Dr. Albert Bartlett: Arithmetic, Population and Energy

This lecture makes clear how using arithmetic and the exponential function can make accurate predictions in any situation in which there is steady growth. Hearing that the population or crime or fossil fuel consumption has been growing by 3% or 5% or 7% per year, does not really mean much to an ordinary and uninformed person. However, learning that they have doubled seems much more significant, mostly because it is comprehendible. Finding a doubling time is important and the number to remember is 70, because if you divide 70 by any percent of growth per year this will tell you the doubling time. For example if fossil fuel consumption were to grow by 7% each year in a decade the consumption will have doubled, this is exponential growth using arithmetic. Bartlett uses the exponential function to show energy consumption growth, population growth and their doubling times. Then he uses their doubling times to predict accurately for instance what the energy consumption would be in a certain amount of years- this is done through out the lecture to attain the appalled/stunned effect for many situations. A strong parallel to peak oil was an example given about bacteria growth. Since, there was a steady growth, with a doubling time of one minute and in a finite environment of a plastic container it is clearly comparable to the unavoidable oil peak. I will give the exact numbers Bartlett did in order to depict a tangible situation. In one hour, from 11-12:00, the bacteria has filled the entire bottle, with a doubling time of one minute. This is clearly a finite amount of space, so when does the bacterium realize it is running out of space? The fact is that the environment is finite, realizing that you need more space and discovering more of it, is not a long term solution and in this case it is an extremely short term solution. As Bartlett shows a sustainable society is not achieved by finding and utilizing more space, when the bacterium discover tree more bottles of the same size it only gives them two more minutes until the environments carrying capacity is reached and soon exceeded, by 12:02 all four bottles are full. Merely because you discover four or five times the amount you previously had- using the exponential function and doubling time this only means that you now have some more time before crisis hits again. When this inevitable crisis comes again you can simply make new discoveries, but the time you buy with these new discoveries gets smaller and smaller because of exponential growth. In terms of fossil fuels which are a finite resource at some point there won’t be any more oil reserves to discover. When will we stop the unsustainable exploitation needed to maintain our civilization?
” Now you don't need any more arithmetic than this to evaluate the absolutely contradictory statements that we've all heard and read from experts who tell us in one breath we can go on increasing our rates of consumption of fossil fuels and then in the next breath don't worry, we will always be able to make the discoveries of new resources that we need to meet the requirement of that growth.”