Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Alexandra on March 10, 2013 at 6:35pm

This sounds all too much like the updates i read every day from vhemt.org ...
I'm personally looking forward to seeing a lot of people (disgusting lumbering masses of fat with 5 children, namely) die... but then I'm a little funny in the head like that. A mass exctinction will bring a very much overdue IQ cleansing. Only the smartest (and the lucky, unfortunately) will survive. Brighter times ahead! :D

Permalink Reply by Alan Buchanan on March 10, 2013 at 6:44pm

im new to this site, and that post is my very first on an open site, open to anyone to view. Fair play to you and your kin if you are destined for survival.     i need to loose some of my disgusting lumbering fat , but maybe the skinies will wish to roast me to survive a little longer.   Thanks for the reply, good luck

 

Permalink Reply by Joseph P on March 10, 2013 at 6:58pm

Depends how much extra weight you're carrying.  An extra 30 or 40 pounds can help you survive in lean times, such as will occur after a civilization crash.  An extra hundred-plus can help kill you, because it will hinder your functionality.

A lower metabolism, which makes us fat and hurts us, in a society with plentiful, cheap food, can be very advantageous in a pre- or post-civilization environment.  That's one of the things that most people don't grasp about Natural Selection.  There are many traits that aren't absolutely positive or negative, which switch from one to the other in different environments.

Permalink Reply by Ruth Anthony-Gardner on March 10, 2013 at 11:30pm

Many climate change induces stressors will not favor the smartest. Heat stroke, epidemic disease, polluted water, epic storms. Everybody's in this boat.

Permalink Reply by Joan Denoo on March 11, 2013 at 4:02pm

I don't think so. IF Earth has reached its tipping point, no amount of prayer, sacrifice, submission, obedience, and almsgiving will change anything. Luck is not an issue, nor is intelligence. 

Permalink Reply by Joseph P on March 10, 2013 at 6:48pm

I think the question is a little off.  I don't think that we will be part of the next mass extinction.  I think it's probable that we'll cause it, but I don't think our species will go along with it.  We're scattered too widely over the planet.  We would have to destroy pretty much every ecosystem on earth to wipe ourselves out.

Basically, I don't think that we're capable of causing the level of global catastrophe necessary to wipe out our species ... pretty damned bad, but not quite bad enough.  We're not that thorough.

Permalink Reply by Tom Sarbeck on March 10, 2013 at 10:52pm

Joseph, here are the opening words of an item in Science News for Sept 8 last year:

"A handful of thirsty countries are guzzling their groundwater reserves much faster than those resources can be renewed.

"India, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Mexico, and the United States lead the global pack of water-thirsty nations, researchers report online August 8 in Nature. Irrigation for agriculture drives much of the demand, says hydrogeologist and study coauthor Tom Gleeson of McGill University in Montreal."

I read Science News and remember the article. To find it and more, I googled "groundwater usage in the world".

I agree with your observation about our being scattered too widely; in many places groundwater will be adequate.

Permalink Reply by Joseph P on March 10, 2013 at 11:08pm

Yup.  Certainly, we'll get a horrific population crash, and it'll really suck, for a century or two.  Then, those in the surviving areas will pick back up with a good enough chunk of our scientific knowledge, and hopefully they won't do that again.

Permalink Reply by Ruth Anthony-Gardner on March 10, 2013 at 11:32pm

Jospeh, you put it succinctly.

We would have to destroy pretty much every ecosystem on earth to wipe ourselves out.

How are we not in the process of doing that?

Permalink Reply by Joseph P on March 10, 2013 at 11:38pm

For one thing, as we destroy some ecosystems, others may become more habitable to us.  Global warming is one of the problems that will cause that kind of slide.

Permalink Reply by Tom Sarbeck on March 11, 2013 at 1:40am

Ecosystem - a biological community of interacting organisms and their physical environment (in New American Oxford Dictionary)

Ruth, methinks there are too many ecosystems and too few of us engaged in destroying them.

- - - - - - -

Less facetiously, you've perhaps heard of Critical Path Analysis. It identifies the many paths a process requires and then the one path that most affects the process.

I've described CPA to women when they point out that some cultures, intending to stop population growth, kill female infants and not male infants.

Those cultures' motives are pragmatic.

For instance:

1) They can reduce their male population by half and females who want to get pregnant will do so.

2) They can reduce their female population by half and many fewer births will follow.

To reduce the population, males are not on the critical path; females in their reproductive years are.

Foods might be competitors for the critical path.

Have you followed the news on the reduced numbers of pollinating bees? The plants they pollinate, if those plants are a required food, might be on the critical path.

The plants that require groundwater irrigation (because other sources do not supply enough water), if those plants are a required food, might be on the critical path.

Et cetera.

Permalink Reply by Alan Buchanan on March 11, 2013 at 8:06am

Hi Joseph, thanks for your comments, i hope you,re right. I based my original question on the assumption that most species on earth will probably be made extinct by the time we are finished with this planet of ours. Im sure there will be some that will escape the global net, but will we find any polar bears, tigers, blue whales or elephants? , i rather doubt it.

I found an old copy of  "Guinness Book of Records", dated 1978. There were some interesting facts in it that drew my attention. Under the section on "Populations", i found a table, where the scientists in 1978 predicted possible human population growth. In 1978 the human population stood at around 3.7 billion people, and they estimated that by 2015, we would reach 7.5 billion at the current rate of growth. That one proved pretty accurate.  Worryingly, by 2050, the estimate was 20 billion. At that rate of growth, by the year 3500, the human population would weigh more than the weight of the entire planet!

Obviously we will not reach that scenario, or anything close to it, as by that point, we would be long extinct. There will be a check on our population, by disease, or climate change or world  famine.

I dont know if anyone has seen Sir David Attenbourgh,s programe on Easter Island, possibly on his "Life On Earth" series, it was very thought provoking, showing the island as the earth in miniture, and a portent for us all to our own eventual fate . On that note, i,l finish up, gotta go to work.  Alan 

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