issues
support pci
The Bill McKibben Reader
Post Carbon Fellow Chris Martenson's book version of his Crash Course was reviewed by Erik Curren at Transition Voice.
But it wasn’t until I read Martenson’s chapter “Dangerous Exponentials” that I finally understood all the fuss about linear vs. exponential growth. It’s easy to see, for example, that if you start with 2+2=4, you can keep adding more twos to get six, eight, ten, etc. This kind of growth happens at a steady rate which is simple to plan for.
But the most crucial measures of the economy, energy and environment today are not growing in a straight line. Instead, they’re growing exponentially — and that’s what makes them really scary. “The greatest shortcoming of the human race is the inability to understand the exponential function,” said the physicist Albert Bartlett, quoted by Martenson.
“You happen to be surrounded by examples of exponential growth. And your future, like it or not, will be heavily shaped by their presence,” as Martenson explains. He then gives us the “Rule of 70,” a handy formula to easily calculate the rate at which something growing will double. With exponential growth at a steady rate, the doublings come closer together as time goes on.
press kit
what is pci?
