Robert Bériault

1. Robert Bériault PEAK OIL AND THE FATE OF HUMANITY Chapter 6 – How Growth Feeds on Growth

2. It’s amazing how a population can grow and before you know it, it’s out of control.

3. Very true. This leads us to the story of exponential growth…

4. Every February Canadian financial institutions clamour for our GST investment dollars • They invariably show us how much money we can have if we start investing when we’re young

5. What they teach us is the wonders of compounding • Compounding is basically the ability to earn interest on the interest • Mathematically it’s called exponential growth Exponential curve

6. With exponential growth last year’s growth will make this year’s growth bigger The dollars earned as interest last year… …will earn dollars this year and those dollars will earn more dollars in the future.

7. They’ll show us a graph like this one: After 50 years of compounding, your $1000 investment is now worth $47,000 All kinds of things grow exponentially, including population

8. To illustrate the power of exponential growth: …suppose that in 1608, when Samuel de Champlain founded Québec City, he had somehow forgotten $1 in a savings account earning 5% annually: Well, if you could prove you were his only surviving relative, in 2009 you’d inherit the princely sum of $299,033,351

9. Populations of living things grow exponentially too The individuals born last generation will produce offspring themselves and so will their offspring in the future Global Human Population Growth

10. The danger of exponential growth • All living things live in a limited space, whether it be a test tube in a lab, an island, a forest, a valley, a planet. • There will always be an element that will place a limit on growth. • Usually the limit to growth will be food, but it can also be water, air or inability for the organism to get rid of its own waste.

11. The danger of exponential growth • Most living things live in equilibrium with their food sources and their predators. • But if an organism suddenly finds itself in an environment that has an abundance of food, it will reproduce until it has used up all the supply, overshooting the carrying capacity of its space . The population will then crash.

12. Let’s take an example Suppose you’re a biologist It’s 11 o’clock You inoculate one bacterium onto a Petri dish Remember, there are no predators. So the organism will reproduce until all the nutrient is used up.

13. Meet our little specimen. In this scenario our little bacterium divides every minute In other words, the population of the petri dish will double every minute

14. Bacteria reproduce by division. • One bacterium divides into two. • Those two divide into four, etc. • Every minute in our example the number doubles. The little critters are drawn out of scale for your convenience

15. And in our example the bacteria will exactly fill the entire dish in 60 minutes Checking the dish Four bacteria Dish is full Nutrient all gone

16. Here’s a tricky question: What time will it be when the dish reaches half full of bacteria? Bacteria

17. If you answered 11:59 you’re right on! Bacteria

18. Amazingly, at five minutes to twelve: 97% of the space is vacant! …if you were a bacterium in the dish you wouldn’t have a clue that in another five divisions you and your buddies would run out of real estate!

19. If some guy had urged Easter Islanders to limit their population when three quarters of the trees were still standing… …he would have been called a Malthusian doomsayer - he would have been ridiculed …which is what happened to Paul and Anne Erlich in 1968 The Population Bomb, Paul and Anne Erlich

20. When half the trees were still standing: Some elderly Rapa Nui must have gazed at the valley below from the top of a mountain He would have remembered the landscape of his youth when there were just a few clearings here and there He would have been struck by the realization that the islanders should stop destroying their life support systems

21. He would have tried to warn his people that they could not continue cutting down trees this way. We can just imagine the cries of the lumbermen: “Jobs before trees!” The stone carvers: “Statue building is the foundation of our civilization”. The religious leaders: “Rapa Nui women must produce more babies to build more statues for the gods”. The politicians: “We need more people to stimulate economic growth and to support our elders”. When half the trees were still standing

22. What time is it on Earth… What time is it on Earth…now that we’ve used up half of the world’s trees and petroleum? Will our technological civilization duplicate the tragic fate of the Rapa Nui?

23. After a population has exceeded its carrying capacity: • It continues to increase until the limiting resource is depleted. • Then there is a sudden decline in population through starvation, disease and fighting. • If the environment wasn’t irreparably harmed, the population will start increasing again. • If irreversible harm was done, the population can either go extinct or survive at a lower level because the carrying capacity has been reduced.

24. Do you think the Earth has reached that point?

25. There’s no clear answer to that question. Ecologists, demographers and other scientists have been studying this problem. They calculate that we’ve exceeded the Earth’s carrying capacity by a factor of two to four. Google some of the big names in this field: William Rees William R. Catton Jr. Paul R. Erlich Garret J. Hardin Dennis and Donella Meadows Kenneth Smail Mathis Wackernagel

26. We started overshoot at 2.5 billion in 1950 Carrying capacity range Some experts estimate the carrying capacity of our industrial society may be as little as half a billion.

27. Three possible outcomes Outcome 1 This would have taken place if we had stabilized population when carrying capacity or the world had been reached . This outcome is no longer possible Graph from: “Limits to Growth – A 30 Year Update”,Dennis and Donella Meadows

28. Three possible outcomes Outcome 2 This outcome would be possible if we haven’t irreparably harmed the biosphere and start decreasing our population now. Once population is stable, we would switch from a growth economy to a steady state economy. Graph from: “Limits to Growth – A 30 Year Update”,Dennis and Donella Meadows

29. Books that explain how we might achieve Outcome 2 • Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization by Lester R. Brown • Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Updateby Donella H. Meadows, Jorgen Randers, Dennis L. Meadows

30. Three possible outcomes Outcome 3 We do nothing. We are approaching the top of the population curve. Once at the top, our population will crash. Likely to fall to between 2 billion and half a billion. If we do not take strong measures now to stop growth, Nature will take the decision out of our hands and do it for us. Graph from: “Limits to Growth – A 30 Year Update”,Dennis and Donella Meadows

31. At this point, let me mention: • We are adding 75 million people to the planet every year. • Eighty additional cities the size of Ottawa have to be housed, clothed and fed every year. • That’s equivalent to 2 1/2 Canadas every year.

32. The life support pie is shrinking: The foundation of all agriculture, the soil, is diminishing in all parts of the world Forests are disappearing Aquifers are being pumped dry Fisheries are being decimated Biodiversity is being extinguished Rivers are drying up

33. A shrinking pie: Already divided into 6+ billion and now being divided into 200,000 more pieces every day!!!

34. In the words of Kenneth Boulding, Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist

35. We must seek answers to the questions: • Have we done irreparable harm to our life support systems? • Are we going to halt population growth before we reach the same fate Easter Island did? • Is there still time?

36. How in the world did we get ourselves into this situation? Chapter 7 provides some insight into the actions that have taken us to the brink of disaster. Click icon for Chapter Choice