Most people are upbeat when talking about steady economic growth. It sounds like a good thing! More jobs! Woo hoo!! But there is a problem with steady growth.
Steady growth is exponential growth. If you have a savings account that pays 2% annually, we know it grows by 2% each year. And each year, the interest earns 2%. The compounding effect makes it exponential growth. So what’s the big deal? This is great news for savers – but not such great news for the planet. Please read on.
The doubling period for steady growth is the amount of time required for something growing steadily to double in size. It’s an easy calculation: simply divide 70 by the growth rate (percent per year). If the economy grows steadily a 2%, the time required for it to double is 35 years (70/2 = 35).
As shown above, when a doubling period occurs, more water is consumed in that doubling period than all prior periods combined. 16,000 is more than 8+4+2+1k. Again, great news for your savings account – but when you are talking about the sustainability of the planet and resource consumption growing steadily, this is not good news.
You may have heard the riddle about lily pads doubling in a pond every day (the doubling period is one day). On the 20th day, the pond is full. What day is the pond half full? The answer is (spoiler alert) ……day 19. On day 19, imagine some frogs growing concerned that they need more room in the pond. So, they formed a search party and luckily found a pond that was 4 times larger to place the growing number of lily pads. On day 20 they were very excited about this lucky discovery of a pond four times the size – they had four times more room! The frogs were thrilled – until they realized how many more days they had left. Time was up at the end of day 22.
Most elected officials don’t understand this concept. What do you think the frogs were thinking on day 19? Were they worried that the pond would be overrun? There was still half a pond remaining! For their entire lives, growth wasn’t a concern. It was always ok.
While all resources we consume are not being exhausted at an exponential rate – some are. We are seeing resources already being constrained. In many ways, today is day 19. Finding more resources doesn’t solve the problem; it postpones the problem for a short time. Using way fewer resources and reusing the ones we can is the only solution that works when resources are finite. This is where efficiency, conservation, recycling, and renewable energy become extremely important. Day 19.
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