 Poll
|
| Question: | Over 99% of all species go extinct. What will be the most likely cause of human extinction?
| Cosmic collision (comet, asteroid, etc) | |    2 (50%) |
| Gamma Ray Burster | | 0 (0%) |
| Global War (including nuclear) | | 1 (25%) |
| Radical climate change | | 1 (25%) |
| | | | Total Votes: 4 | |
|
|
|
Author
|
Topic: Apocalypse Now (Read 1210 times) |
|
MoEnzyme
Acolyte
Gender: 
Posts: 2256
Reputation: 4.69
Rate MoEnzyme
infidel lab animal
 
|
 |
Apocalypse Now
« on: 2009-07-07 21:34:36 » |
|
I'd be interested in suggestions for other options.
My personal vote is going for cosmic collision wiping us out, followed by radical climate change. Global war, especially including nuclear options, seems like the next possibility. Gamma Ray Burster comes up as my 4th concievable possibility. Let me know if there is some other options I ought to be considering for the survey.
Starvation of course seems possible, but that would probably be more of a symptom than an actual cause. Same with disease.
|
I will fight your gods for food,
Mo Enzyme
(consolidation of handles: Jake Sapiens; memelab; logicnazi; Loki; Every1Hz; and Shadow)
|
|
|
Hermit
Archon
Posts: 4287
Reputation: 8.94
Rate Hermit
Prime example of a practically perfect person
|
 |
Re:Apocalypse Now
« Reply #1 on: 2009-07-07 23:47:04 » |
|
We were very lucky. The chance of a planet developing vast stores of cheap hydrocarbon energy over millions of years to benefit a single species over the course of a few hundred years is probably minuscule. What a pity we wasted it. When it becomes uneconomic, unless we have massively reduced our populations and ecological footprints, concentrated our remaining resources, and set in place developments leading to effectively unlimited energy, most of the humans on the planet, whose lives were made possible by cheap fuel, will die and their deaths will not be pretty.
We are already in deep trouble. If Obama had not been about business as usual there was a small chance we might begin to address the coming troubles while we still could, but he was, and has and is and I don't think we will. I'm not sure if any other leader has the presence and credibility he had at the beginning of his presidency and sadly, has largely expended, and the problems I see are large enough and close enough for me to be far from convinced that a solution introduced by his successor, even if Obama is thrown out of office before his term ends, could begin soon enough, be large enough, or even be affordable with the sad wreckage of the economy visible all around us, to change the very gloomy prognosis I see ahaead. If you were following what is happening around the world at http://www.smarterearth.org - or reading Kunstler's Clusterfuck Nation, or studying the publicly accessible reports from Rand Corp on these issues, you might be thinking in the sufficiently short term to be making good predictions. Most people seem to be burying their heads and hoping that the problems will go away if ignored - effectively making them co-conspirators. Here are some of the issues that I think makes your predictions optimistic.
Irrespective of what happens to the global economy and the dollar, China will almost certainly be importing more oil than the US by 2014 putting extreme pressure on both the oil price and the dollar. Assuming that existing oil reserves are accurately assessed, the IEA has acknowledged that current usage will result in severe shortfalls in availability sometime between 2018 and 2022. Long before then, probably before 2013, North America will have experienced massive gas shortages which will result in the wide scale loss of heat and or power during a winter cold spell. While this is happening, Nature has published two peer reviewed articles suggesting that we can burn no more than 1/4 of the remaining proven hydrocarbon reserves without triggering catastrophic climate change.
Most cities in the USA have at most a 3 day supply of food and a much smaller supply of potable water. The infrastructure of the USA is already in a state of decrepit collapse. Any interruptions in energy or fuel would be likely to result in a total collapse of confidence in the government. Speaking of food, according to Coxe Commodity Strategy Fund, global food supplies are at their lowest level in recorded history. According to the FAO, we are just 13 weeks from massive starvation and the number already starving has increased by about 100 million to 1 billion in the last year. Should I mention that about 2 billion people rely on the sea for the protein and the sea is being turned into a desert where fishing quotas have become largely irrelevant simply because fishing fleets in what used to be the most productive waters can no longer catch their allocated quotas. In our current state, a single crop large scale crop failure, as we have experienced repeatedly in the past will result in death on an unimaginable scale. With the climate change currently happening, the likelihood of a major crop failure happening in any year, including this year, is soaring.
When people are dying, or desperate, they seldom surrender to death without a struggle, be it never so futile. So if one of the above or any of the other major threats, from disease, to Israel's nuclear policy, to the resource conflicts that ,Russia anticipates will most probably happen over the Arctic, occurs, the most likely consequence will be a major war in which Einstein will most likely be proved wrong. He was asked if he thought that WW III would be fought with nuclear devices. He replied that he didn't know about WW III but that he thought that WW IV would likely be fought with sticks and stones. Being closer to the situation, I'd say that if we are stupid enough to try to fight WW III, then there likely will not be enough survivors to fight WW IV.
While a cosmic collision or gamma burst could of course happen at any time, they will need to hurry to hit us before we wise up and try to minimise the misery to come, or simply wipe ourselves out. If you can think of a way to convince me otherwise, I'd love to hear it.
|
With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
|
|
|
MoEnzyme
Acolyte
Gender:
Posts: 2256
Reputation: 4.69
Rate MoEnzyme
infidel lab animal
|
|
Re:Apocalypse Now
« Reply #2 on: 2009-07-08 00:20:23 » |
|
hmmm, I think world war could likely precipitate the collapse of civilization as we know it, and compared to a cosmic collision which is hard to match for ambient distruction, a thermonuclear war would be more or less "aimed" at human support structure. Consequently, the remaining biosphere would remain more or less intact, whereas asteroid impact would have more of a tendency to clear the decks . . . massive extinctions, and likely including humans, as we individually have too large of an energy footprint to pass through such an evolutionary bottleneck.
I think I view the radical climate change option as a likely human induced chain reaction though known possibilities most of which boil down to human overpopulation (including increased global CO2 emmission). Perhaps I may consider global war as a possible number two, but cosmic impact already has a proven record of extinction incidents so I'm not budging on that one so easily.
|
I will fight your gods for food,
Mo Enzyme
(consolidation of handles: Jake Sapiens; memelab; logicnazi; Loki; Every1Hz; and Shadow)
|
|
|
Hermit
Archon
Posts: 4287
Reputation: 8.94
Rate Hermit
Prime example of a practically perfect person
|
|
Re:Apocalypse Now
« Reply #3 on: 2009-07-08 03:43:54 » |
|
Nuclear devices are very scary, but except for planet splitters (which are theoretically trivial as there is no upper limit on the size of a fusion device except those demanded by portability), they threaten local populations, not the entire biosphere. Of course, it only takes the detonation of one planet splitter to eliminate everyone, but I estimate biowarfare as a much greater species specific threat.
I think it likely that, when a major war happens, the first participant with a major biological program (Countries I am aware of with significant biowarfare capabilities include the USA, Israel, Britain, Iran, Russian Federation, PRC, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, RoC, Japan, Syria, Libya, DPRK, RoK. Possibly in that order) to start losing will likely deploy it. Other countries with biowarfare capability, perceiving themselves as having been attacked (whether actually attacked or not may be irrelevant) will probably respond.
|
With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
|
|
|
Blunderov
Archon
Gender:
Posts: 3160
Reputation: 8.90
Rate Blunderov
"We think in generalities, we live in details"
|
|
Re:Apocalypse Now
« Reply #4 on: 2009-07-08 03:47:17 » |
|
Quote from: MoEnzyme on 2009-07-07 21:34:36
I'd be interested in suggestions for other options. |
[Blunderov] Volcanic super eruptions would be on my list. The Toba eruption came within a whisker of wiping humanity out.
"Perhaps the greatest volcanic explosion ever tore a hole 100 kilometers across at Toba in northern Sumatra. This huge caldera, which is now lake filled, is very much a tourist attraction, but there is evidence of a much more sinister legacy. The eruption at Toba may have come within a hair's breadth of making the human race extinct. Estimates of the size of the blast vary, but there is no question that - along with the Yellowstone eruptions - Toba qualifies as a a VEI 8 super eruption. It was thought that the total amount of debris ejected was on the order of 3000 cubic kilometers, sufficient to cover virtually the whole of India with a layer of ash one meter thick."
~ Global Catastrophes. A very short introduction. Bill McGuire (Oxford University press.)
[Bl.] It might not even take an eruption of quite this magnitude to do the trick given, as The Hermit has mentioned, the parlous state of the the world's food supplies. One year without a summer might do it. From the same book:
"... the climactic explosions of the Tambora eruption also lofted around 200 million tonnes of sulphur-rich gases into the stratosphere , within which high altitude winds swiftly spread them around the planet. The gases combined readily with water in the atmosphere to form a 150 million tonnes of sulphuric acid aerosols - tiny particles of liquid that are very efficient at blocking out solar radiation. Within months the northern hemisphere climate began to deteriorate and temperatures fell to such a degree that 1816 became known as the "Year Without a Summer".
[Bl.] As more energy is added to our planet by means of global warming, ISTM that the dynamics processes of our home are likely to become more intense and to express themselves more frequently. Humanity, and other species, have long been on the receiving end of volcanic disasters. Mute, and poignant, testimony to this persistent historical relationship* are to found in the Laetoli footprints.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/07/1/l_071_03.html
"The Laetoli footprints were formed and preserved by a chance combination of events -- a volcanic eruption, a rainstorm, and another ashfall. When they were found in 1976, these hominid tracks, at least 3.6 million years old, were some of the oldest evidence then known for upright bipedal walking, a major milestone in human evolution."
http://www.getty.edu/conservation/publications/newsletters/10_1/laetoli.html
"...the footprints are a poignant reminder of our ancient origins. Let Mary Leakey have the last word in talking of one of the hominids who made the trail: "At one point, and you need not be an expert tracker to discern this, she stops, pauses, turns to the left to glance at some possible threat or irregularity, and then continues to the north. This motion, so intensely human, transcends time. Three million six hundred thousand years ago, a remote ancestor—just as you or I—experienced a moment of doubt."
*[Bl.] Pompeii too of course. A Roman omen?
|
|
|
|
|
MoEnzyme
Acolyte
Gender:
Posts: 2256
Reputation: 4.69
Rate MoEnzyme
infidel lab animal
|
|
Re:Apocalypse Now
« Reply #5 on: 2009-07-08 07:55:39 » |
|
Blunderov,
of course, I can't believe I didn't include super volcanoes.
It looks like I can't edit the poll now.  Maybe I'm overlooking something.
I was considering a technological apocalypse, but I think those generally break down to war and radical climate change. If we invent evil AI, that would fall under the global war category. I was thinking overpopulation issues would likely result in radical climate change (greenhouse gas -> global warming for example). If it doesn't, then its arguably not actually overpopulation.
If I can't edit the poll, I may start a new thread with a better poll selection. Anyway, I think a thread like this should be an ongoing one for Church of Virus. Somewhat similar to the flipping point thread, but more general in its apocalyptic concerns.
|
I will fight your gods for food,
Mo Enzyme
(consolidation of handles: Jake Sapiens; memelab; logicnazi; Loki; Every1Hz; and Shadow)
|
|
|
Hermit
Archon
Posts: 4287
Reputation: 8.94
Rate Hermit
Prime example of a practically perfect person
|
|
Re:Apocalypse Now
« Reply #6 on: 2009-07-08 14:18:24 » |
|
[Bl.] It might not even take an eruption of quite this magnitude to do the trick given, as The Hermit has mentioned, the parlous state of the the world's food supplies. One year without a summer might do it. From the same book:
[Hermit] As Blunderov mentions, bad news tends to multiply. Any one bad thing may or may not be a problem, but as the Russians learned in Finland, Germany learned in Stalingrad, the French learned in Moscow and the Dutch learned in the Hongerwinter of 1944-1945, the combination of the catastrophes of war and cold is a quick recipe for mass deaths. Apropos of something, http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Dutch_famine_of_1944 has a string of classic examples of the use of the passive voice, "became scarce", "grew worse" to disassociate responsibility
Quote:| ...during the winter of 1944-1945, near the end of World War II. A total of 18,000 people died during the famine. (At) the end of World War II, food supplies became increasingly scarce in the Netherlands. After the landing of the Allied Forces on D-Day, conditions grew worse in the Nazi occupied Netherlands. |
[Bl.] Pompeii too of course. A Roman omen?
[Hermit] Vesuvius erupted repeatedly. Its existence on the edge of the subduction zone ought to have been omen enough, but before that the Romans were unfamiliar with volcanoes.
|
With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
|
|
|
MoEnzyme
Acolyte
Gender:
Posts: 2256
Reputation: 4.69
Rate MoEnzyme
infidel lab animal
|
|
Re:Apocalypse Now
« Reply #7 on: 2009-07-09 11:06:09 » |
|
okay, apparently I'll have to start over with a new poll and thread. I think I may end up deleting this one in the process, but I just wanted to finalize my polling options. I'll add super-vulcanism as an apocalyptic possibility.
Personally I doubt that supervulcanism alone could deep six the whole species. Perhaps in combination with another catastrophic event it could seal our fate however. Might be possible that a cosmic collision of enough size could trigger further catastrophic vulcanism. Our geological past certainly shows much sign of vulcanism. I would think over the millions of years as the nuclear-energy core of the planet runs down, decays, etc, that vulcanism would tend to decrease as a potential source of apocalypse. However, given pertubances from cosmic collisions or human generated explosions, I see no particular reason to doubt that some techtonic/volcanic activity/reaction could be expected or even likely.
In any case, with its proven history, super vulcanism certainly deserves an option in the question. Any other suggestions before I close this current thread down?
ps - I suppose the death of the sun would also make for a logical end point for the species. If the sun blows up, we're all dead. I don't see any reasonable way around that in the forseeable future. That might deserve an option in the question.
|
I will fight your gods for food,
Mo Enzyme
(consolidation of handles: Jake Sapiens; memelab; logicnazi; Loki; Every1Hz; and Shadow)
|
|
|
Hermit
Archon
Posts: 4287
Reputation: 8.94
Rate Hermit
Prime example of a practically perfect person
|
|
Re:Apocalypse Now
« Reply #8 on: 2009-07-09 14:47:57 » |
|
Assuming that we come to our senses and build the space lift needed to develop space power before it is too late for us (20 years maximum), even if Sol expanded to the orbit of Uranus with relatively little warning, we would be in a position to build space condoms (See Per Ardua Ad Astra in reply 7) and for some humans to leave Sol for less explosive climates.
If we seek long term relevance, in the medium term we should be moving our genomes to other planets around other star systems (including sending some explorers out of our galaxy), in city sized cruisers. Such ships would carry gene banks and the ability to create digital reproductions of anything the occupants wished to access from Earth.
In the long term, assuming we have acted to ensure access to space and energy before the fossil fuel bonanza ends and have somehow avoided wiping ourselves and successors out, we might be sufficiently sentimental to consider moving the planet elsewhere. After all, that would be "just" an engineering challenge. Unfortunately far easier to accomplish than persuading people that if we don't have answers lined up and in progress within the next five years, despite the challenges of the ever deepening depression, that mankind probably won't survive to see a sixth.
|
With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
|
|
|
MoEnzyme
Acolyte
Gender:
Posts: 2256
Reputation: 4.69
Rate MoEnzyme
infidel lab animal
|
|
Re:Apocalypse Now
« Reply #9 on: 2009-07-09 19:42:41 » |
|
I'm thinking about making it a church doctrine thread. Escatology has always played an important part of religious/mythical thinking, and since its a topic accessible to study and reasonable speculation. There are scientific things we can say about asteroid impacts, seeing as the earth has already survived at least a couple of whoppers. That's why it gets my vote. But there are plenty of other possibilities we ought reasonably to consider. While I'm somewhat sympathetic to concerns of global warming, I'd like for us to also be spending a similar amount of concern towards cosmic impact avoidance. That's a much more reasonable concern than even building military missile defense, at least in terms of which is likely to end humanity as we know it. Just to put it in perspective of other currently hotter political issues - military, and climate disaster.
|
I will fight your gods for food,
Mo Enzyme
(consolidation of handles: Jake Sapiens; memelab; logicnazi; Loki; Every1Hz; and Shadow)
|
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
