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Sample E1AH Answers for Quiz 1 on Jan 13 2017
In my opinion, Friedman begins his Chapter Six with the
quote in the question because of 3 reasons: 1) he wants to
make a point that climate change will be accelerating
exponentially due to rapid population growth, 2) he agrees
with the statement by Grantham, and 3) he wants to propose
a solution based on it.
One of the main concepts emphasized over and over
again in this chapter is the power of many, where many
refers to us mankind who will be reproducing at an incredible
rate. Just as compounding interest on a savings account
returns you earn more and more dividends each time,
people will have children, and children will have even more
children. It is expected that our population will reach 9.7
billion people by 2050, and all of us will be consuming a lot
more of Mother Nature's capital because, as Friedman's
writing demonstrates, "more and more of those 9.7 billion are
moving to large urban areas and up the socioeconomic
ladder into their respective middle classes—where they will
drive more cars, live in more and bigger homes, consume
more water and electricity, and eat more protein.” That
means that when Friedman quotes the prediction that
"Uganda's population will have increased 20-fold, and
Niger’s 30-fold," our exploitation of resources will not only
increase 30-fold, but perhaps 50-fold or even 60-fold,
judging from the current pace of our technological
advancements and urbanization.
But of course because we humans are bad at the
implications of compound math, most of us do not see the
ramifications of climate change that are not at all far away
from us. This seems to be the message Friedman is trying to
send. He agrees to the quote and supports it with the reason
that if we weren't bad at compound math, we would be
taking climate change a lot more seriously now. To illustrate
this, he quotes, in the introduction, the saying by Robert
Litwak, a vice president of the Wilson Center: “During the
Cold War we wrote a blank check to deter a low-probability
event—a nuclear war—with high consequence, now we
won’t even put a nickel [tax] on gasoline to deter a highprobability event—climate change—with high consequence.”
Similarly, his introduction to the concept of a black elephant,
a significant problem that no one wants to address, also
proves his stance that we do not understand the
consequences of this acceleration.
The quote by the financial investor Jeremy Grantham
also has one more thing to do with Chapter Six: it is
connected Friedman's proposal of what we should do to fix,
or at least delay, this enormous-scale, compounding issue.
He proposes that a compounding problem needs to be
countered with compounded solutions. "[T]he only way to
confront these compounding threats before they tip the
wrong way is with a compounding commitment to
stewardship, a compounding willingness to act collectively to
do compounding research and make compounding
investments in clean energy production and more efficient
consumption," writes the author. He goes further to assert
that in addition to these things, we should compound our
commitment to woman's education and empowerment
because if we don't, "we will be the first generation of
humans for whom later will be too late."
I believe this quote is used in the beginning of Chapter 6 to
foreshadow the ignorance our modern world has with climate
change and the implications of the causes and effects. The book
goes on to later explain a "black elephant". The term black
elephant is used to explain the combination of a black swan and
elephant in the room. It is showing that our world can see the
issues of climate change and the large impacts that it has on our
environment. Yet, many people do not want to address the issue.
This is directly tied back to the opening quote. The math is
accessible and clear, our world can not handle our vastly
expanding industries and population. The combination of these two
factors alone are a cause for mass destruction.
The quote also being by an investor speaks to the issue our world
Market. The Market is expanding at an accelerating pace and so is
our environment. Since the Industrial Revolution, the demand for
technology and industries have been higher than ever in human
history. Just as Adam Sweidan said, "we have reaped the rewards
of technological progress without due concern for its unintended
consequences." This ever-growing demand for merchandise has
forced our industries to extract from our natural recourses to keep
the economy growing. It has also forced displaced humans and
created more social inequality. Our society has adopted the
practice of having a quick reward but longterm problem. This ideal
has just pushed our environment onto the back burner. Yet, it is
more clear than ever that we must redirect our focus back onto
Mother Nature.
Humans may indeed be, "wickedly bad at dealing with the
implications of compound math", but our world has never changed
so quickly. We are simply not trained to think that this is possible.
Our world has always been limitless and the environment has
always been able to bounce back. Although, our population has
never expanded as vastly. Many baby boomers in their lifetime
will see the population alone triple. The many people that we have
now are also consuming more than ever. This ties back to the
"compound math" equation that people do not want to address.
More people plus more demand and minus fewer recourses does
not equal out to a good equation for our planet. Additionally, the
populations within areas of Africa, India and China can not support
the growth. It is common for women to have on average seven
children. If these seven children go onto having seven more
children and so on then our population by 2050 could reach 10
billion. Unfortunately, these children are being raised in areas with
limited recourses. Thus, we must create more resources and
materials for them. This would force us to export, which is also
harmful for our planet.
I believe that if we still have hope though. It is vital that we
educate the world on these "compound math" equations. We are
currently in the Holocene epoch and heading towards the
Anthropocene epoch. If we live within our means though, we can
stay in our current Holocene epoch. It would require us to live
within our planetary boundaries and act as one human race. This is
something our world has never seen before. But, our world has
also never seen our current environmental situation before either.
There are constantly new inventions such as solar energy, wind
power and much more that are created and improved everyday.
These recourses could greatly influence our current equation if
implemented and change our results. Just as Sylvia Earle stated,
"What we do right now, or fail to do, will determine the future- not
just for us, but for all life on Earth." The time to act is now and not
later. Later we may be saying that it is too late.
Friday, January 13, 2017 11:28 AM
In finance compounding is the ability of an asset to
generate earnings, which are then reinvested in order to
generate their own earnings. In general terms
compounding something can intensify its negative or
positive aspects. Climate change, deforestation, biodiversity loss, population growth, etc have been
compounding over the years at a mind blowing rate and
this is having a ton of negative effects on our planet
and environment.
After the Pleistoscene epoch also known as "the
Great Ice Age" ended geologists tell us that we
entered something called the Holocene epoch.
According to Johan Rockstrom who is one of the
worlds leading Earth scientists, it was the Holocene
epoch that allowed our ancestors to emerge from
their paleolithic caves and create seasonal
agriculture, domesticate animals and erect cities and
towns. This is known to be a miraculously stable and
warm period in which we maintained just the right
amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, acidity
in the oceans, coral in the sea ,etc to support human
life and a steadily growing world population. Now we
starting to enter a different era. We are enetering an
era of uncertainty and confusion. No one can predict
what might happen, because we have never been
there before as humans. We are creating
accelerating stresses on mother nature which are
pushing it out of its comfort zone.
Over the years we have breached several planetary
boundaries because of which our planet and we as a
species will face terrible consequences.in the years
to come. Climate change is one of the boundaries
that we have already breached. Climate scientists
believe that we need to stay below 350 parts per
million of carbon dioxide in the earths atmosphere if
we wanted to stay below the 2 degrees rise in global
average temperature. We are now at more than 400
parts per million and it is continuing to increase. The
record breaking temperature of 163 degree
fahrenheit in Bandar Mahshahr, Iran is an example
of this. Another planetary boundry we have breached
is deforestation. Scientists estimate that we must
maintain around 75 percent of the Earth's original
forests, we are now down to 62 percent. Biodiversity and bio-geochemical flows are other
planetary boundaries that we have breached. These
effects on the environment have been compounding
or accelerating over the years.
The population of our planet is increasing at an
unprecedented rate. It is estimated to increase from
7.2 billion today to about 9.7 billion in 2050. This is a
staggering 2.5 billion increase in just over 30 years.
Because of this there will be technological, social and
environmental forces in the hands of more and more
people which will have an accelerating impact on
mother natures body. The fertilizer consumption,
water use, tropical forest loss, energy use, paper
production has all been increasing over the years.
This is why the effect that it has been having on the
mother nature has been compounding and is
expected to continue to do so. Vast acceleration of
human impact is driving us out of the Holocene
period.