How long is the Earth going to last?

[Joe]

I had too many Energy drinks last night and instead of hitting the pillow and sleeping like a baby as per usual I decided to talk to my wife about natural resources and the state of the Earth.

Surprisingly we had quite a good chat considering it was 1am :lol:

Anyway, considering we are a horrible plague that consumes destroys and moves to the next source of food / power etc what do you think about Earth and what we have done to it in the last few thousand years?

Will we consume everything here and end up killing ourselves or will it all come to an end by a meteor?

Discuss

 

[aussiejames]

Crap Joe, you are in a philosophical mood I have pretty strong opinions on this. Energy can neither be created or destroyed. It is just converted. The Earth has a finite quantity, the sun is the only additional source. We convert energy into energy we can no longer use eg. eat, burn, dig, cutdown etc. Unless we cull 90% of the worlds population we will not survive. I would like to think I was the 1 in 10 that got to stay alive! Society will not let us do the big kill( I was hoping AIDS would do it) , nor will most societies allow their living standards to drop to a level that the earth is able to sustain. Consequently we are ****ed, in a 100 years we will be cavemen again. I probably could have explained that better, but it will do :roll:

 

[browny]

Joe - I think you mean the last 150 years tops mate,before that we did very little damage to the enviroment.

Thankfully fossil fuels are exactly what their name says they are "fossil" which means the earth isnt actually losing a great from it's natural foundations,however bear in mind evolution how do we know that it wont have a detrimental effect in 1000's of years time,simple answer we dont.

We'r ****ed in my opinion and are a very new species to earth,for ****s sake we havent progressed from the moon in 40 years,sure we'v sent robots but nothing has been sent in advance which it should have been in order for man to get to mars at the very least.

If anything it will be a major disease that will destroy humans on earth in my opinion and then all the **** we'v built etc would just be left to rot,did anyone watch the programme - life after humans?it was excellent viewing and raised lots of questions.

Bloody morbid thread this one joe mate

 

[Joe]

Joe - I think you mean the last 150 years tops mate,before that we did very little damage to the enviroment.

I guess you are right with regard to natural resources but you must also factor in how population has increased since we arrived! Since day one we have been expanding our numbers without any real thought as to the future, I guess its natural to reproduce more than thinking about the environment when you are one step up from an ape but thats where it all started!

Sorry if it is a bit of a morbid thread, it does interest me quite a lot and we are all guilty of not realising or not caring too much about the environment or our impact on the Earth.

Good to hear some well structured posts and opinions, see, we aren't just dollie lovers ! :lol:

 

[jaymassive619]

At the end of the day human beings are behaving exactly like a virus.

WE are the Earths cancer

 

[weasel]

Some good points guys!

Jay, did you get the virus thing from the matrix!? Lol

James, I agree totally with killing off 90% of the worlds population (your the first person I've met who thinks it's a good idea!) Obviously, I'll be with you in the 10% that's left!

Over the next 100 years the causes of wars will shift from the current political/religious crap to more energy/resource, particularly water, related. We already see signs of it in places like the Middle East and the Central Asian formerly-Russian republics where one country dams a river to provide power (or water) for its people, but that same river is relied upon by the people in a neighbouring country downstream.

Mind you people have been predicting that population growth was unsustainable since the 1700's. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malthus

Chances are we will all be dead long before it comes to a head!

 

[Grant]

To add a little more to this topic. Vivian Westwood was on Jonathon Ross a few months back and all she talked about was climate change etc. She said this is all she is intrested and it is top of her agenda.
She also said that top scientists are predicting that by 2050 there will be in excess of 10 billion people living on earth and by the 2100 there will only be 1 billion people left due to famine, disease etc.
It was quite depressing that even tho we know that were ****ing up the planet were not doing enough to stop it. One of the first factors to go wrong will be the temperature rising 2 or 3 degrees which will result in the rain forests all drying up and as you know they help the planet to breathe then this will bring along a catalogue of sh*t events. similar to what your man Malthus predicts back in the 1700s.

Happy reading

Grant. 8)

 

[aussiejames]

I Pm'd Weasel about a very similar thing- drastic population decrease. My solution is to artificially do it sooner rather than latter to buy us more time :shock: I think its too far gone, and are we willing to sacrifice to prolong the inevitable? I hope so.

 

[Joe]

I Pm'd Weasel about a very similar thing- drastic population decrease. My solution is to artificially do it sooner rather than latter to buy us more time :shock: I think its too far gone, and are we willing to sacrifice to prolong the inevitable? I hope so.

IF (and thats a very big if) there was a global decision to cull a large portion of the human race (which won't happen) can you imagine what that would cause?

Let's say that they did a lottery and picked out names of people to get rid of, would you be happy if a letter arrived saying your wife or daughter was chosen to be killed because of over population? (not to mention the people that would flee from the death penalty and probably star a war against it)

And if it wasn't random and they picked people according to intelligence or skill then (and this is not an insult) none of us would be on the "safe" list(or our families or friends), it's not like any of us invented the wheel is it.

The problems are too far gone to have a quick fix, its all about trying to prolong things for as long as possible, we have a death sentence for Earth thats clear we just need to work out when that will be (which in turn depends on how we treat the Earth)

 

[Grant]

The Cull will occur as a disease probably like Bird Flu or Sarrs which we as humans will have no remedy for and will bring the human population back to a sustainable amount. 2100 is about 5 or 6 generations of family members away. Il be fine tho as Im a healthy chap and i plan to live for ever.

Grant. 8)

 

[Joe]

Planning to live forever Grant?

How much did the elixir of life cost you then ? as much as your 12 back figures?? :lol:

 

[browny]

Weasel is right,the next major conflicts of the world will be over gas,oil and fresh water.

It has already begun and i'l give you a few examples (i'm sure most of you know anyway,but it's a interesting topic joe has started here and i'm adding my shillings worth!)

1.The last vast natural untouched oil reserves are in the arctic circle,this oil is disputed between-russia,usa,canada,denmark and norway and recent events have seen russia place a flag under the ice and claim the territory as theirs,in response canada has put plans in place to build 2 large military outposts at the very most northern tip of the country by 2014(why I wonder?)

2.Russia has already shown a signal of intent closer to home by blocking gas and oils supplies to the ukraine and belarus,at a similar time they also had a small conflict with georgia in which they now have land inside the country,during that conflict russia blocked and seized the oil supplies from azerbaijan,although this has since been returned to georgia (at america's insistence) basically russia have a monoply over the whole of europe with regards to oil and this leads me to point 3.

3.American troops remain in Iraq,nato forces remain in afghanistan and what country is between them..Iran.this country has vast oil reserves and will be almost certainly involved in conflict with western powers in the near future (why?oil!)

4.China and India cannot possibly continue to grow the rate they have been without expansion,this would mean 1 of 2 things,the first is direct conflict between the 2 nations with a view to resources and expansion (unlikely) the second would be to expand into smaller nations nearby such as mongolia,bangladesh etc etc...but eventually those 2 nations which have 2.5bn people between them would need something more drastic?scary ****!

Other than that maybe we'l just get ****ed by a meteor or something :lol:

Sorry for the essay,but like joe i'm intrigued about mankinds future.

Cheers stef.

 

[sith-smith]

The environment is one of the topics I teach at college as part of the philosophical ethics course.


In Short......we're ****ed.

 

[browny]

The environment is one of the topics I teach at college as part of the philosophical ethics course.


In Short......we're ****ed.

Hello mate,could you elaborate a little?

It would be nice to hear the opinions of someone who works in this specific area.

Thanks stef.

 

[Lee Gregory]

I reckon were ****ed also,even though what causes it probably won't happen in my lifetime.

Simple economics of supply and demand:more people demanding energy and food ect and not enough resources to supply it.

Don't think I'll go thirsty though living in Buxton,it's got to be one of the wettest places on the planet all it does is piss it down all day long!!!

 

[aussiejames]

Bloody great thread Joe, I've also said our society(s) will not allow the big cull. I even dropped the 90% to 50/50 to increase my odds of being one of the chosen ones. I'd rather be in a Lottery than starve/burn to death :shock: If I have to be the slave for the guy that invented the wheel so be it :lol: Many of the other things that have been said are my exact thoughts. Bugger my brain works faster than my typing Prolonging the inevitable, 6 generations... all things I've been thinking of. Stef many great observations- throw in India and Pakistan fighting over a busted up mountain range. And they are both nuclear( so is North Korea & their leader is crazier than Jimmy :lol: ) So in the words of a wise man(sith-smith) "we're ****ed" I still have a bright outlook on the future for us and the next generation. But after that.............

 

[Joe]

Thanks James, I think its something that needs discussion at times and I know you all have quite good views on things and many of you are a lot smarter than you let on

Certainly puts things into perspective considering we all collect plastic toys yet the Earth is slowly being destroyed ..

It wasn't any attempt to bring peoples mood down either I just didn't know what other peoples views would be , although seemingly we all agree that it is happening and there isn't too much we can do to stop the destructiveness of human nature.

Funny how the human brain can from day to day put these things completely out of your mindset and the next day you are back to living your life, moaning about the weather, buying a figure off of ebay and not really thinking much about this stuff. I find the whole thing really quite strange !

I watch a lot of programs on the methods being used or trying to be used will help slow down or stop the destruction, I think there is hope for us to wake up still, it might only give us a few hundred years extra but if thats what it takes ...

Then again if we carry on elsewhere (mars etc) it will just happen again no?

 

[Joe]

I also wanted to drop another thing in, last night we were talking about recycling and a few years ago when it became mandatory to recycle certain things in England (I am sure you all use your green and red bins etc :lol: ) we were really into it all when we lived back in the UK.

The problem is that not all countries have these measures in place, for example Romania, its a case of " Re- what?" and its not the normal peoples fault its the people who run the country that are to blame, imagine how much the world would achieve if recycling was something every country introduced and enforced? The impact would be huge! And what a benefit!

That goes for most things, recycling, deforestation, pollution, and the thing that stops countries from implementing these rules is basically money, not that they don't have it, they just don't want to spend it on things like this.

The rich get richer in most countries and they aren't used to the rest of the world telling them to stop doing this , put fund into this and so on.

Hopefully these things WILL change!

 

[browny]

If we go to mars it will be purely because we have destroyed earth quicker than planned,it will be like a last ditch attempt to save humanity and it wont work,the plans to reintroduce an atmosphere to mars by freeing frozen water and introducing tree's etc would just never work,the gravity is all wrong for that planet and it has virtually no atmosphere,we should in the years after landing on the moon have begun sending supplies etc to mars in order to have foundations in place for when/if we get there,we havent and we are still 20 years away at least from getting there,if indeed we ever do get there,I have my doubts that we ever will.

Aussiejames is right about india and pakistan,although india would win a conflict there fairly quickly,it would cause damage unseen thus far.

North and south korea are still technically at war and as aussie said is a potential hornets nest just waiting to have some fat kid come along and **** on it,and it's run by someone crazier than jimmymindtricks (as aussie quoted :lol: )

Throw into the mix Israel and the problems they face and then also in Sudan with the chinese using the country for oil and causing conflict,it' one big shitty mess.

The whole supply and demand for energy and food as mentioned by other posters is exactly what will trigger world war 3 and the possible destruction of the whole human race,countries like india and china will simply have no option but to expand and gain extra resources because their population is just so damn big.


Cheers stef

 

[weasel]

Grant, I think a "generation" is normally classed as 25 years. So 2100 is really only 3 and a half generations away not 6. We'll all long since be dead mind. But I think your right about the disease wipping out millions. I have high hopes for Ebola, and it's not such a nice way to go either!

Lee you wanna see pishing rain all day everyday, try Ireland or Scotland! Trust me, you aint seen nothing!