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The magic and misery of exponential growth

The magic and misery of exponential growth. Derek Deighton. Sounds Technical!. Well it is and it isn’t Think the maths and it can be Ignore the maths and it’s just part of our everyday experience Flowers growing Bacteria (population)Growing Coffee in a cup getting cold

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The magic and misery of exponential growth

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  1. The magic and misery of exponential growth Derek Deighton

  2. Sounds Technical! • Well it is and it isn’t • Think the maths and it can be • Ignore the maths and it’s just part of our everyday experience • Flowers growing • Bacteria (population)Growing • Coffee in a cup getting cold • Your money in the bank growing • It’s just a technical name for steady change

  3. Growing Radishes – the magic • Watch in this video how the growth accelerates towards the end • This is exponential growth • A natural phenomenon • Something so familiar to us we don’t see it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d26AhcKeEbE&NR=1

  4. Growing your Money • Suppose you put £100 in the bank at 10% interest and checked the balance after a year. • How much would you expect to find? • Exactly - £110 • After 2 years? • £120? • Right £121 • That’s compound interest – another name for exponential growth!

  5. A game on a Chessboard 1 2 4 8 16 32 64 ? Post-It Notes on a Chessboard 64 = 6mm

  6. So how high is the pile? • 1km • 10km • 1000km • No, it would reach 6 times further from the Earth than the Sun • 894,000,000km • Shine a light from the top and the light would take 48 minutes to reach the ground!

  7. Here’s another fact 1 2 4 8 16 32 64 The sum of any number of squares is always less than the next one What else is this saying ? The amount consumed in any doubling is more than has ever been consumed before.

  8. The Oil Curve – the misery

  9. The Oil Curve – the misery THE IMPOSSIBLITY WE HAVE USED 1 TRILLION BARRELS OF OIL OVER THE PAST 150 YEARS, THE EASY HALF, AND WE ARE NOW TRYING TO CONSUME THE SAME OR MORE OVER THE NEXT 30 YEARS!!

  10. The First law of sustainability • Dr Albert Bartlett proposed this as the 1st law of sustainability • In a finite environment steady (exponential) growth is unsustainable • Flowers die • Your money can’t be allowed to grow forever • Cancers kill their host body • Oil and other resources are depleted • Population will die back A Copy of Dr Bartlett’s essay, Arithmetic, Population and Energy can be downloaded at http://trailblazerbusinessfutures.wordpress.com/2009/06/14/the-one-planet-equation-as-an-economic-driver

  11. The Oil Curve–the ADVENTURE • We have two choices • We can ignore the impossibility • Or we can work to ‘keep ahead of the oil curve’ • Helping balance the One Planet Equation • Are we doomed to behave like the ostrich? • Or are we prepared to CarbonAct?

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