5 ms·

One possibility which seems very much overlooked is that of a catastrophic ecosystem crash. The recent bee die-off gives a hint of the kinds of things that are

One possibility which seems very much overlooked is that of a catastrophic ecosystem crash. The recent bee die-off gives a hint of the kinds of things that are possible. Another possible catastrophe is a plague or parasite that is resistant to all of our methods of disease control. It could attack either us, or our crops. Our disrespect for complex ecosystems which we still barely understand is the most egregious example of short-term thinking, to my mind.

jraines 16y ago
Are 'they' still saying that all fish could go extinct fairly soon, too? Or at least all tuna? Like the bee example, it just seems like something I dismiss because I can't imagine it actually happening. reference: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/11/02/health/webmd/main2147223.shtml http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/11/02/health/webmd/main2...
- btilly 16y ago
  A major loss of shellfish is much more likely. The cause is that CO2 in the atmosphere becomes carbonic acid after it dissolves in water, and if the ph of the seas changes even a little bit, then calcium carbonate shells (which is what everything from clam shells to coral is made out of) becomes unstable and starts to dissolve. According to the best current projections this is now hard to stop given current CO2 levels, and a major die-off is likely around the middle of this century. The effects of this on global ecosystems are hard to estimate, but will definitely be large.
thaumaturgy 16y ago
By "ecosystem crash", what we really mean here is "an environment in which nobody will want to live". I am not at all skeptical towards various warnings about the environment, but we do have to acknowledge that the Earth has supported life for long before we ever came around, and will continue to support life long after we're gone. And, humans are resourceful. It's likely that, even in the worst of scenarios, at least some humans will find a way to survive -- even if it's subsistence living. The question is, would it be an environment that we would want to live in? I think that's an important distinction that might help sort out some of the ecological "debates".
- troutwine 16y ago
  At subsistence levels, it is not unlikely that all but the most basic human learning would be lost to active memory in a generation or two. While the species will persist, the ability to live as flailing gods will not. I wonder, how do we preserve our science across such gaps in ability to sustain it. Should we even bother?
  - electromagnetic 16y ago
    I'm sorry but there's been several occasions in human history where civilization has fully collapsed (region specific) and lost the written word (namely proto-greece) but fully recovered with no outside influence. If something doesn't spell our doom either in the short term or in the moderately-short term then we will quickly recover from where we left off. A generation or two of subsistence living will not entirely wipe out human civilization. No one is going to have to reinvent the wheel, because we've got so many present in our civilization that they could easily be scavenged for hundreds of years before the quantity became depleted and it would likely take a good thousand years before someone couldn't find an 'original wheel' to at least take inspiration from. Aluminium alloy wheels have such high proportions of aluminium in them that even the exceptionally slow oxidization (I work in siding and I can tell you that 20 year old aluminium siding barely has marks on it and it's paper thick, a few pounds would take millennia to degrade but would likely still be clearly recognizable). If we're really concerned about our longevity I'd suggest manufacturing information arcs that can teach the major language of the geographical area allowing people 100 years down the road to access the knowledge stored when civilization recovers. It would have to be built for longevity and nothing else (IE it can't easily be recovered for materials by scavengers or used to draw power). Essentially you'd want a very long life RTG to power a multiple redundancy computer system and basically load encyclopaedias and patent databases and an archive of literature, magazines and journals.
    - troutwine 16y ago
      To be sure, though I think that the no outside influence restriction is a bit contrary to the archeological record. Though I didn't make it clear, what concerns me are not the coarse technologies of life--wheels and pottery and what not--but more fine, non-obvious innovations. Consider concrete: with the dissolution of the Roman political structure the secrets of concrete were lost. It took 13 centuries, until the 1750s, to rediscover its formula. During that time, public works were greatly retarded. Indeed, the Anglo-Saxon (whose buildings rarely had windows for stability purposes) culture produced a rather famous poem we now call The Ruins in which Roman ruins are attributed to the works of giants. What concerns me is not the transmitting of basic machines across the simplification of a society, to use Joseph Tainter's jargon, but, rather, difficult, contextual knowledge. Our knowledge of Mathematics, for example, was preserved by luck: the Byzantine Empire harbored enough learned individuals and archivists until such a time as the Crusades swept through. All of my work simply assumes an industrial, technological civilization with advanced computational capacity. Any textbooks I might produce in the future will have the implicit assumption of contemporary operating systems, compilers and hardware. If, through sheer chance, any of my potential works survived across a collapse they would be useless without further context. I imagine that the same holds true for advanced works of physics, especially that which requires hugely complex experimental devices. Euclid held up well enough as his works were self-contained. What modern works can say the same?
chc 16y ago
This does not seem like a real threat in the the same way as the things the asker is talking about (i.e. things that are unlikely to happen at any given moment, but not at all unlikely on a realistic scale). Global ecosystem crashes seem to be once-in-millennia events. And our "disrespect for complex ecosystems" is about as likely to avert a looming global crash as it is to trigger one that wouldn't have happened, given that our impact on the matter is an unknown factor.
- stcredzero 16y ago
  our "disrespect for complex ecosystems" is about as likely to avert a looming global crash as it is to trigger one that wouldn't have happened, given that our impact on the matter is an unknown factor. ??? This is supposed to be comforting, how? Try this paraphrase: we're twiddling the knobs on the ecosystem, we know we're likely to make big changes, but we're not sure what. Would you like operators of a nuclear plant to follow this behavior?
  - chc 16y ago
    As far as I can tell, we do not know that "our disrespect for complex ecosystems we barely understand" is likely to make big changes to the global ecosystem. That's almost required by the "we barely understand" part — the effect we have is unpredictable both in scale and gravity. It's more like, if you found yourself in a universe full of potentially dangerous forces that you don't understand, would you try to harness them or just hide from them? So far, the human race has traditionally gone with the former. Some of the things we've done have had great positive effects. Some have been catastrophic. Most have been relatively inconsequential. The result is never clear beforehand — that's the whole idea behind experimentation and the scientific method. Otherwise you're left with fearmongering and superstition.
    - stcredzero 16y ago
      As far as I can tell, we do not know that "our disrespect for complex ecosystems we barely understand" is likely to make big changes to the global ecosystem...Some of the things we've done have had great positive effects. Some have been catastrophic. Most have been relatively inconsequential. Inconsequential? Then you haven't been paying attention to history. We've had freakin huge impacts on our ecosystem throughout our history, even predating recorded history. The disappearance of huge tracts of North American forest. The same for British and European forests. The Colorado River dwindling into nothing. Virtual eradication of Bison. Eradication of the Passenger pigeon. Aborigines causing the unintentional desertification of much of Australia. The current desertification of Africa. Virtual disappearance of Salmon from the North American west coast. None of these have been inconsequential. Some have caused tremendous benefits to people, but all have had significant negative impact. The result is never clear beforehand — that's the whole idea behind experimentation and the scientific method. Otherwise you're left with fearmongering and superstition. Many scientists refrain from experimenting on their own bodies. This has nothing to do with "fearmongering and superstition." When scientists do experiment on themselves, they are generally certain that it won't have permanent consequences. Again, nothing to do with "fearmongering and superstition." You categorically state that we won't know what happens.

jraines 16y ago

Are 'they' still saying that all fish could go extinct fairly soon, too? Or at least all tuna? Like the bee example, it just seems like something I dismiss because I can't imagine it actually happening. reference: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/11/02/health/webmd/main2147223.shtml http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/11/02/health/webmd/main2...

btilly 16y ago
A major loss of shellfish is much more likely. The cause is that CO2 in the atmosphere becomes carbonic acid after it dissolves in water, and if the ph of the seas changes even a little bit, then calcium carbonate shells (which is what everything from clam shells to coral is made out of) becomes unstable and starts to dissolve. According to the best current projections this is now hard to stop given current CO2 levels, and a major die-off is likely around the middle of this century. The effects of this on global ecosystems are hard to estimate, but will definitely be large.

thaumaturgy 16y ago

By "ecosystem crash", what we really mean here is "an environment in which nobody will want to live". I am not at all skeptical towards various warnings about the environment, but we do have to acknowledge that the Earth has supported life for long before we ever came around, and will continue to support life long after we're gone. And, humans are resourceful. It's likely that, even in the worst of scenarios, at least some humans will find a way to survive -- even if it's subsistence living. The question is, would it be an environment that we would want to live in? I think that's an important distinction that might help sort out some of the ecological "debates".

troutwine 16y ago
At subsistence levels, it is not unlikely that all but the most basic human learning would be lost to active memory in a generation or two. While the species will persist, the ability to live as flailing gods will not. I wonder, how do we preserve our science across such gaps in ability to sustain it. Should we even bother?
- electromagnetic 16y ago
  I'm sorry but there's been several occasions in human history where civilization has fully collapsed (region specific) and lost the written word (namely proto-greece) but fully recovered with no outside influence. If something doesn't spell our doom either in the short term or in the moderately-short term then we will quickly recover from where we left off. A generation or two of subsistence living will not entirely wipe out human civilization. No one is going to have to reinvent the wheel, because we've got so many present in our civilization that they could easily be scavenged for hundreds of years before the quantity became depleted and it would likely take a good thousand years before someone couldn't find an 'original wheel' to at least take inspiration from. Aluminium alloy wheels have such high proportions of aluminium in them that even the exceptionally slow oxidization (I work in siding and I can tell you that 20 year old aluminium siding barely has marks on it and it's paper thick, a few pounds would take millennia to degrade but would likely still be clearly recognizable). If we're really concerned about our longevity I'd suggest manufacturing information arcs that can teach the major language of the geographical area allowing people 100 years down the road to access the knowledge stored when civilization recovers. It would have to be built for longevity and nothing else (IE it can't easily be recovered for materials by scavengers or used to draw power). Essentially you'd want a very long life RTG to power a multiple redundancy computer system and basically load encyclopaedias and patent databases and an archive of literature, magazines and journals.
  - troutwine 16y ago
    To be sure, though I think that the no outside influence restriction is a bit contrary to the archeological record. Though I didn't make it clear, what concerns me are not the coarse technologies of life--wheels and pottery and what not--but more fine, non-obvious innovations. Consider concrete: with the dissolution of the Roman political structure the secrets of concrete were lost. It took 13 centuries, until the 1750s, to rediscover its formula. During that time, public works were greatly retarded. Indeed, the Anglo-Saxon (whose buildings rarely had windows for stability purposes) culture produced a rather famous poem we now call The Ruins in which Roman ruins are attributed to the works of giants. What concerns me is not the transmitting of basic machines across the simplification of a society, to use Joseph Tainter's jargon, but, rather, difficult, contextual knowledge. Our knowledge of Mathematics, for example, was preserved by luck: the Byzantine Empire harbored enough learned individuals and archivists until such a time as the Crusades swept through. All of my work simply assumes an industrial, technological civilization with advanced computational capacity. Any textbooks I might produce in the future will have the implicit assumption of contemporary operating systems, compilers and hardware. If, through sheer chance, any of my potential works survived across a collapse they would be useless without further context. I imagine that the same holds true for advanced works of physics, especially that which requires hugely complex experimental devices. Euclid held up well enough as his works were self-contained. What modern works can say the same?

chc 16y ago

This does not seem like a real threat in the the same way as the things the asker is talking about (i.e. things that are unlikely to happen at any given moment, but not at all unlikely on a realistic scale). Global ecosystem crashes seem to be once-in-millennia events. And our "disrespect for complex ecosystems" is about as likely to avert a looming global crash as it is to trigger one that wouldn't have happened, given that our impact on the matter is an unknown factor.

stcredzero 16y ago
our "disrespect for complex ecosystems" is about as likely to avert a looming global crash as it is to trigger one that wouldn't have happened, given that our impact on the matter is an unknown factor. ??? This is supposed to be comforting, how? Try this paraphrase: we're twiddling the knobs on the ecosystem, we know we're likely to make big changes, but we're not sure what. Would you like operators of a nuclear plant to follow this behavior?
- chc 16y ago
  As far as I can tell, we do not know that "our disrespect for complex ecosystems we barely understand" is likely to make big changes to the global ecosystem. That's almost required by the "we barely understand" part — the effect we have is unpredictable both in scale and gravity. It's more like, if you found yourself in a universe full of potentially dangerous forces that you don't understand, would you try to harness them or just hide from them? So far, the human race has traditionally gone with the former. Some of the things we've done have had great positive effects. Some have been catastrophic. Most have been relatively inconsequential. The result is never clear beforehand — that's the whole idea behind experimentation and the scientific method. Otherwise you're left with fearmongering and superstition.
  - stcredzero 16y ago
    As far as I can tell, we do not know that "our disrespect for complex ecosystems we barely understand" is likely to make big changes to the global ecosystem...Some of the things we've done have had great positive effects. Some have been catastrophic. Most have been relatively inconsequential. Inconsequential? Then you haven't been paying attention to history. We've had freakin huge impacts on our ecosystem throughout our history, even predating recorded history. The disappearance of huge tracts of North American forest. The same for British and European forests. The Colorado River dwindling into nothing. Virtual eradication of Bison. Eradication of the Passenger pigeon. Aborigines causing the unintentional desertification of much of Australia. The current desertification of Africa. Virtual disappearance of Salmon from the North American west coast. None of these have been inconsequential. Some have caused tremendous benefits to people, but all have had significant negative impact. The result is never clear beforehand — that's the whole idea behind experimentation and the scientific method. Otherwise you're left with fearmongering and superstition. Many scientists refrain from experimenting on their own bodies. This has nothing to do with "fearmongering and superstition." When scientists do experiment on themselves, they are generally certain that it won't have permanent consequences. Again, nothing to do with "fearmongering and superstition." You categorically state that we won't know what happens.