Will a die-off/ecological collapse happen in our lifetime?

[marsmellow]

I'm going to post links to three videos. One is more educational, one is more artistic, and one is more negative, but they all have the same message. Basically the message is this: we human beings are rapidly multiplying, polluting the environment and devouring the Earth's resources like a plague of locusts.

Are humans smarter than yeast?
The stork is the bird of war.
Humans are a virus.

For tens of thousands of years, our population grew slowly. But since the industrial and green revolutions, the world population has exploded from about half a billion, to almost 7 billion. This was made possible by our technology. Our technology is powered by these natural resources which we are quickly stripping from the Earth.

In the next 50 years or so, many of those resources like:

Fossil Fuels (especially Oil)
Fresh Water
Topsoil
Phosphorus (fertilizer, used to grow our food)
Lithium (used for electric car batteries)

...will be extremely scarce and expensive. On top of that we are badly screwing up the environment with our activities.

The climate is getting hotter
The oceans are turning more acidic
The ice caps and glaciers are melting
The rain forests are being clear cut
Our water is polluted with heavy metals, pharmaceuticals and other chemicals
There is a giant plastic soup larger than Texas floating in the Pacific Ocean
Thousands of species are being driven to extinction

Now, you see all this above? This is the situation right now. But this is mostly from the Western World. How much worse do you think it will get once China, India, and the rest of the world industrialize? They want to live just like us (i.e. wastefully,) and we really have no right to tell them they can't. (and don't forget, every minute 255 more people come into the world, the population is still growing)

When I think about this stuff, I can't help but conclude that we have some very tough times approaching. I don't think our future involves colonizing space and enhancing ourselves with computers, I think it will involve extreme energy shortages, famine, rising sea levels and vicious wars over resources. I think we are going into a bottleneck or a die-off. Or maybe it has already started...

Basically, my question is can someone convince me that my apocalyptic visions are wrong? Can somebody talk me down? I really don't like believing this stuff. It is a bit depressing.

 

[AttentionToThis]

Someone Else! In my opinion all this stuff is so obvious, that I can't understand how someone could not believe it. When you look at a highway and choke on poisoned air, and see concrete, everywhere life used to flourish you have to believe something is seriously wrong. I think that the planet itself is alive and must follow the course of all other living things, which unfortunately includes death.

I try to make myself feel better by thinking that just like how here on earth, wherever there's a death somewhere, elsewhere life is being born, it's the same on the galactic level, and that somewhere else a new living planet is being borned, and there others that are currently at the peak of their lifecycle. But everywhere I see is the ever expanding society of people, and it's impossible to watch something so beautifal die in front of you and not feel sad. But unlike watching one person die, this is so big, I'm only one person, my mind just isn't meant to handle such big problems that can't be solved.

I think that civilization is inherently evil. And by civilization, I mean a social system that dominates nature. The Modern method of farming that started about 10,000 years ago, where we deny the right of existence to all things that are not directly profitable to us(food). This is essentially a war on life, unlike all other life that only takes what it needs to survive, we take as much as we possibley can to allow our kind to grow at the expense of others.

A wolf will kill a deer for food to survive, but you never see a wolf kill animals that compete with the same resources as the deer, or other animals that hunt deer, just so there will be more deer to eat, and more wolves. Unlike us, who have almost completely wiped them out and then demonize wolves in the stories we tell, and why? Because they eat "our" livestock, but only after having their home, the forest, burned or chopped down so small that it can't support enough prey to feed them.

I don't really think there's any hope for earth to survive though. Even if WWIII were to somehowblows us back into the stoneage and not burn the whole world down in the process, and cuts down our population and consumtion down low enough to allow life to live again, it would only take one group of people to decide to form a government, a organized military, to develop science again. I just hope the collapse happens before the development of independent space colonies. Which I think is plausible, because people think that all they need to do to avert ecological catosraphe is to throw their plastic water bottles in a recycling bin, or wait for green energy to come. I fucking hate green energy, it's not just the car pollution that's a problem, the simple existence is a problem. Where life used to be, there is: pavement, a car, a mine for the metals that made the car, a factory, farmland to feed the person that made it, ect. Our simple existence is a problem, with pollution only being one detail.

And people are still concerned about the economy growing, or which president to vote for, and about human rights, and all that shit. I think the worse part about knowing this is that it's so difficult to care about anything other people do, and seeing other people care about such frivilous stuff just disgusts me. I'm actually really glad you posted this though, becuase I've never met anyone that believes any of this, or just doesn't give a fuck, and to know someone else is also depressed because of this, makes me feel much less alone.

 

[Max Power]

Peak oil, I believe, is definitely a problem that needs to be addressed. Basically, we're in dire need of alternative fuels.

I'm not sure of the specific numbers, but I do know for a fact that the number of automobiles on the road is vastly increasing every day. That's on a worldwide scale, too.

Not only does this bring up ecological issues but energy ones as well.

 

[thujone]

my opinion is that we're actually in the worst part of the economic turmoil, or perhaps just on the cusp of the worst part. i think the future will involve the breakup of large states, unable to support gigantic federal infrastructures, and more smaller city states will emerge that function more efficiently and are able to feed the populace, provide energy for everyone, and take basic care of everyone with far less effort and waste.

i believe the u.s. model of state is heading for failure soon. there are simply too many people spread out across too much property to look after and a democratic system is becoming more and more difficult to uphold when more and more people are becoming disillusioned with it, and get entirely disinvolved.

individually, americans are really far less self-sufficient than most people elsewhere because they're used to spending more hours at work for the MAN, being highly-specialized and paid well enough to simply BUY all the goods they can't make and services they can't perform.

fortunately, it seems many other nations are slightly ahead of the curve and have for years been implementing more efficient infrastructure to deal with the demands of their people (e.g. public transport in iceland runs on hydrogen.)

my only worry right now is with all the extreme weather happening. as more and more coastal areas are being fucked up by severe storms (as seen recently in india and china,) there will be huge waves of migration inland by literally BILLIONS of people globally looking for stable places to live. that will in turn put a massive stress on even the most efficient infrastructures.

 

[yougene]

Yes, there are hard times ahead. 5 years ago we thought we had 50 years before our CO2 emissions go beyond the point of no return. Now the data is suggesting we will be there in 10 years if we aren't already there. With that said there is a silver lining to the situation. We live in a society that is reactive not proactive. That is, we react to crisis rather than anticipate and do ahead of time. It might be the kick in the ass we all need to pull together and get stuff done. The technology is already there to solve many of these problems. What hasn't been there is a market and cultural environment that will sustain this technology. Hopefully we'll transform into a proactive society in the process.

 

[Belisarius]

My op:

1.) In our lifetime? I doubt it. Any decline will probably take generations, IMO, taking so long that it will only be apparent in retrospect. Talk of a dramatic Malthusian collapse belongs in the '70s.

2.) Species present an interesting case. I think any ecological catastrophe will be represented less by massive extinction than by a steady erosion of diversity; that is, specialized species will steadily die out and be replaced by more and more generalists and invasives.

BUT...For all this, I'm generally optimistic. Here's why:

1.) Resources: These have a way of ironing themselves out. An increase in oil prices will drive consumption away from crude. An increase in metal prices will spur recycling efforts and more efficient usage. A decrease in timber stocks will encourage sustainable conservation. Eco-tourism can make ecological preservation pay. And so on...

2.) Pollution: As bad as it is, it could be worse, and that it isn't says something about us. Sulfate emissions are way down (in the U.S., anyway) since the '70s, as is lead pollution. There was a time when breathing a London fog could kill you, and when swimming in Lake Erie was suicidal. These may be small victories, but they're something.

3.) Species: Same deal here; it's easy to focus on the passenger pigeons, great auks, and Yangtze River dolphins rather than the whales, bison, and alligators, and much else. That we've killed more animals than we've saved probably goes without saying, but the consciousness to do otherwise *is* there; it just takes a little reason to get past the "tragedy of the commons".

4.) Industrialization and urbanization: I think it's safe to say that the future of humanity is postindustrial; the problem is getting there in one piece. People talk about the impossibility of say, China and India living as we do, instead of seeing it as an opportunity to prove that they can without wrecking the environment. Pollution from China makes it clear across the Pacific to the U.S. West Coast; as long as it's everyone's problem, everyone has a vested interest in fixing it--which is just the way it should be. This also wraps up the problem of climate change, which is also a problem that's in everyone's interest to resolve.

Humanity's gone through rougher patches than this; I don't see any reason not to be cautiously optimistic at the very least.

 

[rpm]

I'd say that there are some seriously testing times ahead, however they are testing for humans not the world.

Worst possible senario is complete ecological collapse which would presuamably be followed by another ice age ( I think that's what the scientists are saying). Life on earth has survived countless natrual disasters, ice ages and so forth. As highly developed forms of life we would be best placed to ride out such a disaster although it would mean the collapse of civilisation as we know it.

I don't think things will be that bad though. As things get worse people are going to start waking up more and more to the need to invest in green technology. Think of how quickly the worlds scientific and economic resources where diverted to development of weapons during the second world war. This was how nuclear power was discovered. Imagine the same priority shift but towards green technology and infrustucture - fusion power might take a only a decade giving a truely renewable energy source that could elevate us to a type 1 civilisation.

Second, it annoys me when people start getting all negative about humanity or society in general. Sure there are many bad thing about us - but they are bad from a human standpoint. We see death as bad, but the universe doesn't. It is a human moral code that judges humans as bad. That is unless you have strong convitions about moral realism or a supreme being (which is I have to say a possibility I am open to). In my opinion the human race is the single most amazing thing I have any knowledge of!!!! It would be a great shame if we killed ourselves but it would be bad for us - not the earth.

 

[Cyc]

Great post, Bel.

Mars while I'm generally on board with your political views, I dare say you have a very bleak forecast for the future of humanity.

I see greater innovation and globalization fixing many of the problems of our day. Also, while population is growing, it has shown signs of levelling off in the near future.

 

[rant*N*rave]

A wolf will kill a deer for food to survive, but you never see a wolf kill animals that compete with the same resources as the deer, or other animals that hunt deer, just so there will be more deer to eat, and more wolves.

I don't know that this is true. Plenty of animals kill their OWN let alone others that compete for their resources...

The way I see it, we will either hit critical capacity or not. lol... I guess my point is that either we won't hit a critical point and nothing will happen, or we will hit a critical point and one of two things will happen. 1) We will die out because we cannot sustain ourselves. 2) We won't die out because we will only see a decline (catastrophic or not), but not collapse, of humans. We see this happen frequently in forest-grazing animals in nature, and deer or rabbits are often used as an example, deer because they are obvious even in suburban communities, rabbits because they reproduce quickly. If they use up most of their food, lots of them die off from starvation. Then since there are lower numbers, the food supply grows back, and then more can be born and survive, and the numbers go back up. Rinse, lather, repeat.

It all comes down to whether we completely deplete our necessary resources or only strain them, and whether or not we can make do with alternatives or find a way to recycle better. I'd place my bet on us finding a way to use resources more efficiently or use other resources that are more abundant. This isn't to say that there won't be a complete leveling off or steep drop in human population... But I don't think we're going to see the catastrophic end of the human race any time soon.

 

[treezy z]

i feel that that evironmental engineering shit will end the human race.
can't remember the specifics, i remember one involved spraying gas in the sky to block the sun, one involved a shitload of algae in the ocean.

sounds terrible to me.

massive genocide seems like the best solution.
for starters, stop sending food to starving nations. it might feel like "the right thing to do" but survival of the species is more important than survival of individuals.

 

[Arnold]

All this gets over played in the media in my opinion.

I think it's a good idea if phosphorus actually runs out.
It's been depleting the soil of minerals for years due to their 60%(or what ever it actually is) increase of productivity ending in things that taste like nothing it's meant to taste.

In certain countries they had a very good crop this year and ended up having to chuck tons and tons of food away just to hike prices up as there was to much supply so the farmers would be able to make a living, read that as break even. (Europe)
Not sure if this still applies in France but the farmers there have been getting grants for years for not planting anything on their fields as there was to much supply.

In 50 years time new technologies like the creation of electricity through osmosis will have been perfected and if this one won't another one will.
http://www.greenoptimistic.com/2009/01/15/freshwater-and-electricity-through-osmosis/
Which can apparently can also be used to creating drinking water from sea water.
http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/gi_0199-5304466/REVERSE-OSMOSIS-Seawater-River-Water.html

One thing that does need controlling is the population growth.
Man is inventive and will come up with solutions to problems.

 

[alpaca666]

My op:

1.) In our lifetime? I doubt it. Any decline will probably take generations, IMO, taking so long that it will only be apparent in retrospect. Talk of a dramatic Malthusian collapse belongs in the '70s.

Doubt it? Don't. Decline has been long underway, most developed countries have already hit peak oil. Apparent in retrospect? You mean now?

2.) Species present an interesting case. I think any ecological catastrophe will be represented less by massive extinction than by a steady erosion of diversity; that is, specialized species will steadily die out and be replaced by more and more generalists and invasives.

This is true...invasive species are a huge issue, but the effects of global climate change will wreak havoc on many species. An increase of 1 degree C could easily put 30% of all species on the endangered list.

BUT...For all this, I'm generally optimistic. Here's why:

1.) Resources: These have a way of ironing themselves out. An increase in oil prices will drive consumption away from crude. An increase in metal prices will spur recycling efforts and more efficient usage. A decrease in timber stocks will encourage sustainable conservation. Eco-tourism can make ecological preservation pay. And so on...

This might be true if the US hadn't started growing grains for ethanol. Not only is this practice inefficient, it is causing the price of grain to steadily increase with the price of oil. This results in 3rd world countries starving A LOT! Resources will not just 'iron themselves out'. It is going to be a lot harder to solve than that. We are going to have to completely transform the economy and the ways we use energy.

2.) Pollution: As bad as it is, it could be worse, and that it isn't says something about us. Sulfate emissions are way down (in the U.S., anyway) since the '70s, as is lead pollution. There was a time when breathing a London fog could kill you, and when swimming in Lake Erie was suicidal. These may be small victories, but they're something.

3.) Species: Same deal here; it's easy to focus on the passenger pigeons, great auks, and Yangtze River dolphins rather than the whales, bison, and alligators, and much else. That we've killed more animals than we've saved probably goes without saying, but the consciousness to do otherwise *is* there; it just takes a little reason to get past the "tragedy of the commons".

4.) Industrialization and urbanization: I think it's safe to say that the future of humanity is postindustrial; the problem is getting there in one piece. People talk about the impossibility of say, China and India living as we do, instead of seeing it as an opportunity to prove that they can without wrecking the environment. Pollution from China makes it clear across the Pacific to the U.S. West Coast; as long as it's everyone's problem, everyone has a vested interest in fixing it--which is just the way it should be. This also wraps up the problem of climate change, which is also a problem that's in everyone's interest to resolve.

Humanity's gone through rougher patches than this; I don't see any reason not to be cautiously optimistic at the very least.

This is a global issue and it needs to be addressed as one. We also need to stop patting ourselves on the back and telling ourselves that everything is ok. Unless we take drastic changes ASAP were toast.

 

[alpaca666]

i feel that that evironmental engineering shit will end the human race.
can't remember the specifics, i remember one involved spraying gas in the sky to block the sun, one involved a shitload of algae in the ocean.

sounds terrible to me.

massive genocide seems like the best solution.
for starters, stop sending food to starving nations. it might feel like "the right thing to do" but survival of the species is more important than survival of individuals.

Please delete your post, it's a bit too unintelligent to merit a response (or even a read)

 

[Beenhead]

Someone Else! In my opinion all this stuff is so obvious, that I can't understand how someone could not believe it. When you look at a highway and choke on poisoned air, and see concrete, everywhere life used to flourish you have to believe something is seriously wrong. I think that the planet itself is alive and must follow the course of all other living things, which unfortunately includes death.

You are looking at this from a very local point of view. If you stood on Bourbon Street, New Orleans, would you then go on to say that all of Louisiana is full of Drunk college kids and washed up strippers, and that the whole state smells of vomit?

i am in the everglades all the time, and the place is getting healthier and helthier. Fish stocks on the coastal waters of Florida are going up all the time.



There need to be alot of legislation to protect species in the ocean, that the entire world will abide by. It sucks that in the US you cannot use the really bad longlines, while some fucking japanease ship steams over to the Gulf of Mexico and does it all night...

If the whole world does not get behind these things, nothing will happen.

I do think that we can use the amazon for commerce, but it should be rebult, like forestry in the northwest.

 

[toastedpanda]

Why is the view that humanity is wrong and evil so predominant. There is nothing wrong with our evolution. If we use all our own resource and kill ourselves off, its just the course we take. Theres nothing unnatural about concrete and steel, its how humans have adapted to live in out environments and survive. I'm sure every generation has though that the end of days are coming, ain't happened yet.

Reminds me of the episode of The Simpsons where Lisa goes online and finds out the world is gonna end and trip out.

 

[Arnold]

In 50 years time new technologies like the creation of electricity through osmosis will have been perfected

The world's first power project that generates energy by mixing fresh water with sea water has opened in Norway.

The Norwegian renewable power company Statkraft has built a prototype osmotic power plant on the Oslo fiord.

It aims to produce enough electricity to light and heat a small town within five years by osmosis, the process that allows plants to absorb water.

At first it will produce a minuscule 4 kilowatts - enough to heat a large electric kettle.

But by 2015 the target is 25 megawatts - the same as a small wind farm.

With the Copenhagen climate summit just weeks away, the hunt is on for ways of producing electricity that do not put greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8377186.stm

 

[Scire]

Nah, I don't think so. Some animals will definitely go extinct, possibly Gorillas which would be awful, but, on the bright side, zoos pretty much guarantee Gorillas survival. More obscure plants/animals won't be so lucky.

However, there has never been a time where animals are not going extinct or the climate isn't changing. The climate is always changing over the long term and the earth has been hotter than this in the past yet had ice ages since. Plants grow up to 50% faster in greenhouses with 1,000 parts per million CO2; the atmosphere is about to push 390ppm.

That isn't to say I dismiss warming completely or pollution; although the scientists who do support it fully know far more than I do on the subject they still know relatively little compared with the data size (whole ecosystem of the planet) and any climate models they produce will be limited by the data they use. AFAIK we still don't know what causes La Nina and El Nino. Venus is a pretty good example that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, but Venus is ultra-worst-case scenario. Venus' atmosphere is something like 100 times thicker than our own and it's 90% CO2; hotter than mercury even though it's farther from the sun and has a day longer than its year.

I absolutely believe we should be geoengineering the plant for our habitat, and if this is how science wants to sell it to the public, fair enough. No one wants polluted air or mercury in their fish so we should definitely find ways to clean up our act. I just don't think wind is the way to go. Solar is more promising, especially if the efficiency keeps increasing at the pace it has been.

The problem with wind and solar is that they can only be used as supplemental energy; they can't be used for baseline. This is because they are unreliable and it would cost absolutely massive amounts of money to build batteries for energy storage. With these types of power it's use them or lose them. Wind also has the problem of taking up a huge amount of land for very little gain energy-wise, solar can be stuck on buildings which is good but installing rooftop solar causes more deaths than nuclear power. If you want to talk about seriously reducing CO2 you'll have to learn to love nuclear power, I'm afriad. Aside from hydro, which relies on rivers and dams damage ecosystems themselves, there are no green options that compete with nuclear. There is also a nuclear solution to nuclear waste

I also think the environment is more resilient than we give it credit for, sure animals are going extinct, as they always have, but I do notice people are a lot less sympathetic to the animals that are currently thriving. Such as rats, we couldn't make rats extinct even if we tried, not without killing ourselves in the process and even then some might survive. Same goes for these birds and even moreso for ants who represent 15% (can be as high as 25% in tropical areas) of all animal biomass anywhere they inhabit (pretty much everywhere except antarctica, maybe greenland).

Biodiversity is not at risk either; you could wipe out every species of bacteria but one and in a few thousand years there would be a diverse number of bacteria species. Not that I'm saying extinction is something we shouldn't care about, it's just not the end of the world.

 

[Pegasus]

It seems that in recent times, the advances particularly in the technology and communications industries have enabled much more of a internationalist existence to come about.

The positive here is that innovation is occurring at an extremely high rate. We are better equipped today to meet these challenges than we have been ever before, and have every opportunity to improve our managment abilities over our environment for the future.

In short, I do not see anything that is necessarily telling for our future to be a dark one. I see potential for both ways, and feel that if we do go down the wrong path, it would be continuing mismanagement responsible for this.

 

[Scire]

In regards to human population, for the moment it's not really a problem at the moment, plenty of land and we actually produce enough food now to feed the planet; just lots of it goes to feeding cows and the like. Long term however some sort of population control will become necessary

Here is a fairly decent, if outdated, video on world population http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BbkQiQyaYc

Exponential growth is pretty much unsustainable, but it's acceptable for the time being.

 

[Scire]

It seems that in recent times, the advances particularly in the technology and communications industries have enabled much more of a internationalist existence to come about.

The positive here is that innovation is occurring at an extremely high rate. We are better equipped today to meet these challenges than we have been ever before, and have every opportunity to improve our managment abilities over our environment for the future.

In short, I do not see anything that is necessarily telling for our future to be a dark one. I see potential for both ways, and feel that if we do go down the wrong path, it would be continuing mismanagement responsible for this.

Ultimately what is needed is more co-operation between nations. If some countries put their economies second and the environment first, the countries who put production and economy first will have a huge advantage. Not only can they pollute more (because others are polluting less) but they will also have cheaper energy. Energy is pretty important if you want to manufacture and research stuff.

Water scarcity is something I didn't mention in previous posts but that will increasingly become an issue; for example China are planning to dig 'Grand Canals' to divert water from the south of China to the north of China. The problem is that "the diversion of this water could affect a number of other nations, including Burma, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam, who rely on this water downstream."

I very much doubt China would be so keen to do this if it's neighbours were more competitive militarily.