possess this rare quality.

An impossible theorem.

View also:

Sustainable growth, premises of an absurdity, part one, part two, part three, part four, part five.

Growth Is Not Development, Is Not Evolution – A distinction between growth, development, and evolution.

A “Sustainable Growth” is an insult to the intelligence of those that possess this rare quality.

An impossible theorem.

This is the first part of a 50 days long, tearing to shreds of the absurdity that sustainable growth is the future of humanity, series on TheTrimTab.

We start with a conversation with A. Bartlett from the University of Colorado that establishes the premises of our series:

Arithmetic, Population and Energy – 1

View also:

Sustainable growth, premises of an absurdity, part one, part two, part three, part four, part five.

Growth Is Not Development, Is Not Evolution – A distinction between growth, development, and evolution.

THE LINE a true story

This work is reproduced with permission from Winston Rowntree at:

Viruscomix logo - Subnormality

Please take some time to go through Mr. Rowntree gallery (link above) – he has really good thought provoking comic strips that hit the nail square on the head — Let him know in the comments if you liked his art.

See also:

The Mandrake Mechanism Of Money Creation

The Bucky Call – Nobody But Yourself

The Information Contained In A Rose

=

AS YOU GET OLDER,

MONEY LOSES

VALUE

Your hat doesn't look that sexy any more Art!

OOOPS!

"Price " of the Dow Jones Industrial expressed in Gold (without Enron, Citi, GM and the likes!)

ARE YOU

BEING

FOOLED?

See also: