[Bulaba Khan Jones]

Although a full-stop measure of HDC usage is what's needed to slow down climate change at this point, it's clearly not feasible, nor would it be feasible for enough governments to agree to immediate measures to massively reduce pollution, reflect sunlight, etc. Things are simply going to get worse.

Two things can happen: we develop the technology/desire to drastically slow down the process of global climate change... or we don't. Who here honestly thinks the former is happening or will happen any time soon?

That simply leaves us with the very realistic and likely conclusion that things will continue to get worse and not enough will be done outside of paper agreements. By the time anything is done, even drastically, it will be too late (it's already approaching the point of being too late to drastically slow down the process, and there's nowhere near enough being done in sight). Continued population explosion, accumulated pollution (among other things, the enormous amount of plastics and other pollutants in the South Pacific contributing to the toxification of the world's oceans), progressive deforestation and general loss of natural habitat on all continents (particularly in the world's oceans, e.g. coral reefs, etc), increased land development, and greater demand for food and water will lead to an inevitable global environmental collapse. All of those factors are continuing to worsen, and they cannot go on forever without leading to a breakdown in the world's many ecosystems from die-offs, loss of habitat, increased pollution, and so on.

Some likely short-term solutions to keep civilization going might be things we've already seen glimpses of in science fiction for the last century. Artificial farming and food production would revolutionize (and already some scientists are working on developing vat-grown meat for mass consumption, as the technology to produce it now isn't efficient enough for it to be cost-affordable) the food industry itself; whole buildings/factories dedicated to producing more and more food to prevent the kind of civil unrest we haven't seen for a century. Essentially, by the time we completely wreck the world's environment past the breaking point, we'll probably have the means to keep ourselves going through artificial food production.

In all likelihood, the future is probably going to be bleak.

[Potemkin]

I think Bulaba Jones is right. That's the most likely way it's going to play out. We'll find ways to avoid going extinct, but the bright, utopian future we were promised just ain't gonna happen. Instead, we will recapitulate the history of the Maya civilisation, on a global scale.

[SolarCross]

A few factoids and people build them into a doomsday scenario which coincidently aligns perfectly with their weird political obsessions. There are other factoids and you need all the factoids and a sober personality to even begin to get a good picture of things to come.

So here are some other factoids which should also consider if you aren't an unhinged loon trying to sell a political programme.



Atmospheric CO2 levels are currently very LOW in earth's history. Also average temps are very low too and there is not a strong correlation between atmospheric CO2 levels and global temperatures, sometimes the temps have been low while the CO2 was an order of magnitude higher than today.



For the past 1/2 a million years the earth has been considerably colder than the present day, being colder by as much as 6 degrees C than that of today's average temps. These Ice Ages were punctuated by warm periods lasting 10,000 years or so. The entirety of human history from the invention of agriculture to the moon landings sits on a warm period which if it follows the pattern of the last 1/2 million years is about to end over the next 1000 years dropping us into another Ice Age which would be just as destructive to human civilisation as the worst global warming scaremongering.

In all probability there is not enough carbon in the atmosphere.

[Steve_American]

You are asking for the impossible and I don't respond how you like?

How do we even know where the percentage is? That's a ridiculous thing to ask. In 200 years, I don't believe climate change will be an issue.

You ask exceptionally vague questions yet want precise answers. That is quite unreasonable. Can you be more specific with your question?

What are you going to spend it on? Ice machines? Snow machines? Air conditioning units? How are you going to spend this money to prevent global climate change?

Certainly, because China caused global climate change(which also doesn't exist), according to Dolt 45.

That said, what is ANY President going to do? Paris Climate Change Accords were at least a step in the right direction. We need cooperation from all nations if we expect to conquer such a monumental task.

You were the one who asked for the impossible. It sounded to me like you needed to have all or more of the climate scientists say that my worst case *will certainly happen* before you would feel like doing anything drastic.

What I asked for was difficult because I assumed that the scientists could be persuaded to give the world their gut feeling of how likely was it that my worst case would be what we got id less than a lot was done to prevent it. Assuming this percentage was available, I was asking you at what point would you be willing to for the world to do whatever it takes to avoid extinction? I can pretty easily give you that number.

You asked me {major aside --- I studied materials engineering for 4 years of credit and 2 years of Anthro credit back in the 60s & 79s. Then I gave all that up to reduce my carbon foot print and became a janitor. My boss saw I was overqualified and bought a carpet cleaning comp. and had me learn to do that. He sold the carpet part to me. Then He sold the rest of the comp.to another. In an economic downturn I sold me and my comp. to that same guy and he sent me to school to learn more about carpet cleaning. I passed the test to with a 99% right score to become a "Master Carpet Cleaning Tech". Etc. Etc. Then I retired and moved to S.E. Asia. I really am not the man to ask hw to save the world from AGW.}
. . . You ask me what the world needs to do when it spends the cash I want to make available to save the world. My best answer is to keep the Arctic Sea frozen over as much as possible because it is critical that it stay frozen. Why? because ---
1] The ice keeps the water from touching the warm air above it so the water stays coler.
2] Viewed from space, the ice looks white because it reflects a lot more light energy than any other sort of surface. Oceans OTOH look dark because they absorb more than any other sort of surface. So, if the Arctic is ice free it is absorbing light which become heat in the water and warms it.
3] If the Arctic water warms enough then the frozen methane in the sea floor will be released into the shallow water and bubble up to the surface and into the air. If this starts in a big way it is game over for civilization and maybe even all humanity.

How we might use money to do this I will have to leave to others. Creating fog on and all around ships is possible. We would need a lot of ships and they might warm the water by being there. We might need to freeze their hulls to keep the water from being warmed by hot hulls.
. . . Or, maybe we could cover the Arctic with solar electric cells and ship the energy away in electric cables. Not to use it just to keep it out of the water so it freezes in the winter.

I'm not enough of an expert to know.

[One Degree]

You don’t have to believe in global warming to see we are destroying the environment anyway. Global warming debate allows us to be distracted from the destruction the simple existence of so many people causes.
Our oceans weren’t sewers 1/2 million years ago. We had not cut down all the forests 1/2 million years ago.
I think we should not worry so much about the science and just look around us. Is this the planet you want for your kids?

@Bulaba Jones is absolutely right. Show me one politician crying about global warming that is willing to reduce air travel. Nothing will be done.

[Bulaba Khan Jones]

@SolarCross your post isn't entirely relevant to much of what has been posted in this thread. It doesn't matter to what degree humans have directly altered global temperature itself. Human activity does affect climate: it is directly observable, and it is not in dispute. The difference between climate change (as some regions of the world will cool to a degree, though most will experience an increase in average temperature) now and rising/falling temperatures in Earth's history is our human presence. We are contributing to environmental change (for the worse) in a variety of ways:

-Population increase
-Depletion of natural resources/increased demand for more goods as a result of increased population
-Accumulation of pollutants in the water, on land, and in the air (mostly in the water)
-Loss of natural habitat/deforestation on every continent
-Land development driving the aforementioned loss of natural habitats on a global scale (the exception being Antarctica)

All of these factors continue to increase and worsen. They cannot increase and worsen without resulting consequences to the environment on a global scale; indeed, we are in the beginning stage of a sixth mass extinction. Since we are not minimizing the impact of these factors, regardless of whether we have the means to or not, the desire to or not, they are continuing to grow worse and worse.

You don’t have to believe in global warming to see we are destroying the environment anyway. Global warming debate allows us to be distracted from the destruction the simple existence of so many people causes.
Our oceans weren’t sewers 1/2 million years ago. We had not cut down all the forests 1/2 million years ago.
I think we should not worry so much about the science and just look around us. Is this the planet you want for your kids?

@Bulaba Jones is absolutely right. Show me one politician crying about global warming that is willing to reduce air travel. Nothing will be done.

Exactly. It doesn't matter if someone thinks global temperature patterns means there's global warming/climate change or not, human impact on the world itself is visible all around us, and it's deeply disturbing. What's most disturbing is the fact we haven't even begun to see how much worse it can get. It is only going to get worse, and nothing will be done until it's too late, and by then we'll only have short-term solutions to simply survive as long as possible.

[SolarCross]

@SolarCross your post isn't entirely relevant to much of what has been posted in this thread. It doesn't matter to what degree humans have directly altered global temperature itself. Human activity does affect climate: it is directly observable, and it is not in dispute. The difference between climate change (as some regions of the world will cool to a degree, though most will experience an increase in average temperature) now and rising/falling temperatures in Earth's history is our human presence. We are contributing to environmental change (for the worse) in a variety of ways:

-Population increase
-Depletion of natural resources/increased demand for more goods as a result of increased population
-Accumulation of pollutants in the water, on land, and in the air (mostly in the water)
-Loss of natural habitat/deforestation on every continent
-Land development driving the aforementioned loss of natural habitats on a global scale (the exception being Antarctica)

All of these factors continue to increase and worsen. They cannot increase and worsen without resulting consequences to the environment on a global scale; indeed, we are in the beginning stage of a sixth mass extinction. Since we are not minimizing the impact of these factors, regardless of whether we have the means to or not, the desire to or not, they are continuing to grow worse and worse.

All the CO2 we are returning to the atmosphere was dragged out of the atmosphere by plants over the past billions of years. Sure humans have an influence, everything has an influence. Why is it good for plants to rob the atmosphere of CO2 for their own selfish purposes and bad for humans to put it back where it belongs? See it's just another fall from Eden / original sin exercise in self-flagellation dressed up as pseudo-science, another doomsday cult.

[Steve_American]

Although a full-stop measure of HDC usage is what's needed to slow down climate change at this point, it's clearly not feasible, nor would it be feasible for enough governments to agree to immediate measures to massively reduce pollution, reflect sunlight, etc. Things are simply going to get worse.

Two things can happen: we develop the technology/desire to drastically slow down the process of global climate change... or we don't. Who here honestly thinks the former is happening or will happen any time soon?

That simply leaves us with the very realistic and likely conclusion that things will continue to get worse and not enough will be done outside of paper agreements. By the time anything is done, even drastically, it will be too late (it's already approaching the point of being too late to drastically slow down the process, and there's nowhere near enough being done in sight). Continued population explosion, accumulated pollution (among other things, the enormous amount of plastics and other pollutants in the South Pacific contributing to the toxification of the world's oceans), progressive deforestation and general loss of natural habitat on all continents (particularly in the world's oceans, e.g. coral reefs, etc), increased land development, and greater demand for food and water will lead to an inevitable global environmental collapse. All of those factors are continuing to worsen, and they cannot go on forever without leading to a breakdown in the world's many ecosystems from die-offs, loss of habitat, increased pollution, and so on.

Some likely short-term solutions to keep civilization going might be things we've already seen glimpses of in science fiction for the last century. Artificial farming and food production would revolutionize (and already some scientists are working on developing vat-grown meat for mass consumption, as the technology to produce it now isn't efficient enough for it to be cost-affordable) the food industry itself; whole buildings/factories dedicated to producing more and more food to prevent the kind of civil unrest we haven't seen for a century. Essentially, by the time we completely wreck the world's environment past the breaking point, we'll probably have the means to keep ourselves going through artificial food production.

In all likelihood, the future is probably going to be bleak.

If nothing is done for 20-30 years you-all can kiss your ass goodbye.
At least we need to plan for how to shut down all the nuclear power stations and make sure they will be safe for a long long time. Remove the fuel rods and bury them far apart and put up a fence to keep people out. If they 'China Syndrome" then how can humanity survive?

But, I don't think it makes any difference. If we do nothing then the Methane will be released and there is 100 times there to be released in just part of the Arctic Sea floor (not counting the permafrost) than there is in the air now. Methane is 100 times worse than CO2 per ton in the short term. This will kill all humans on earth.

The gloomiest guy says it will happen in the next several years. That if you see a report that all the Arctic Sea ice has melted this summer or next summer then it will be very quick after that.

BTW --- Solar Cross's ideas and links are about as useful in this debate as a Flat-Earther's ideas and links. Which is to say *useless*.

[SolarCross]

BTW --- Solar Cross's ideas and links are about as useful in this debate as a Flat-Earther's ideas and links. Which is to say *useless*.

Useless for selling a doomsday cult.

[SolarCross]

The voice of reason coming from the co-founder of greenpeace no less, lol.

[Godstud]

If nothing is done for 20-30 years you-all can kiss your ass goodbye.
At least we need to plan for how to shut down all the nuclear power stations and make sure they will be safe for a long long time. Remove the fuel rods and bury them far apart and put up a fence to keep people out. If they 'China Syndrome" then how can humanity survive?

But, I don't think it makes any difference. If we do nothing then the Methane will be released and there is 100 times there to be released in just part of the Arctic Sea floor (not counting the permafrost) than there is in the air now. Methane is 100 times worse than CO2 per ton in the short term. This will kill all humans on earth.

Ummm... most climate change scientists are not predicting 20-30 years til we "kiss our asses goodbye". That's false, but I'll give you an opportunity to provide sources for that claim.

Nuclear power is the way of the future, as they are mostly exceptionally safe, and good for the environment. Canadian reactors, incidentally, cannot do the "China Syndrome". All the nuclear waste on earth is actually very small, and easily contained, too. it's not like in the movies.

The 100 times claim is blatantly false:
Methane is 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas. And the frozen reserve is twice as large, by volume, as the world's known fossil fuel reserves.

David Archer, a University of Chicago geosciences professor, argued in a paper (.pdf) last year that methane release appears likely to be "chronic rather than catastrophic" and only on the scale of human fossil-fuel combustion.

Many scientists believe that a variety of other factors, like changes in the albedo (reflectivity) of the Earth could account for the massive, quick climate changes that have occurred through history.

Still, the lack of good data on the amount of methane entering the atmosphere from warming permafrost and ocean sources prevents the sort of quantification that drives governments to take notice and change course.
https://www.wired.com/2008/05/could-methane-t/

The doom and gloom predictions are mostly that.

[SolarCross]

[Steve_American]

Ummm... most climate change scientists are not predicting 20-30 years til we "kiss our asses goodbye". That's false, but I'll give you an opportunity to provide sources for that claim.

Nuclear power is the way of the future, as they are mostly exceptionally safe, and good for the environment. Canadian reactors, incidentally, cannot do the "China Syndrome". All the nuclear waste on earth is actually very small, and easily contained, too. it's not like in the movies.

The 100 times claim is blatantly false:
Methane is 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas. And the frozen reserve is twice as large, by volume, as the world's known fossil fuel reserves.

David Archer, a University of Chicago geosciences professor, argued in a paper (.pdf) last year that methane release appears likely to be "chronic rather than catastrophic" and only on the scale of human fossil-fuel combustion.

Many scientists believe that a variety of other factors, like changes in the albedo (reflectivity) of the Earth could account for the massive, quick climate changes that have occurred through history.

Still, the lack of good data on the amount of methane entering the atmosphere from warming permafrost and ocean sources prevents the sort of quantification that drives governments to take notice and change course.
https://www.wired.com/2008/05/could-methane-t/

The doom and gloom predictions are mostly that.

You missed a keyword in what I said. I said, 'short term". You see Methane decomposes into CO2 and H2O fairly quickly, in 100 years or so. So, it starts out really bad then drops off. The 25 times worse is an average over 50 -100 years. The 100 times worse is for the 1st few years.

And I compared the amount of Methane on the sea floor to how much is now in the air. You compared it to how much carbon or something "by volume" there is in the ground. Comparing a gas to a liquid or a solid by volume is not a useful comparison. The point of my comparison is it adds 100 times more CH4 to the air than is in it now. It is like saying that raising the CO2 in the air from 400 ppb to 800 ppb is doubling the problem. Going from 4 ppb to 404 ppb is a huge increase. And some estimates say it is really 1000 times more and it is still not counting the CH4 in the permafrost.

And it may not kill everyone in 20-30 years but if the release started now most people would be dead in 20-30 years, I estimate. And, remember once it starts it would be almost (if not actually) impossible to stop. But remember I'm no expert. I just have enough engineering education to evaluate the claims.

[Godstud]

Your claims do not appear to be supported by science, So I am going to dismiss your doom and gloom claims about methane killing us all in 20-30 years, unless you can give a decent source.

[SolarCross]

[Steve_American]

Your claims do not appear to be supported by science, So I am going to dismiss your doom and gloom claims about methane killing us all in 20-30 years, unless you can give a decent source.

I provided video sources.
But, it is kind of amazing.
On another site it is all denial. It is, "What are we going to do in the next 50 years to pay off the US national debt."
Here it is all "we are all going to die", but maybe my family will survive somehow.
I notice nobody has replied to my specific points.
I notice that you didn't reply to my reply about how my numbers were not all false.
Instead you give me this vague, "How about a decient source", shit.

[Godstud]

It is, "What are we going to do in the next 50 years to pay off the US national debt."

Not the topic. I actually don't care what happens to the USA in 50 years, either. I hope it collapses like Rome did.

I notice that you didn't reply to my reply about how my numbers were not all false.

Numbers can mean a lot of things. I am not going to sit here and parse numbers that I doubt you nor I know much about.

I will post this, however:

Are We as Doomed as That New York Magazine Article Says?
At key points in his piece, Wallace-Wells posits facts that mainstream climate science cannot support. In the introduction, he suggests that the world’s permafrost will belch all of its methane into the atmosphere as it melts, accelerating the planet’s warming in the decades to come. We don’t know everything about methane yet, but the picture does not seem this bleak. Melting permafrost will emit methane, and methane is an ultra-potent greenhouse gas, but scientists do not think so much it will escape in the coming century.

“The science on this is much more nuanced and doesn’t support the notion of a game-changing, planet-melting methane bomb,” writes Michael Mann, a climate scientist at Penn State, in a Facebook post. “It is unclear that much of this frozen methane can be readily mobilized by projected warming.”

At other points, Wallace-Wells misstates what we know about the climate change that has already happened. Satellite data does not show that the world has warmed twice as fast as scientists thought, as he says; rather, the observed warming has tracked pretty close to what the models predicted. Carbon-dioxide levels only get high enough to seriously depress brain function in indoor spaces, though he implies it will become a global problem. Most importantly, we do not know nearly as much about climate change and war as he claims—an idea that I will return to in a moment.

This isn’t to say that his piece is worth discarding in its entirety. Wallace-Wells paints a vivid and frightening version of a doomed world. Many scientists just don’t think we live in that world—and they don’t think it’s helpful to tell people that we do.
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/arc ... ed/533112/

Asking for a decent source is not "Shit". Video sources, these days, are amongst the worst sources you can possibly provide, since the majority are propaganda, or heavily politicized. If you don't like that, then tough.

[Steve_American]

Not the topic. I actually don't care what happens to the USA in 50 years, either. I hope it collapses like Rome did.

Numbers can mean a lot of things. I am not going to sit here and parse numbers that I doubt you nor I know much about.

I will post this, however:

Are We as Doomed as That New York Magazine Article Says?
At key points in his piece, Wallace-Wells posits facts that mainstream climate science cannot support. In the introduction, he suggests that the world’s permafrost will belch all of its methane into the atmosphere as it melts, accelerating the planet’s warming in the decades to come. We don’t know everything about methane yet, but the picture does not seem this bleak. Melting permafrost will emit methane, and methane is an ultra-potent greenhouse gas, but scientists do not think so much it will escape in the coming century.

“The science on this is much more nuanced and doesn’t support the notion of a game-changing, planet-melting methane bomb,” writes Michael Mann, a climate scientist at Penn State, in a Facebook post. “It is unclear that much of this frozen methane can be readily mobilized by projected warming.”

At other points, Wallace-Wells misstates what we know about the climate change that has already happened. Satellite data does not show that the world has warmed twice as fast as scientists thought, as he says; rather, the observed warming has tracked pretty close to what the models predicted. Carbon-dioxide levels only get high enough to seriously depress brain function in indoor spaces, though he implies it will become a global problem. Most importantly, we do not know nearly as much about climate change and war as he claims—an idea that I will return to in a moment.

This isn’t to say that his piece is worth discarding in its entirety. Wallace-Wells paints a vivid and frightening version of a doomed world. Many scientists just don’t think we live in that [doomed] world—and they don’t think it’s helpful to tell people that we do.
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/arc ... ed/533112/

Asking for a decent source is not "Shit". Video sources, these days, are amongst the worst sources you can possibly provide, since the majority are propaganda, or heavily politicized. If you don't like that, then tough.

So as I see it you will only focus on what climate scientists (CS) say that they think will happen according to their models and their scientific knowledge.
I OTOH look around and I see that people are not yet motivated to do anything drastic to stop AGW. What CS say is not enough, apparently.

So, I want to focus on what CS think is the *reasonable worst case*. [Not the really worst case because that says it is too late and we are all going to die in 3 to 20 years, =extinction.] I want to do this because I want to motivate people to change their decision about acting or not.
Godstud, in the article you posted just above, the CS said that Methane probably will not be released in mass. He did *not* say that is is impossible that it is released because of AGW. So, as I read what he said, he said the mechanism for a massive CH4 release is "unclear", meaning we don't know yet, and therefore, I include it in my reasonable worst case. Also, please note, that is what he *said*. CS often do not say what they think will or could happen; instead they say what they think they can prove will happen. Where "prove" has a strange meaning of "to be able to back up your claims with good solid evidence including the results of incomplete climate models".

That article also says that it is not useful to tell the mass of people that "we do live in that world". OK, I can see that. Guy McPherson is saying that and that it is too late to stop it now. I agree that for most people that message is disheartening. But, it motivated me disprove his wild claim. To show that it is not too late, rather than to show it is not possible.

So, we come to what I am saying, and what I do think.
We need to motivate the mass of people in the democratic West to be willing to demand that their governments do something (that CS think will be effective). So, I came up with my *reasonable worst case* argument. I'm not saying that it will happen. I'm saying that most climate scientists think that it is possible to happen, and not a very small chance but at least a 10% chance.

I am *not* proposing massive changes to the West's economy. I am proposing that we create cash to pay for the programs that we instigate to start with. I (for 1) am positive that it is *far better* to risk high inflation (which may not even happen) instead of risking human extinction.

Remember that a 10% chance is equal to playing Russian roulette with a 10 chambered revolver. Is this enough of a chance of dying to keep you from playing Russian roulette with your life and/or with humanity's future?

[Godstud]

The thing is, you can post whatever percentage you want, and it doesn't mean people are going to believe it, take it seriously, or even act upon it. Much of it seems beyond the ken of the average people, and the solution isn't one that everyone can act upon.

When you're barely getting by, you don't have the luxury of thinking about what the world will be like in 30 years, as you might not make it unless things improve your lot in life.

Rich people(nations) have the luxury and time to cogitate on such matters. There is a reason why most poor or even developing nations aren't terribly environmentally conscious.

[Bulaba Khan Jones]

The facts are clear: there is observable climate change happening on a global scale. It's a matter of why it's happening, and what the consequences will look like. Most scientists agree that humans are largely driving the changes we're seeing today, but not all scientists. Most scientists also agree that there will be lasting consequences (regardless of how dire those consequences are), but not all scientists. Another fact is that we are in the beginning stage of Earth's Sixth Extinction event (I capitalize that because that's the term, and Earth has had five previous mass extinctions we are aware of).

A fact everyone can agree on is that 43% of Earth's ice-free land is being used by humans. That 43% land use and development figure includes urban sprawl and other settlements, farming and livestock production, industrial uses, and so on.

Another set of facts is that the human population continues to increase, land development continues to increase, pollution (from every sector of civilization, from industrial pollution to urban pollution to accumulated pollution in the oceans and so on) and waste continues to increase, loss of natural habitat/deforestation on every settled continent continues to increase, and the depletion of natural resources/demand for goods continues to increase.

Those factors can't possibly continue to go on without serious consequences to the planet. Although there is talk about a possible leveling-off of the human population in the next century or so, what that means would be starvation, mass civil unrest across the globe, and conflict over arable land and food. In a century, it's hard to fathom we won't have the means to sustain much of our population through synthetic food production, or else risk the above. Assuming we develop a more economical way to grow meat in vats (we have already grown meat in vats, but it's too early for it to be affordable) along with mass production of vegetables and other foodstuff, the kind of starvation we can only imagine would occur during a "leveling-off effect" of the human population can be avoided, which would accordingly mean our population will continue to increase.

It doesn't matter what the global temperature averages are when we continue to deplete natural resources, expand our numbers at an increasing rate, destroy natural habitats (which is accelerating global extinction rates) and the forests that go along with the land, pollute the land and water, and continue to develop more and more land for human use. Those things can't possibly continue to go on without serious and long-lasting consequences (unless one believes God will come down and save us).

Further, even if Earth's human population "levels off" (with all the death, misery, and war that will entail), land development will continue in order to meet economic demands. In other words, even if there's a population freeze, economic expansion will necessitate more and more land being used for resource extraction and general development. That, too, means we will continue to pollute the water and land at an increased rate, natural habitats will continue to decrease and disappear, and deforestation will continue apace.