- 28 Jun 2018 03:19
#14928366
I totally agree with everything you said there except the part at the end.
I think it matters a great deal if temp. get as high as they will if we do nothing.
If all that you said comes to pass BUT not large global warming; THEN humanity will have very hard times but extinction is off the table.
I HOPE that if the West starts a missive crash program to avert AGW, that this will (in itself) be enough to reach the mass of people of all the world and divert them from having more than 2 children. There are hopeful signs that that idea is taking hold. So, that the population will level off without the mass starvation that was ALWAYS required in the past. As an example, apparently, the pop. of India from 1000 BCE to 1300 AD did not go up much. There were recurring famines from a failure of the monsoon = droughts. And this kept the pop. pretty much level. We have access to better tech to control births, so maybe we can do it without mass starvation.
But, playing Russian roulette with a 10 chambered revolver is just dumb, IMHO.
Bulaba Jones wrote: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).
I totally agree with everything you said there except the part at the end.
I think it matters a great deal if temp. get as high as they will if we do nothing.
If all that you said comes to pass BUT not large global warming; THEN humanity will have very hard times but extinction is off the table.
I HOPE that if the West starts a missive crash program to avert AGW, that this will (in itself) be enough to reach the mass of people of all the world and divert them from having more than 2 children. There are hopeful signs that that idea is taking hold. So, that the population will level off without the mass starvation that was ALWAYS required in the past. As an example, apparently, the pop. of India from 1000 BCE to 1300 AD did not go up much. There were recurring famines from a failure of the monsoon = droughts. And this kept the pop. pretty much level. We have access to better tech to control births, so maybe we can do it without mass starvation.
But, playing Russian roulette with a 10 chambered revolver is just dumb, IMHO.