Dr. Albert Bartlett: Arithmetic, Population and Energy
Posted by Wraith on Friday, May 9, 2008
Last night, I downloaded a lecture given by Dr. Albert Bartlett four years ago called “Arithmetic, Population and Energy”. It’s absolutely brilliant. I’ve listened to it twice today. In the lecture, he applies simple arithmetic to growth rates and displays how unrealistic the growth-obsessed really are in an incredibly profound, interesting, and objective manner. Anyone who claims that we can just go on breeding and consuming like mad without consequence has far too much faith in technology, and does not understand the basic mathematics of growth in a system of finite space and resources.
Here’s an excerpt:
In the words of Winston Churchill, “Sometimes we have to do what is required.” First of all, as a nation we’ve got to get serious about renewable energy. As a a start, we ought to have a big increase in the funding for research in the development and dispersion of renewable energy. We have to educate all of our people to an understanding of the arithmetic and the consequences of growth, especially in terms of populations and in terms of the earth’s finite resources. We must educate people to recognise the fact that growth of populations and growth of rates of consumption of resources cannot be sustained. What’s the first law of sustainability? You’ve heard thousands of people talking endlessly about sustainability; did they ever tell you the first law? Here it is: population growth and/or growth in the rates of consumption of resources cannot be sustained. That’s simple arithmetic. Yet nobody that I’m encountering will tell you about that when they’re talking about sustainability. So I think it’s intellectually dishonest to talk about saving the environment, which is sustainability, without stressing the obvious fact that stopping population growth is a necessary condition for saving the environment and for sustainability.
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