What Every Citizen Should Know About Our Planet.
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Transcript of What Every Citizen Should Know About Our Planet.
What Every Citizen Should Know
About Our Planet
Part Five:Riddles Of The Dinoflagellates
Copyright Randolph Femmer, 1999.All rights reserved.
What might the next 100 years be like?
Why might we see hundreds of thousands of extinctions in the decades ahead?
What is earth’s carrying capacity for an industrialized humanity?
A mental experiment helps us see the answers to these questions.
Suppose we place a one-celled
dinoflagellate in a bottle of salt water at
10:00 a.m.An Experim
ent
And suppose it doubles its numbers every 60
seconds.10:00 a.m.
Grows exponentially.
One Hour Later
11:00 a.m.
Completely Full.
All dead.
And suppose that at the end
of one hour(11:00 a.m.)
1. The bottle is completely full,
2. All the dinoflagellates are dead.
and
When Is The Bottle Half-Full?
The bottle is half-full at 10:59.
2: Click Here
1: Click Here
Answer:
10:58
75% Empty
Notice the jar is 75% empty…...
with only two minutes left.
88% Empty
Answer:
10:57
Notice the jar is 88% empty
with only three minutes left.
1 / 16th
Notice the container is approximately 93% empty..
even though only four minutes remain.
Notice that the jar is mostly empty with only three or four minutes to go.
Most of the growth in an exponential sequence
occurs at the end.
When do they realize they have a problem?
Assume the dinoflagellates are an intelligent species.
they analyze their world using linear mathematics
(“grocery-store arithmetic”)the extent of the problem
may become apparent only moments before disaster.
What if one of thedinoflagellates
knows exponential math
and issues a warning
at 10:56 when thejar is 93% empty?
93% Empty
What if the warning states that
the exponential growth,
if continued, will produce
disaster in only four more minutes?
Will the warning be accepted?
Ordismissed asnonsense?
What if one of the
dinoflagellates acts as a
spokesman.... but analyzes the problem incorrectly using linear
mathematics?
What if this spokesman
says “Nonsense.
The jar is only 1/16th full after 56 minutes.”
“Common sense tells us
we have another 56 minutes to go.... and then our
home jar will only be
2/16ths full.”
Which position “seems”
more logical?
An analysis using linear mathematics only seems more
logical because from ourearliest childhood, we have been
taught to “interpret the world”
using “grocery-store arithmetic.”
Now we can appreciate one of
the special dangers of exponential mathematics.
If citizens have little or no experience with exponential number
sequences, a population can find
itself in trouble.
Click Here
We are not interested in dinoflagellates in a bottle.
We are interested in our planet.
Answer 1
Answer 2
What is Earth’s carrying capacity for an industrialized humanity?
At what standard of living?
(If we are willing to eat a bowlful of grain three times a day -- instead of steak -- the Earth can
support more people.)
Do other species have a right to exist?
If we eliminate all Earth’s wildlife and wilderness....
so all its resources are diverted to humans...Earth can support many more people.
Do future generations have any rights?
Do those persons now living have the right to use all of the Earth’s oil and similar natural
resources?
Or do future generations have
rights to such resources as well?
Who is responsible for cleaning up the mess?
Do future generations have a right to inherit a clean,
unpolluted, and undefiled planet?
Or is it their responsibility to clean up
radioactive plutonium wastes that will remain
deadly for hundreds of thousands of years?
If our planet is stressed now, with a population of about six billion....
only half of whom are industrialized....
how many of us can be accommodated in the near future....
without overwhelming (breaking) critical components of Earth’s
biological machinery?
We can use the “riddle of the dinoflagellates” to help understand the times in which we live.
AnAnAnalysisAnalysis
Most Ph.D. biologists would express grave doubts about any attempt to
accommodate 20 billion on our planet in the next 100 years.
Assume (for discussion) that 20 Billion is beyond the planet’s near-term carrying
capacity.
Most recentlyour
“doubling time”was
forty years.
Scenario one imagines
that this previouspattern continues
into the near future.
Click Here
perhaps our future doublingswill also be about 40 years.
Since our most recent doubling time was about 40 years
and our doubling time is about 40 years.ten billion represents “one doubling” left….
40years
Then five billion represents “two doublings” left.
40years
40years
40years
40years
1987 2027 2067
scenario one occurs
Maybe less than 80 years?
Less than forty years to 10 billion?
And perhaps another forty years to 20 billion?
Nobody knows exactly.
scenario one occurs, we could be closer in time
to planetary catastrophe
than we are to the firstflight of the Wright brothers.
We assumed that the Earth’s carrying capacity was not critically exceeded until 20 billion.
That assumption is probably not correct.
Earth’s carrying capacity could be more …..
It might be.
but it might very well be
less.
Many demographers are slightly more optimistic.
For Example
Their Assumptions
Click Here
Reality Doesn’t Blink
Reality Doesn’t Blink
Can we solve our problem bycolonizing other planets?
Other PlanetsOther
Planets
Other PlanetsOther
Planets
Click Here
Suppose the dinoflagellates realize
their danger and discover three new bottles just like their home bottle.
Suppose they are even more fortunate, and all
environmental conditions are just like their home
bottle.
How much additional time do they buy for themselves?
Click Here
They only buy themselvestwo more minutes.
In one more minute (11:01)....
they double ....
and completely-fill a second bottle.
By 11:02 ....
they double again....
so that all four bottles are completely filled with dead dinoflagellates.
AnswerAnswer
The dinoflagellates fill their original bottle... And three more just like it ... In one hour and two minutes.
(Thank goodness We are smarter than dinoflagellates!)
Have A Nice Day!
What has been our most recent doubling time? When does most of the growth occur in an
exponential sequence? How is exponential mathematics like a fire-alarm? List 3 or 4 characteristics of exponential number
sequences. Do other species have a right to exist? Which jar do we inhabit?
Randolph Femmer
wishes to acknowledge and thankwishes to acknowledge and thank
who authored and developed this presentation.
