Witicism aside, im not sure your critique holds any water. Runaway growth in any context is something to pay close attention to. In fairness, the superset of examples chosen is not objective (nor could it be, practically) - plenty of datasets could be made to show aspects of life increasing or decreasing linearly, or quadratically, or with some weird quasi-sinusoidal period.

That doesn't take away from the impact the chosen data has. It's not that all life follows a hockey stick curve in time - its simply that we're in the process of beating the planet to death with a few of them.