Albert Allen Bartlett (March 21, 1923 – September 7, 2013)[2] was an American professor of physics at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

His view was that modest percentage growth will equate to huge escalations over relatively short periods of time.

[9] Bartlett regarded what he viewed as the failure to understand exponential growth as "The Greatest Challenge" facing humanity, and promoted sustainable living; he was an early advocate on the topic of overpopulation.

He opposed the cornucopian school of thought (as advocated by people such as Julian Lincoln Simon), and referred to it as "The New Flat Earth Society".

Bartlett made statements relating to sustainability: "The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function."