Survival

[rockytriton]

You then don't think that we are doing enough damage to the environment to cause a serious ecological threat to our own existance?

 

Let me guess, you're in your first or second year of college... :rolleyes:

 

Just try not to get sucked into one of those eco-terrorist cults like green peace

[bumab]

Let me guess, you're in your first or second year of college... :rolleyes:

 

Just try not to get sucked into one of those eco-terrorist cults like green peace

 

...and try not to let YOUR willful ignorance destroy the planet :naughty:

 

Greenpeace is hardly a cult. I certainly don't agree with everything they do, but at least they stand for something other then their own standard of living...

[bumab]

Hence my guess humans will survive on Earth until the sun goes supernovae.

 

I think we'll survive that long too. We're just to darn clever to get wiped out easily anymore. And there's quite a lot of us. But the trick is keeping other things alive with us. We could certainly maintain a viable population living off rice, beans, and rat meat, but it doesn't sound especially fun.

[Little Bang]

Rocky, would you mind telling us what your response has to do with the price of eggs in China?

 

Take a look.

 

http://www.google.com/url?sa=U&start=1&q=http://www.clearlight.com/~mhieb/WVFossils/last_400k_yrs.html&e=9797

[CraigD]

…Hence my guess humans will survive on Earth until the sun goes supernovae. …

A minor factual quibble: the sun will never go supernova. It’s a main sequence star of middling mass, which means it will become a red giant, then a white dwarf. This has no bearing on your line of thought, but a science forum seems the place to be a bit obsessive about scientific accuracy.

I think we'll survive that long too. We're just to darn clever to get wiped out easily anymore. And there's quite a lot of us. But the trick is keeping other things alive with us. We could certainly maintain a viable population living off rice, beans, and rat meat, but it doesn't sound especially fun.

I think it’s dangerous hubris to think we’re too clever to be abruptly extinguished as a species. An outlandish, yet not unreasonable, and in fact historically evidenced, possibility of such an extinction is the collision of Earth and a massive sub-planetary object.

 

Current data strongly suggests that very early in the Earth history, it suffered a “big whack” from a mars size object that reduced it to rubble. There appears to be no better explanation for the composition of the Moon, which is just too similar to the Earth than can be accounted for by its much smaller mass.

 

Of course, the solar system is a less crowded space than it once was, with no stray Mars-sized planets about, and large collision now very rare. None the less, the solar system is full of objects massive enough that a collision with them would spell the extinction of all earthly macrofauna, with orbit that appear to be pretty chaotic. Though difficult to predict, such a collision is certainly possible.

 

The probability of such a catastrophe in any given year is miniscule, but in the far future, the Earth may well be a death trap for any species unable either to leave, or control the orbits of moon-sized objects.

[Little Bang]

Over the past 400,000 years the CO2 levels have never exceded 290ppm. Now just in the past 100 years it has gone over 370ppm and no one seems to think that is a problem. When you make a major change in the amount of the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere something is going to happen.

[CraigD]

Over the past 400,000 years the CO2 levels have never exceded 290ppm. Now just in the past 100 years it has gone over 370ppm and no one seems to think that is a problem. When you make a major change in the amount of the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere something is going to happen.

I think you’re right, and that not only is something going to happen, something is already happening.

 

A few things that have already happened:

• A decrease in area of the North polar ice cap. The Northwest passage, an impossible explorer’s quest in the 19th century, can now be traveled via commercial tour ship
  
• Increased South polar ice break-off. The largest ever southern icebergs have been spotted in the past few years.
  
• A decrease in salinity of the water in various parts of the world’s oceans. Some, though not a catastrophic, impact on sea life.

A few things I think are likely to happen soon:

• The warm Gulf current off the east coast of the United States will begin cooling and submerging further south.
  
• Farm productivity in the US Northeast and Mid-atlantic states will be reduced by colder average temperatures, and shorter growing seasons. New Jersey and Maryland vegetables will have a hard time remaining price-competitive with California and foreign imports.
  
• Major low-elevation cities such as New York and New Orleans will face increasing cost in maintaining buried electrical, communication, water, sewage, and other utilities, due to increased flooding of the conduits for these utilities.
  
• Major low-elevation countries, such as the Netherlands, will need to spend substantial amounts of money to upgrade and maintain existing costal flood-control systems.

A few things I think are less likely, but possible:

• The gulf stream will suddenly “stall” far to the South, resulting in ice-age like conditions in the US Northeast.
  
• Northeastern US farms, residences, and businesses will be devastated by harsh winters and short summers, causing a mass migration of their populations South and West.
  
• Major US and European costal cities will suffer devastation and collapse of their buried infrastructures, resulting in mass migrations of their populations inland. In both this and the previous case, job shortages and poverty similar to the 1930s “dust bowl” will have an severe impact on global retain and service businesses.
  
• Costal flood-control systems in the Netherlands will fail catastrophically, devastating the country.

The last list is, I think, the stuff of disaster fiction, not likely reality. Still, increased CO2 emission controls and sequestering improvements seem prudent.

[EWright]

US Social Security implodes in 2015 with all the Baby Boomers retired. Ditto all of Europe. Jackbooted State charity will be bankrupted inside out. Burn, baby, burn. Surviving 2015... the Earth accumulated about 60 miles^3 of petroleum. By 2030 will will have recovered about 45 miles^3 - and the rest doesn't want to come out. The First World irreversibly goes down.

 

It is inconceivable that global technological civilization will be more than a mythic memory by 2050. Pay your taxes. Uncle Al wants a luxuruous retirement prior to Ragnarok.

 

2015: UncleAl goes supernova from sheer negativity and self loathing. Hypography becomes a much more pleasant place.

[Little Bang]

Everything you say is probably correct CraigD it's just a question of when.

[infamous]

2015: UncleAl goes supernova from sheer negativity and self loathing. Hypography becomes a much more pleasant place.

That is unless we find someone to take his place, and I'm thinking of one right now. Can you quess who that might be??

 

One thing to remember, Uncle is quite intelligent and his shoes will be very difficult to fill. Be very careful for what you wish, you may not be up to it!!!!!!!

[EWright]

That is unless we find someone to take his place, and I'm thinking of one right now. Can you quess who that might be??

 

One thing to remember, Uncle is quite intelligent and his shoes will be very difficult to fill. Be very careful for what you wish, you may not be up to it!!!!!!!

 

Ha! I'd say we retire his number then and hand his shoes on the walls of Hypography. :)

[Qfwfq]

2015: UncleAl goes supernova from sheer negativity and self loathing. Hypography becomes a much more pleasant place.

That particular post by UA was not offensive EWright and it contained no unkind remarks. It wasn't even attacking another poster's point, it was a consideration to be considered substantial. Your slight personal attack had no purpose and should have been avoided. Please remember.