-- A. Linhares
I've been invited to speak in the Getulio Vargas Foundation about my work related to tt30, and decided to introduce, in a brief 20 minutes, The Club of Rome, Limits to Growth, the coming global bargain, and what we've been doing these last years.
Imagine you are the owner of a large resort, with a beautiful lake. However, danger lurks in the horizon. Imagine you have a lillipad problem, with those growing at an exponential rate, doubling as each day passes. When would you find out that it was a serious problem? Consider three cases. If you found out whenever the lilipads reached 50% of the lake, you would have a single day to respond before they covered the entire lake. If you found at 25%, you would have only two days. If you found at 12.5%, three days. And if you found at 6.25%--c'mon, this is hypothetical, and you don't need to lie. Nobody would find it at 6,25%; but even if they did, that's only four days to respond!
This is the immense problem with exponential growth. We've been having exponential growth in numerous areas: population, economic activity, pollution, and so forth. How long do we have until a serious limit is reached? China's economy, for instance, has grown close to 12% this year alone. This means that they are, in practice, doubling their economic activity each 6 to 7 years. Thus, you might want to call the exponential explosion in industrial output circa 2000 as "China" (see slide 11 here). (And you can imagine this can only be at some consequence.)
I mentioned also that China is moving cities around like FGV would make minor redecorations. Below is Ed Burtynsky's TED prize video, which I wish I had had time to show in my presentation. This is sobering stuff, something you won't regret watching in full.
Comments