Terra's Future is Bleak In Our Lifetime?

Duper · Post by **Duper** » Sat Jan 15, 2005 11:36 pm

I'm banking on an asteroid!

MD-2389 · Post by **MD-2389** » Mon Jan 17, 2005 12:40 am

Lothar wrote:
Flabby Chick wrote:Like Mobius said, eventually by hook or by crook the planet will not be here. The only way to keep on keepin' on is by getting off.
"eventually" can be an awful long time. "Holy crap, the earth is going to die in like 3 or 4 billion years, we better start planning!"

Thats the funny thing about the future, we don't really know what's going to happen.

While I do agree with you that we shouldn't go on a panic spree or jump to conclusions, it doesn't hurt to atleast start a colony off-world (ie: the moon). You're helping ensure the survival of the human race and furthing our understanding of the universe as we know it at the same time. Our planet isn't going anywhere anytime soon, I agree. However, we can't stay here forever. The sooner we start investing in space travel and colonization, the better.

Eagle132 · Post by **Eagle132** » Mon Jan 17, 2005 12:53 am

hahaha, I say we colonize Mars

Seriously though, it's not a bad idea, but with our current ecnomic position, I'd wait a few more years.

Lothar · Post by **Lothar** » Mon Jan 17, 2005 3:42 pm

MD-2389 wrote:it doesn't hurt to atleast start a colony off-world (ie: the moon)

But our motivation shouldn't be "OMG TEH OIL!!!" panic. There are plenty of good reasons to start off-world colonies; peak-oil is not one of them.

Nitrofox125 · Post by **Nitrofox125** » Mon Jan 17, 2005 4:49 pm

Someone said something about the amount of trash in a building a while ago. Having worked as a janitor in a few places, I gotta say that when there's nobody to come take the trash to a magical place (we're not sending it to the sun in rockets), it grows a ton and does become a problem. More than double the amount of people (as was suggested in said post) and you have to realize that not just the amount of trash that already exists is doubled, but the amount produced *each day* is also doubled.

Sirius · Post by **Sirius** » Mon Jan 17, 2005 5:11 pm

I think you'll find there's even less oil on the moon.

Or anywhere else for that matter. Reason being that oil is produced from decaying microorganisms, which don't exist outside Earth.

You can find methane though.

Buef · Post by **Buef** » Mon Jan 17, 2005 8:03 pm

It's good that you're more aware of conservation. But the ends do not always justify the means. In this case, the means are unjustified fear-mongering websites and books that you really shouldn't trust.

There are much better ways to become more aware of conservation. For example: read my posts on this subject. Talk to scientists in your area. Have discussions with people with a clue.

There are also much better things you can do than panic. Consider investing in technology...

I agree, never trust any book, always try to sperate the subjective and the factual as well as the theories. This applies to every book, the Koran and Bible included.

As far as fear mongering websites, I see it as a marketing ploy, no different than most comercials. Again, the web site is an advertisment, with an intent to sell the book, not educate. To form an opinion on the book, especially to the point of preaching and reading untrue things into what people post is kinda scary.

I have seen noone state or imply they are panicing nor even in support of the book.

Originaly I mearly suggested one more (out of hundreds) theory to add to the original posters concerns (valid and invalid), I guess it was his last couple of words that started my train of thought in that direction.

But again, I do not want to re-cover this ground. I have no intrest in defending the book.

Hostile · Post by **Hostile** » Mon Jan 17, 2005 10:02 pm

The Earth has been warming up since the last ice age, a fact I'm pretty happy about actually.

I saw some dude (I think on CNN) the other day say that the average temperature of the earth has increased 1/2 a degree over the last hundred years and has a steady pace in the long term...... I haven't seen the actual data though.

DCrazy · Post by **DCrazy** » Mon Jan 17, 2005 11:02 pm

The problem is that you can't just average the temperature of the earth, you need to worry about where temperatures are drastically increasing or decreasing. A local temperature shift could be great enough to knock the gulf stream off course severly altering temperatures for millions.

Duper · Post by **Duper** » Tue Jan 18, 2005 1:26 am

the temp has increased something like 4 degrees in the last 10 years. The polar icecaps are showing signs of disintigrate. Polar bears are moving further south with less hunting grounds on the ice and many are starving.

It's got some people very concerned.

MD-2389 · Post by **MD-2389** » Tue Jan 18, 2005 9:40 pm

Lothar wrote:
MD-2389 wrote:it doesn't hurt to atleast start a colony off-world (ie: the moon)
But our motivation shouldn't be "OMG TEH OIL!!!" panic. There are plenty of good reasons to start off-world colonies; peak-oil is not one of them.

Like I said, I already agreed with you on that. If anything, a big reason to start off-world colonies would be getting away from current events.

roid · Post by **roid** » Thu Jan 20, 2005 5:59 am

indeed. i am so sick of the MTV music awards.

Top Gun · Post by **Top Gun** » Thu Jan 20, 2005 10:55 am

roid wrote:indeed. i am so sick of the MTV music awards.

Here's an even better idea: how about we ship them to another planet?

Tyranny · Post by **Tyranny** » Thu Jan 20, 2005 11:06 am

Top Gun wrote:
roid wrote:indeed. i am so sick of the MTV music awards.
Here's an even better idea: how about we ship them to another planet?

I think as far as most of them are aware of they're already on another planet

MD-2389 · Post by **MD-2389** » Thu Jan 20, 2005 11:48 pm

Top Gun wrote:
roid wrote:indeed. i am so sick of the MTV music awards.
Here's an even better idea: how about we ship them to another planet?

Well, we could shove all of MTV into one giant ball of garbage and use a large rocket to fire it all off into space.

Let the people 1000 years from now deal with it.

(/Futurama Reference)

[]V[]essenjah · Post by **[]V[]essenjah** » Fri Jan 21, 2005 6:29 am

We could send them to Pluto, no one wants to go there anyway. Or, to Uranis, no air

Hostile · Post by **Hostile** » Fri Jan 21, 2005 1:39 pm

Duper wrote:the temp has increased something like 4 degrees in the last 10 years. The polar icecaps are showing signs of disintigrate. Polar bears are moving further south with less hunting grounds on the ice and many are starving.

It's got some people very concerned.

You are living in fantasy land with those numbers Dup. 4 degrees in 10 years would be catastrophic. Don't just outright believe all of the wackos that come up with those crazy numbers. According to that same guy on CNN (he is some author that did a bunch of research and wrote a book), the temperature at the poles has actually dropped over the past 60 years and the ice is expanding. First page of google gave me this which sort of corroborates (sp?) that info:
http://capmag.com/article.asp?ID=1281
Localized phenomenon are not as scary as they look in the big picture, it's just that humans are small and insignificant to the power of mother nature. If you build your house on the edge of a cliff that was originally created by long-term erosion, expect it to continue......
I found this interesting as well:
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/ice_ages.html
Especially for DCrazy.....

t-pilot · Post by **t-pilot** » Fri Jan 21, 2005 2:12 pm

Anybody seen "Day After Tomorrow?"

There are enough sources of power that do not affect the environment (solar, wind, Hydrogen etc). But for some funny reason (oil companies, US gov ?) they aren't used widespread yet.

They Ã re developing hydrogen cars. A few busses in my country drive on the stuff. But it's not very safe yet for small cars and such.

My uncle had a solar panel on his roof. He could actually sell some of his power to a power company, because he generated too much.

I also heard stories of people creating some new clean power source, and eventually ended up in jail.

And there's some of my 2 cents

Sligar · Post by **Sligar** » Fri Jan 21, 2005 3:30 pm

I think this problem may take care of itself over time; birthrates in the developed countries are dropping off by themselves, its the undeveloped areas that have huge birthrates. In a poverty stricken area, reproduction can be an effective retirement policy. But in the developed world people get preoccupied with career and material things and aren't interested in being saddled with a giant family. As offshoring of jobs and overseas investment continues, western wealth and ideals will be exported to foreign countries and the birthrates will probably decline there as well. Once a country gets enough wealth, they can starting protecting the environment as well. Before that, though, the environment is a distant second behind survival.

Lothar · Post by **Lothar** » Fri Jan 21, 2005 4:34 pm

t-pilot wrote:Anybody seen "Day After Tomorrow?"

I heard it was brilliantly done propaganda and fearmongering. There might be some truth to it -- just like there might be some truth to the article linked to in this thread -- but overall, it paints a misleading picture.

There are enough sources of power that do not affect the environment... But for some funny reason (oil companies, US gov ?) they aren't used widespread yet.

I think the "funny reason" is economics. At present, oil is cheaper than other energy sources for the things we use it for. If some other source of energy could be made more cheaply using modern technology, I guarantee you some rich oil company would be selling it right now and raking in the $.

I also heard stories of people creating some new clean power source, and eventually ended up in jail.

Most likely an urban legend. If you create a new clean power source, you end up on the payroll of an oil company, because they know clean power is going to be profitable soon.

The whole premise of the "peak oil" fearmongering requires you to assume oil companies are both evil and stupid. While you might be right on the "evil" point, they're definitely not stupid -- they're not going to risk bankruptcy when oil production drops. They're doing things to maintain profitability, which means they're all trying to outcompete the other oil companies on developing alternative energy sources which will become more widespread as soon as their profit margin on oil drops below their profit margin on clean energy. They probably even have a very clear idea when this will be, and budget R&D accordingly.