Sustainable growth, they're kidding aren't they?

Developers and others are always saying how we NEED growth. Growth is GOOD. You can never have TOO much development.

As an example, check out Sydney Labor's plans for our city here.

Professor Albert Bartlett, emeritus Professor of Physics at the University of Colorado, believes sustainable growth is an oxymoron and here's an extract from a speech he gave.

Bacteria grow by doubling. One bacterium divides to become two, the two divide to become four, that becomes eight, 16 and so on. Suppose we had bacteria that doubled in number this way every minute. Suppose we put one of these bacterium into an empty bottle at eleven in the morning, and then observe that the bottle is full at twelve noon.

There's our case of just ordinary steady growth, it has a doubling time of one minute, and it's in the finite environment of one bottle.

I want to ask you three questions.

Question One: at which time was the bottle half full? Well, would you believe 11:59, one minute before 12, because they double in number every minute.

Question Two: if you were an average bacterium in that bottle at what time would you first realise that you were running out of space? Well, let's just look at the last minute in the bottle. At 12 noon it's full, one minute before it's half full, 2 minutes before it's one quarter full, then one eighth, then one sixteenth.

Question Three: Let me ask you, at 5 minutes before 12 when the bottle is only 3% full and 97% open space just yearning for development, how many of you would realise there's a problem?