Sir David Attenborough says we in serious trouble if we dont change our ways.

[JU_88]

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/ne...-16185461.html

Sadly I gotta agree with the old man,
At some point Mankind will have to face either the daunting task of stablising its own numbers voluntairly - or deal with nightmare consquences of not doing so.
And I also agree its not nice to discuss at all, but there will come a day when we wont have a choice any more.

[Oberon]

I can foresee the one-child per family policy becoming a global thing in the not too distant future. Failing that there's always the possibility of disease or war to help decrease numbers, I suspect given the competition over resources that might come that they will both flourish.

[Ducimus]

Right now, our entire civilization is dependent upon fossil fuels. I heard somewhere that one spoonful of gas has enough energy of one person doing manual labor for a day. If that's true, then talk about efficient!

It's this effeciency, and the use in fossil fuels in just about everything imaginable that has allowed us to produce more food then the land could yeild on it's own. When the fossil fuels start running out, food shortages will follow by way of less crop yeild, and harder to transport said goods. People will starve because they will be unable to get food because they're isnt enough, or they simply can't afford what is available.

The kick in the crotch to all of this, is that it seems nobody can imagine life any different then what it is now because oil use has become engrained in our society, to the point where some aspects of its use are considered tradition, or even part of our lifestyle. When it finally does run out, we're in for one hell of a rude awakening. Personally, i place the blame firmly on the greedy bastards who can't see past their own immediate market profits and refuse to change. They'll suck it for all its worth, and send our entire society crashing when its finally run out due to their short sightedness.

On a lighter note, the traditional Omish will have the last laugh on everyone. Our modern 20th century is but a small portion of humanities history. This modern world that we live in, won't last forever.

(edit: christ i sound like some crackpot doomsday prepper)

[Codz]

Space exploration and colonization are an answer. Earth won't last forever.

[Ducimus]

Originally Posted by Codz

Space exploration and colonization are an answer. Earth won't last forever.

I'm gonna hazard a guess that even that uses fossil fuels.

[Codz]

Originally Posted by Ducimus

I'm gonna hazard a guess that even that uses fossil fuels.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_S...Rocket_Booster
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Main_Engine

Not to mention NTR's are an interesting and speedy way to get around the Solar System if we continue research on them.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Codz

Space exploration and colonization are an answer. Earth won't last forever.

We just heared the sound of the sea whgile still being far away from the shore, inside the land. We have not even dipped our toe into the waves at the beach - and you talk of crossing the ocean, settling on the other side, and building habitats at the deepest bottom?

In several centuries - maybe. I doubt that we have that much time. And sending two men to Mars and back - what meaning could that have? It may offend our boasting egos, but the meaning rates close around zero. Even a station on Mars, crewed with half a dozen person, means nothing for mankinds future.

And moon - I can not imagine to build habitats for huge autark colonies on moon. At best we will have a kind of robot mining up there, and automatted ore-transportation to Earth'S orbit. MAYBE. Moon has no atmospühere, and we have no idea how to get one up there. So, living there, colonies and all that - no. I think it also is not desirable. It would be like spendign all your life aboard a dived submarine. Whioch maybe only is bearable because a submarine can surface, if it wants, and open the hatches, and there you climb out and tank some sun and light and wind and fresh air. A moon colony can not "surface"..

And I do not think our technology is so solid and surviving that it would maintain human life for decades on Mars, in autarky, and independen t from Earth. We have nio technmology for realsitical terraforming in a forseeable timeframe. Even the flight to Mars can fail and kill the expedition just because one single chip for 8 cents breaks down. Our technology is not of that kind that we can trust it to run for generations.

We have visions, fantasies, yes, and I love them. But I am also aware that they are science fiction, and will remain to be that for another couple of centuries at last. If they ever get realsied at all. And that is a very big "if".

Either we get along on this planet, or evolution is done with this failed design of ours. I really wonder if inventing instrumental intelligence and these two hands of ours - marvellous tools - was such a great design of evolution. It has not resulted in a design that fosters life, increases its own survivability in the evolutionary race and does not exterminate itself. So what is it good for, from an evolutionary POV? It seems to bear no advantages. Other, less complex and sensible life forms seem to outlast us easily, and at a smaller cost to the planetary biosphere.

Chances are high that homo sapiens is a dead end of evolution. Sad, but I have started to take this possibility into account. And I think it is the one with the greatest probability.

In other words: No, like Attenborough I'm also not optimistic.

"We are too many." I keep writing this since years.

Meh.
Mankind will probably find a way to survive no matter what.
It just won't be the cozy, jaunt down to the deli, go home and watch cable TV, type life anymore.

Closer to Mad Max maybe.

[JU_88]

Originally Posted by Skybird

We just heared the sound of the sea whgile still being far away from the shore, inside the land. We have not even dipped our toe into the waves at the beach - and you talk of crossing the ocean, settling on the other side, and building habitats at the deepest bottom?

In several centuries - maybe. I doubt that we have that much time. And sending two men to Mars and back - what meaning could that have? It may offend our boasting egos, but the meaning rates close around zero. Even a station on Mars, crewed with half a dozen person, means nothing for mankinds future.

And moon - I can not imagine to build habitats for huge autark colonies on moon. At best we will have a kind of robot mining up there, and automatted ore-transportation to Earth'S orbit. MAYBE. Moon has no atmospühere, and we have no idea how to get one up there. So, living there, colonies and all that - no. I think it also is not desirable. It would be like spendign all your life aboard a dived submarine. Whioch maybe only is bearable because a submarine can surface, if it wants, and open the hatches, and there you climb out and tank some sun and light and wind and fresh air. A moon colony can not "surface"..

And I do not think our technology is so solid and surviving that it would maintain human life for decades on Mars, in autarky, and independen t from Earth. We have nio technmology for realsitical terraforming in a forseeable timeframe. Even the flight to Mars can fail and kill the expedition just because one single chip for 8 cents breaks down. Our technology is not of that kind that we can trust it to run for generations.

We have visions, fantasies, yes, and I love them. But I am also aware that they are science fiction, and will remain to be that for another couple of centuries at last. If they ever get realsied at all. And that is a very big "if".

Either we get along on this planet, or evolution is done with this failed design of ours. I really wonder if inventing instrumental intelligence and these two hands of ours - marvellous tools - was such a great design of evolution. It has not resulted in a design that fosters life, increases its own survivability in the evolutionary race and does not exterminate itself. So what is it good for, from an evolutionary POV? It seems to bear no advantages. Other, less complex and sensible life forms seem to outlast us easily, and at a smaller cost to the planetary biosphere.

Chances are high that homo sapiens is a dead end of evolution. Sad, but I have started to take this possibility into account. And I think it is the one with the greatest probability.

In other words: No, like Attenborough I'm also not optimistic.

"We are too many." I keep writing this since years.

Amen to that, Despite all of mans exceptional accomplishments and acts of greatness, our overall master plan seems to be; money comes first, breed like rabbits, muddle through.
Fail.

[TLAM Strike]

Originally Posted by Skybird

In several centuries - maybe. I doubt that we have that much time. And sending two men to Mars and back - what meaning could that have? It may offend our boasting egos, but the meaning rates close around zero. Even a station on Mars, crewed with half a dozen person, means nothing for mankinds future.

Well it all starts somewhere doesn't it? Rovers first, then a few people for a day, then a outpost manned for a year, then it gets bigger. Its all part of a process.

And moon - I can not imagine to build habitats for huge autark colonies on moon. At best we will have a kind of robot mining up there, and automatted ore-transportation to Earth'S orbit. MAYBE. Moon has no atmospühere, and we have no idea how to get one up there.

The Atmosphere is a big pain in the butt. It blocks all that nice solar energy we could use as power. Plus it makes everything rust. Don't get me started on the weather!

But the robot mining is a good idea, we will need the mine shafts...

Remember Star Trek II?

CAROL: There is food in the Genesis cave, enough to last a lifetime, ...if necessary.
McCOY: We thought this was Genesis.
CAROL: This? It took the Starfleet Corps of Engineers ten months in space suits to tunnel out all this. What we did in there ...we did in a day.

We've done it before. Once we create a basic habitat, O2, soil, light we bring in the strongest plant and animal life we have to build a self sustaining ecosystem. Then we move in.

So, living there, colonies and all that - no. I think it also is not desirable. It would be like spendign all your life aboard a dived submarine. Whioch maybe only is bearable because a submarine can surface, if it wants, and open the hatches, and there you climb out and tank some sun and light and wind and fresh air. A moon colony can not "surface"..

After a generation being inside a habitat will be normal. There is a great passage in the novel 2001 where a young child on Luna expresses disgust at the thought of going down to Earth, its all a question of physics to get it where we want it to go.

And I do not think our technology is so solid and surviving that it would maintain human life for decades on Mars, in autarky, and independen t from Earth.

The Voyager probes are still going strong. Some of the gear Buzz and Neil left at Mare Tranquillitatis still work. Sprint and Opportunity failed to lack of a snowbrush.

We have technology that can last, we know how to build everything we need. All we need is the will to go and do it.

We have nio technmology for realsitical terraforming in a forseeable timeframe.

See the link I posted above. Plus all the other ingredients we need are just floating around. There is more water and oxygen floating around the outer planets than there is on Earth.

Even the flight to Mars can fail and kill the expedition just because one single chip for 8 cents breaks down. Our technology is not of that kind that we can trust it to run for generations.

The developers of Project Orion had the right idea, don't build a spacecraft like a spacecraft; build the thing like a damn Battleship. If you increase the launchable weight you increase just how tough the whole system is. You quickly get to a point where the spacecraft is not dependent on some computer chip made in Taiwan, you get a ship that has its own machine shops and manufacturing.

We have visions, fantasies, yes, and I love them. But I am also aware that they are science fiction, and will remain to be that for another couple of centuries at last. If they ever get realsied at all. And that is a very big "if".

We went to LEO (half way to anywhere as RAH once said), we went to the Moon, we seriously were going to Mars before the Soviet Union collapsed (just what do you think those year long missions aboard Mir were about? Setting a record? Ego? You don't keep spending that money for pride).

Either we get along on this planet, or evolution is done with this failed design of ours. I really wonder if inventing instrumental intelligence and these two hands of ours - marvellous tools - was such a great design of evolution. It has not resulted in a design that fosters life, increases its own survivability in the evolutionary race and does not exterminate itself. So what is it good for, from an evolutionary POV? It seems to bear no advantages. Other, less complex and sensible life forms seem to outlast us easily, and at a smaller cost to the planetary biosphere.

Chances are high that homo sapiens is a dead end of evolution. Sad, but I have started to take this possibility into account. And I think it is the one with the greatest probability.

In other words: No, like Attenborough I'm also not optimistic.

"We are too many." I keep writing this since years.

Take a tortoise, which lives longer than a human and walks around its its own armored shell, and flip its on its back or lift it up and put it in a tree; what happens? it dies. A human can think of a way out and build it.

There is no natural harmonious state the hippies keep talking about. The universe's natural state is decay.

We are the only species yet discovered with the intelligence and tools to do something about it.

[JU_88]

Good point Ducimus, I dont think the depletion of fossil fuels wont be an over night thing, it will be a slower gradual process.
but its pretty sad, since we dont need fossile fuel at all. we have many alternatives - while they are not as practiacal or cost effective, they could be if put wnough efforting into research and development.

[Codz]

Nuclear energy alone could be an effective replacement. So long as facilities are properly maintained and personnel are trained well, it could be a very safe and clean alternative.

Nuclear energy probably will solve the over population problem at some point in time.

Just not in a good way.

[Ducimus]

Originally Posted by JU_88

Good point Ducimus, I dont think the depletion of fossil fuels wont be an over night thing, it will be a slower gradual process.
but its pretty sad, since we dont need fossile fuel at all. we have many alternatives - while they are not as practiacal or cost effective, they could be if put wnough efforting into research and development.

Funny you should say, "over night". I agree, it won't be over night, but a gradual thing. Hopefully a gradual decline wakes up the powers that be and gets them moving before it ends up being too late.

Anywho, there's this about what would happen if all the oil just went up and disappeared over night. I think that's highly unrealistic and borders on fear mongering, (edit: and concludes as a tree huggers wet dream) but it does a good job to show just how much our society is dependent upon oil.

[Fubar2Niner]

Like sir dave says, global warming brothers and sisters, and here's more proof........... Like we need it;

http://news.uk.msn.com/video-clips/?VideoID=2g3gi2y9

Note the size of that bugger!