Last Wednesday night I went to a meeting of the local Portland Peak Oil group, which meets in the St. Francis Church dining hall over on SE Pine every week. The main reason was just to check out the group, since Peak Oil is an issue we should all take seriously. But, I was also very interested in a film they were showing that evening, Arithmetic, Population and Energy.
The film is a lecture given by Dr. Albert Bartlett, a retired professor of physics from the University of Colorado. It’s an introduction on the arithmetic of steady growth over relatively short periods of time in a finite environment. Fascinating lecture, really, and quite funny, especially if you like sarcasm delivered by old nerds in bolo ties.
The most interesting thing about it for me was what a basic level of mathematics he discusses, and how shocking it really is. It probably shouldn’t be shocking, and we probably should have all covered these facts in grade school, but somehow we didn’t. At least I didn’t. Perhaps that has something to do with the fact that it tends to undermine the basis for our global economy, i.e. perpetual growth.
The film is definitely worth watching, and both the video and audio can be found here. And, like I said, it’s quite funny at times. It had me laughing out loud anyway, in a whistling past the graveyard, oh my God we’re so screwed kinda way. But hey, when it comes to peak oil, I’ll take all the laughs I can get.