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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.