world in a malthusian trap

[sreggin]

you know what i never got about this whole 'environmentally friendly' thing? even if we're making products more efficiently, why the hell do we have to be so smug about it? and we're still burning resources, but now we're sparing ourselves some of the guilt.

same thing with the climate change issue as a whole. although we might be set to reduce emissions (even though we haven't done shit yet) how the hell are we going to get china, india, and the rest of the developing world to follow our example in the next 50 years? china opens up new coal-fired power plants every day, and soon the rest of the third world- the countries we never thought were going to get better anytime soon- will follow in their footsteps and further strain earth's resources.

even though the G8 plan to cut emissions by 80% by 2050, how exactly do they plan to make sure other countries follow their example? you know, aren't we overlooking the fact that our planet was not meant to sustain 6,700,000,000+ people? we are straining the resources of earth to the breaking point- much beyond just pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. we use exorbitant amounts of land and water for agriculture and are continually destroying ecosystems even as i futilely write this on some forum.

at least we now have people in office who aren't completely shit for brains. but if anything, look at what the new energy secretary is warning us about: the desertification of california. what he fails to mention is the rapid shifting of climate zones all over the globe, and the fact that more of earth's arable land will turn into desert.

and yet, the human population is still growing by the tens of millions every year. as we do even more damage to the earth's environment, its carrying capacity decreases further as our population increases. the impact of this is most likely going to be mass starvation. now figure in climate change, and we have hundreds of millions of refugees all over the world from environmental meltdown, the destruction of even more fertile land, low-lying coastal areas flooded, more extreme weather, etc., and what do we get?

governments will struggle to keep up with these disasters and most likely fail. in order to keep the economy moving people will continue to burn fossil fuels despite their best intentions, worsening the environment. the massive social and economic problems will probably lead to the collapse of most major governments. those that don't break down will quickly abandon diplomacy to secure vital resources like fresh water and arable land. the person who proposed the Gaia hypothesis is now stating that earth's carrying capacity will decrease dramatically as a result.

so yeah, by the end of the century the world is going to collapse. isn't that great?

[dySWN]

Sounds like doomsaying and drama baiting to me. If there's one thing that human beings do well, it's adapt to changes in the local environment.

[digitalboola]

At 7/13/09 11:15 PM, dySWN wrote: Sounds like doomsaying and drama baiting to me. If there's one thing that human beings do well, it's adapt to changes in the local environment.

people don't just magically adapt to change and then everything will be all right. when people settle an area, there has always been some extent of loss of life. and even then, the human population survives, not necessarily the individual.

with a large, urban population, such a shock as a famine, drought, whatever can have serious consequences. cities are extremely dependent upon food, water, and whatever facilities that keep it running. a large-scale environmental breakdown could easily destroy large amounts of agricultural land or traditional sources of fresh water, such as snow caps or freshwater lakes, and coastal and flash flooding can destroy infrastructure. will this all happen at the same time coincidentally? probably not, but global warming is accelerating changes in Earth's climate beyond normal levels.

i guess people adapt, but when a fertile area becomes desert you can't honestly expect it to support the same population level and industry.

[FlyMusik]

At 7/13/09 11:15 PM, dySWN wrote: If there's one thing that human beings do well, it's adapt to changes in the local environment.

In 1999 the change was an addition of one year. What do humans do? We stockpile food, prepare for hording crazed maniacs and yell doom and destruction. A little tiny germ mutates, so then it spreads and kills a fifth of the worlds population in 1918 before we finally find a vaccine, not a cure. If there's one thing humans can't do, it's adapt to changes in the local environment.

The environment will collapse in the next century, leaving a couple of survivors. Sure, the ozone layer is shrinking, but we still have a giant horribly dense garbage dump in the middle of the Pacific Ocean twice the size of Texas, millions of tons of nuclear waste is pilling up without any way to get rid of it, ice caps are melting so fast that the preassure on top of Mount Everest has been relieved so much that it's grown a couple of inches in a year, the Taliban almost has control of nuclear weapons, North Korea and their insane god-king Kim Jong Il already does and is already launching measuring devices out into the Pacific Ocean, scientists estimate that we're about five years away from a major nuclear/biochemical attack/war from Pakistan/North Korea, and since 2007 the doomsday clock has read 5 minutes until midnight

We're improving a tiny bit, but we've put so much energy into it that we've exhausted all of our scientists and pretty much used everything we've got. In the next fifty years, we'll have no more forests on the earth, and in ten more years we'll be fighting for our pathetic lives.

I'm not trying to induce a riot, but face the facts; humanity is doomed. The only bright side i can think of at the moment is the fact that we can still slow down the process and that i could be dead by the time the doomsday clock strikes 12 and we brace ourselves for impending nuclear annihilation.

[Al6200]

At 7/13/09 09:23 AM, sreggin wrote: you know what i never got about this whole 'environmentally friendly' thing? even if we're making products more efficiently, why the hell do we have to be so smug about it? and we're still burning resources, but now we're sparing ourselves some of the guilt.

Outside of pure thermodynamics, there is no such thing as "burning resources". Humanity at present has more wealth than its ever had, and it's not because we're consuming more resources, it's because we're using our creativity and intelligence to create resources that never existed before.

same thing with the climate change issue as a whole. although we might be set to reduce emissions (even though we haven't done shit yet) how the hell are we going to get china, india, and the rest of the developing world to follow our example in the next 50 years? china opens up new coal-fired power plants every day, and soon the rest of the third world- the countries we never thought were going to get better anytime soon- will follow in their footsteps and further strain earth's resources.

Coal isn't being particularly strained at the moment, and if it is, nuclear/solar/wind/hydro will undoubtedly be able to pick up the slack.

even though the G8 plan to cut emissions by 80% by 2050, how exactly do they plan to make sure other countries follow their example? you know, aren't we overlooking the fact that our planet was not meant to sustain 6,700,000,000+ people? we are straining the resources of earth to the breaking point- much beyond just pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. we use exorbitant amounts of land and water for agriculture and are continually destroying ecosystems even as i futilely write this on some forum.

Our planet was not "meant" for anything. It's a big rock in the middle of space that wouldn't be able to support a billion humans if it weren't for our resourcefulness and ingenuity.

at least we now have people in office who aren't completely shit for brains. but if anything, look at what the new energy secretary is warning us about: the desertification of california. what he fails to mention is the rapid shifting of climate zones all over the globe, and the fact that more of earth's arable land will turn into desert.

Nonsense. Plants thrive on high CO2 levels, so if anything agricultural productivity will increase by leaps and bounds as a result of global warming.

and yet, the human population is still growing by the tens of millions every year. as we do even more damage to the earth's environment, its carrying capacity decreases further as our population increases. the impact of this is most likely going to be mass starvation. now figure in climate change, and we have hundreds of millions of refugees all over the world from environmental meltdown, the destruction of even more fertile land, low-lying coastal areas flooded, more extreme weather, etc., and what do we get?

The Earth has no "carrying capacity". The only resource that cannot be created or destroyed is energy, and the world's uranium/thorium supplies will provide us enough energy for billions of years.

governments will struggle to keep up with these disasters and most likely fail. in order to keep the economy moving people will continue to burn fossil fuels despite their best intentions, worsening the environment. the massive social and economic problems will probably lead to the collapse of most major governments. those that don't break down will quickly abandon diplomacy to secure vital resources like fresh water and arable land. the person who proposed the Gaia hypothesis is now stating that earth's carrying capacity will decrease dramatically as a result.

lol.

so yeah, by the end of the century the world is going to collapse. isn't that great?

That's what they said last century :P

[dySWN]

At 7/15/09 05:01 PM, FlyMusik wrote: At 7/15/09 07:46 AM, digitalboola wrote:

Since when did being cautiously optimistic about humanity and/or the future become so taboo around here? It's not like we aren't working on solving most of the problems mentioned here, and it's not like humanity is doomed if one of these things comes to fruition. We've survived famines, plagues, the ice age, and even the ill-intended ingenuity of one another as expressed by war and crime - and yet, somehow, now we're magically incapable of surviving a repeat?

Somehow, I don't see the point of looking at the glass as half full here. We should be thinking about solutions, not wringing our hands over what ifs.

[FlyMusik]

I didn't say we weren't working on the problems. I said that we are, but we have no clue how to get rid of nuclear waste, and yet we keep on making nuclear power hoping that nothing will go wrong. I'm all for saving the environment, i just think we'll need a lot of luck on our side when we're trying, cause honestly, we've screwed the Earth up pretty bad.

It's not the same as famines or anything like that, because it's in no way natural. Atoms aren't supposed to be split into pieces. They're supposed to stay whole. The Earth's ecosystems and overall natural order of things weren't meant for 6.8 billion people.

I say don't look at the bright side, don't look on the dark side, look at what is really happening. If you are only optimistic or pessimistic, it's not going to get anywhere. You need to take a look around, accept the truth, and try to fix it. That's how we'll save the environment if we do.