Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site dciem.UUCP Path: utzoo!dciem!mmt From: mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor) Newsgroups: net.politics Subject: Re: the defeathering of Malthus Message-ID: <674@dciem.UUCP> Date: Mon, 6-Feb-84 17:06:08 EST Article-I.D.: dciem.674 Posted: Mon Feb 6 17:06:08 1984 Date-Received: Mon, 6-Feb-84 17:59:23 EST References: <2084@watarts.UUCP> Organization: D.C.I.E.M., Toronto, Canada Lines: 28 ============ Now, if we substitute our necissarily exponential death rate for Mr. Malthus's arithmetic or regular death rate we have a fromula which subtracts one exponential from another. Any grade 11 student who has attended one third of her/his math classes will indicate to you that the result is necessarily a regular or arithmetic function. Which is to say that the supposedly arithmetic growth of food resources is entirely adequate for the the arithmetically growing population. ============ I suggest you retake your grade 11 maths exams. The derivative of an exponential is also an exponential. Malthus must be right in the end, even if he was unable to foresee the Green Revolution. An arithmetic increase in food supplies may be growing faster than an exponential increase in population at some point in time, but inevitably the exponential catches up in the end. A further point to consider is that the increase in agricultural productivity has been in good part due to the provision of non-solar energy (in the form of fertilizers, fuel for farm machinery and so forth). The resources to feed this energy into agriculture are rapidly running down, so it is most unlikely that even an arithmetic increase in food supply will continue for long. A drastic decrease is more likely over the 50-150 year time span. -- Martin Taylor {allegra,linus,ihnp4,uw-beaver,floyd,ubc-vision}!utzoo!dciem!mmt