The accumulating crises of our time

• "A misunderstanding of exponential arithmetic is one of the most dramatic shortcomings of mankind".

• (Professor Albert Bartlett 1997)

The problem of exponential growth

• Doubling time– 7.5% p.a. = 10yr doubling time

• The chessboard and the Persian(?) King

• Fold a piece of paper

• How thick after 40 folds?

The lily pad

• Lily grows exponentially

• Will fill pond in 30 days

• When will it half fill?

• Imagine wonderful discovery of 3 new ponds!!!

• To keep the system running, the discovery of ponds has to accelerate

Reindeer

• 29 introduced to St Matthew’s Island, Alaska in 1944

• Summer 1957 1,350• Summer 1963 6,000• Summer 1964 <50• NB evidence indicates

slowdown of growth prior to 1963

Overshoot

• Temporary abundance

• Temporary overpopulation

• Crash and…– Return to equilibrium?– Extinction?– Bounce?

Overshoot 2

• Problem is absence of feedback

• System goes beyond limits

• One limit becomes critical

Liebig’s law

• “Law of the minimum”

• Growth is limited by the scarcest resource

• Capacity limits

Human population

Limits to Growth

• Club of Rome report 1970• Proven correct over last 35

years• Computer modelling• Once one problem is

solved, another rears its head

Human population 2

• Additions peaked in 1987

• Growth is slowing down– Each year c 2m less

added

• Probably now peak 2025-2030

Human footprint

• How many earths?

• http://www.myfootprint.org/

• 3bn sustainable??

Sober conclusions

• Either we change our way of life and abandon growth

• Or we hit the wall and suffer collapse

• God is bringing our way of life to an end

• We either follow God’s will, or we are destroyed

• NB Growth is not the same as development

Possible limits 1

• Energy– But we’ve talked about that one

Possible limits 2

• Water

• 1/3 population ‘water stressed’

• Australia: Murray-Darling basin in 6th year of drought

• Wheat harvest collapsing – world stocks at lowest for 25 years…

Lima in Peru

Ogallala

• On average being used up 4X replacement rate

• Southern areas 100X replacement rate

• Major water source for ‘bread basket’– 6m hectares irrigated

Middle East…

• Of 14 ME countries 11 are already in ‘water scarcity’

• Saudi obtains ¾ of need from groundwater ‘mining’

Possible limits 3

• Food

• Per capita peak in 1985

• 1 in 8 worldwide malnourished

• 30% of sub-Saharan Africa

• 40m pa die of starvation

• Absolute peak in 15yrs? (LTG)

Possible limits 3b

• Soil• Land

– Cultivated land per person halved 1950 - 1995

Possible limits 4

• Pollution

• LTG model 1 doubled resources – crashed from pollution

• More vulnerable to disease?– Asian flu– Ebola– Etc etc etc

Possible limits 5

• Global Warming

The accumulating crises of our time

• Worldwatch Institute

• “The Litany”

• Litany is often wrong

• More often irrelevant

Bjorn Lomborg

• The Sceptical Environmentalist

• Remember Peak Oil• Point of maximum

available energy

Consequences

• Signs of crisis are all around us

• If only we have eyes to see

• Blinded by idolatry

• Idolatry = inability to receive feedback

Consequences 2

• Resource Wars• "Oil wars are certainly

not out of the question.“– US Army Corps of

Engineers, Report on Peak Oil, 2005

• ‘Fourth Generation Warfare’– Eg Hezbollah vs Israel

Consequences 3

• Collapse of many states– See: Shield of Achilles

• Organised crime– Bottom up

• (the future is local)

– Drugs

– Human trafficking and slavery

• Therefore terrorism

Consequences 4

• Mass migration• Hordes of starving

millions outside the wall

• Hordes of frightened westerners inside the wall

• The wall won’t last • George A Romero

The Four Horsemen

• White: conquering from without

• Red: battle

• Black: famine

• Pale: pestilence

• “They were given power over a fourth of the earth to kill by sword, famine and plague…” (Rev 6.8)

• "If a path to the better there be, it begins with a full look at the worst."-- Thomas Hardy