6 ms·

"all human civilization"? Isn't that a bit hyperbolic? destructive, sure. It would certainly lead to a lot of death, and a lot of hardship. Human civiliza

"all human civilization"? Isn't that a bit hyperbolic? destructive, sure. It would certainly lead to a lot of death, and a lot of hardship. Human civilization will certainly be changed- perhaps significantly. But I haven't see any evidence that it will cease to exist.

notsofastbuddy 9y ago
No. There's a pretty clear path: rising temperatures->food supply disruption->regional war->nuclear war->there are maybe a few people left in bunkers.
- sgt101 9y ago
  I agree but I think the chain can shorten to nuclear war->there are maybe a few people left in bunkers. If we were to get rid of the nuclear option then both your chain and my chain would not be viable. Nukes before greenhouses?
- jjoonathan 9y ago
  There's a pretty substantial gap between "poor people starving" and "people with nukes care," but it's still plausible enough to be chilling, that's for sure.
- dogma1138 9y ago
  The people with nukes would be the last to starve. Also for anyone to go nuclear there would have to be a strategic goal for that Russia nuking the US won’t really help their food shortage and vice versa.
ProAm 9y ago
99.9% of all creatures to exist on earth are now extinct. [1] We're not special. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction
- stickfigure 9y ago
  We're not special With big brains and tools, humans can live in a much broader set of environmental conditions than any other species. While it doesn't make us extinction-proof, it makes us pretty hardy. It is hard to imagine what would destroy all the ecological niches that humans could survive in. I would bet on the humans.
  - ProAm 9y ago
    We have a few people who are intelligent, and yet as a whole we constantly try to kill our fellow man and let people go hungry. The only difference is we know our eventual end is coming and the preceding creatures likely did not.
    - rland12 9y ago
      I don't know if it's constructive, but I find it remarkable enough to note that I really don't know if you are correct or if the parent comment is correct. It's because I'm a human being, isn't it.
  - dredmorbius 9y ago
    I've got a bunch of tardigrades on line 3 that would like a word. Or whatever it is that passes for same.
  - Retra 9y ago
    >humans can live in a much broader set of environmental conditions than any other species. Absolutely not. Most lifeforms simpler than us have an easier time surviving because it is easier for them to reproduce quickly. You're basically ignoring insects, crustaceans, algea, bacteria, most plants, and pretty much everything else. Sure we're hardy and adaptable when you ignore most of life on earth. And then you want to bet on the only species that has almost purposefully engineered its own demise? Talk about bias...
- rconti 9y ago
  How many of them were at the top of the food chain?
lifeformed 9y ago
Destroying all civilization doesn't mean destroying all humans, but just the structures that hold society together. A runaway heating scenario may be a pretty effective way of doing that - all crops die, wars for food, nukes get used.
- petra 9y ago
  I think prottero worked on a method of synthesizing sugar at much lower cost via bacteria, so carbs may be possible too. Combine that with how really rich humanity is, so i think a technical solution would be availbe to solve those food issues, and what better incentive than a potential nuclear war, to convince people to collaborate on that ?
dredmorbius 9y ago
The resilience of humanity may actually be inversely proportional to its population. Yonatan Zunger, of Google, writing nearly five years ago, tossed out a fact that's stuck with me since: the response of "large animal" populations to global temperature changes: "When the biota of a planet get rewritten, the creatures that require the most delicate maintenance die first. This tends to mean really big creatures, that rely on large supplies of their foods; apex predators, which rely on the entire food chain beneath them; and "canary" species like many frogs, which are very sensitive and tend to be the first to die when something is going wrong. Historically, the cutoff for "large creatures" (that tend to not survive extinction events) seems to be in the ballpark of 20 pounds; things bigger than that just require the ecosystem to be too healthy." That immediately following: "The last big spike like this was the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, about 55 million years ago. Average temperatures rose by 6C over a period of 20,000 years -- which is enough to look like a giant, sharp spike on the history-of-the-entire-planet graph." We're on track to temperature changes of roughly that order of magnitude, and almost certainly in a far shorter period of time -- a few centuries, perhaps less. https://plus.google.com/+YonatanZunger/posts/SgzQU5DM3LQ https://plus.google.com/+YonatanZunger/posts/SgzQU5DM3LQ I think this may be one of the related body-mass / extinction related articles (though it postdate's Yonatan's item): http://science.sciencemag.org/content/350/6262/812 http://science.sciencemag.org/content/350/6262/812
- sulam 9y ago
  Before you get too happy about PETM, realize we are putting CO2 into the atmosphere at six times the peak PETM rate. We are in for a rough ride over the next several hundred years.
  - mirimir 9y ago
    Well, I'll be dead before it gets too bad. But yes, the next few centuries will be challenging. China, Russia and Canada will do well, I suspect. Maybe even the Sahara. But not most of the US and Europe.
  - dredmorbius 9y ago
    I'm not happy about either. The good news, if there is good news, is that the present rate of human induced CO2 injection is not likely to be continued for too much longer. Of course, it it induces further injections, things may get interesting.

notsofastbuddy 9y ago

No. There's a pretty clear path: rising temperatures->food supply disruption->regional war->nuclear war->there are maybe a few people left in bunkers.

sgt101 9y ago
I agree but I think the chain can shorten to nuclear war->there are maybe a few people left in bunkers. If we were to get rid of the nuclear option then both your chain and my chain would not be viable. Nukes before greenhouses?
jjoonathan 9y ago
There's a pretty substantial gap between "poor people starving" and "people with nukes care," but it's still plausible enough to be chilling, that's for sure.
dogma1138 9y ago
The people with nukes would be the last to starve. Also for anyone to go nuclear there would have to be a strategic goal for that Russia nuking the US won’t really help their food shortage and vice versa.

ProAm 9y ago

99.9% of all creatures to exist on earth are now extinct. [1] We're not special. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction

stickfigure 9y ago
We're not special With big brains and tools, humans can live in a much broader set of environmental conditions than any other species. While it doesn't make us extinction-proof, it makes us pretty hardy. It is hard to imagine what would destroy all the ecological niches that humans could survive in. I would bet on the humans.
- ProAm 9y ago
  We have a few people who are intelligent, and yet as a whole we constantly try to kill our fellow man and let people go hungry. The only difference is we know our eventual end is coming and the preceding creatures likely did not.
  - rland12 9y ago
    I don't know if it's constructive, but I find it remarkable enough to note that I really don't know if you are correct or if the parent comment is correct. It's because I'm a human being, isn't it.
- dredmorbius 9y ago
  I've got a bunch of tardigrades on line 3 that would like a word. Or whatever it is that passes for same.
- Retra 9y ago
  >humans can live in a much broader set of environmental conditions than any other species. Absolutely not. Most lifeforms simpler than us have an easier time surviving because it is easier for them to reproduce quickly. You're basically ignoring insects, crustaceans, algea, bacteria, most plants, and pretty much everything else. Sure we're hardy and adaptable when you ignore most of life on earth. And then you want to bet on the only species that has almost purposefully engineered its own demise? Talk about bias...
rconti 9y ago
How many of them were at the top of the food chain?

lifeformed 9y ago

Destroying all civilization doesn't mean destroying all humans, but just the structures that hold society together. A runaway heating scenario may be a pretty effective way of doing that - all crops die, wars for food, nukes get used.

petra 9y ago
I think prottero worked on a method of synthesizing sugar at much lower cost via bacteria, so carbs may be possible too. Combine that with how really rich humanity is, so i think a technical solution would be availbe to solve those food issues, and what better incentive than a potential nuclear war, to convince people to collaborate on that ?

dredmorbius 9y ago

The resilience of humanity may actually be inversely proportional to its population. Yonatan Zunger, of Google, writing nearly five years ago, tossed out a fact that's stuck with me since: the response of "large animal" populations to global temperature changes: "When the biota of a planet get rewritten, the creatures that require the most delicate maintenance die first. This tends to mean really big creatures, that rely on large supplies of their foods; apex predators, which rely on the entire food chain beneath them; and "canary" species like many frogs, which are very sensitive and tend to be the first to die when something is going wrong. Historically, the cutoff for "large creatures" (that tend to not survive extinction events) seems to be in the ballpark of 20 pounds; things bigger than that just require the ecosystem to be too healthy." That immediately following: "The last big spike like this was the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, about 55 million years ago. Average temperatures rose by 6C over a period of 20,000 years -- which is enough to look like a giant, sharp spike on the history-of-the-entire-planet graph." We're on track to temperature changes of roughly that order of magnitude, and almost certainly in a far shorter period of time -- a few centuries, perhaps less. https://plus.google.com/+YonatanZunger/posts/SgzQU5DM3LQ https://plus.google.com/+YonatanZunger/posts/SgzQU5DM3LQ I think this may be one of the related body-mass / extinction related articles (though it postdate's Yonatan's item): http://science.sciencemag.org/content/350/6262/812 http://science.sciencemag.org/content/350/6262/812

sulam 9y ago
Before you get too happy about PETM, realize we are putting CO2 into the atmosphere at six times the peak PETM rate. We are in for a rough ride over the next several hundred years.
- mirimir 9y ago
  Well, I'll be dead before it gets too bad. But yes, the next few centuries will be challenging. China, Russia and Canada will do well, I suspect. Maybe even the Sahara. But not most of the US and Europe.
- dredmorbius 9y ago
  I'm not happy about either. The good news, if there is good news, is that the present rate of human induced CO2 injection is not likely to be continued for too much longer. Of course, it it induces further injections, things may get interesting.