Arithmetic, Population and Energy

by

Dr. Albert A. Bartlett, Professor Emeritus

Department of Physics

University of Colorado, Boulder

“The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function!”  

With these words, Professor Al Bartlett opens part one of a presentation in which he shows that a forgotten fundamental of the energy crisis is the elementary arithmetic of growth.

Our world’s technological societies operate on an assumption of continue steady growth of populations, resource consumption and the gross national product. Can these Growths continue? This question is answered by explaining the arithmetic of steady growth.

Professor Bartlett explains “doubling time,” which is the time it takes a growing quantity to double in size. He used doubling time to show how one can predict the consequences of steady growth in examples such a inflation and the population growth of our communities, our nation and the world.

In part two the program turns to the problem of steady growth in a finite environment: the situation we face aswe deplete our fossil fuel resources. When steady growth occurs in a finite environment, the end of these resources come s frighteningly fast.

These fact are compared to the wildly optimistic estimates and public pronouncements that appear in many highly regarded sources. This discrepancy between fact and opinion creates confusion about the energy situation.

The presentation concludes with recommendations of a course of action that we must adopt in order to make a smooth, rather than a painful, transition to a future of reduced population and reduced energy usage.

Video recorded in 2002