I heard another enlightened lecture today, about another flood of problems (pi) — on the coming scarcity of water.
And it again occurs to me as a scientist who looks for basic causes, there are two huge underlying causes of the planet’s difficulties these days: the exponential growth of population of Homo sapiens and that of CO2 in the atmospheres and oceans (leading to exponential global atmospheric warming).
A scientist knows that an exponential growth — something is growing in proportion to something else to an exponential power, like x = y2 — is unsustainable.
This is because x is heading toward infinite and there is not enough room for that. The bigger the exponent, the faster the crisis. Something huge is bound to happen.
In the case of CO2, we are heading toward a planet that is uninhabitable for nearly all life forms (certain to include fragile Homo Sap) — the Sixth Extinction.
In the case of this culprit’s infinite growth, it is manageable by famine or war. We know better these days of the agonies of war, so perhaps we are successfully avoiding another world war, but famine is just around the corner.
Most of the world will be worse off than the Great Northwest. So prepare for another 2-million people in Washington by 2050, as the world heads for our bountiful? food and water region. That will certainly be too many. (see about 10 old blogs on this.) One example: