Thanks for mentioning Al Bartlett here. This video is very relevant to this post and worth watching. Al Bartlett is a brilliant man and does a wonderful job explaining the profound implications of misunderstanding exponential growth. Here is another link to his videos:
http://www.albartlett.org/presentations/arithmetic_populatio...
See also, Arithmetic, Population, and Energy, wherein Dr. Albert Bartlett comments on the inability of most people to reason about concrete examples of exponential growth:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vII-GxsrR2c