HOW MUCH TIME DO WE HAVE?
It is so strange that the answer to our demise comes from a straight-forward overall calculation that seems so simple because the equation consists of just three key primary factors that can be used to theoretically calculate our species expected long term existence in any environment - where there are determinable finite resource inventories and constraints; big or small - including the resource inventories of our whole planet.
The theoretical calculation goes roughly like this - there are A current quantities of total combined energy and material resource units available to use for survival on this planet; there are B probable quantities of people units existing in an annual time period going forward, and they will each in turn consume C total resource units per capita annually. Then just divide A total resource units available by B times C (= total of expected annual consumption of resource units of all people) to calculate D - and the answer then tells us what the probable expected duration or the number of years that the species can roughly expect the resources to last and provide for its survival.
Expected Time Remaining Formula
D = A\ ( B x C)
To illustrate; suppose there are 100 million combined energy and material resource units available for consumption from an environment and 10,000 people exist there and they consume 100 resource units annually. Therefore, every year 1 million resource units are consumed. The equation calculates that there is roughly 100 years left if this people/consumption pattern is continued under the constraints and numeric inventories of this environment.
INDUSTRIAL EXPERIMENT FINAL CURTAIN
Admittedly, this result is a ballpark figure, but it is still close enough to draw our attention to the critical metrics we need to manage and their resultant and variable timelines. Moreover, based on our general knowledge of energy and material resource inventories - we can reasonably assert that we don't have thousands or even hundreds of years left to manage these factors and get the equation right. Time is quickly running out...
To add even a little more acceleration to the mathematically expected outcomes - also apply exponential growth laws to the B and C factors or inversely to the A factor and you dramatically and quickly reduce the total resources available for consumption and thus the amount of survival time remaining.
To sum up - you can never defeat the combined numerical laws of mathematics and physics - I guess Moses left the tablets with these commandments behind somewhere on the old hill. Yet, from the beginning we were taught by secular doctrines that we are playing a positive sum economic game with a guiding mantra of infinite growth that is authoritative and unquestionable - when the true reality is we were actually engaged in a negative finite sum game rapidly using up the planet's scarce resources - that is consequently now heading towards a terrible conclusion.
T A McNeil
First Financial Insights Group
Further Background:
Exponential Growth Arithmetic, Population and Energy, Dr. Albert A. Bartlett
