6 ms·

The only reasons I can think of is nuclear war and a second black plague

by tempsy 7y ago

umanwizard 7y ago
What about a runaway climate change feedback loop making the earth uninhabitable? Or even more moderate climate change causing a collapse of the food chain?
- mieseratte 7y ago
  And how likely are either of these?
  - audessuscest 7y ago
    very unlikely
- jandrese 7y ago
  15 years is probably too extreme for even the most pessimistic climate change scenarios where you get to the point of boiling the oceans. However, these kids will be dealing with the consequences of extreme climate change in their lifetimes. Lots of people are going to die. Some societies will collapse. It's not going to be easy and having the world leaders today range from offering emotional support and no effective policy decisions to outright hostile to the entire concept of climate change is not helpful.
- abootstrapper 7y ago
  Climate what now? /s For real though I swear half of hacker news must work in oil and gas.
- blacksmith_tb 7y ago
  Human beings haven't relied on "the food chain" for thousands of years, but it's certainly true that climate change will have a big impact on agriculture, the recent IPCC report on land covers the topic in some depth[1]. Models of runaway change don't suggest humans would be wiped out (though I wouldn't want to live near a coastline...[2]), especially not within 15 years. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Report_on_Climate_Change_and_Land https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Report_on_Climate_Chan... 2: https://www.pnas.org/content/115/33/8252 https://www.pnas.org/content/115/33/8252
- Aunche 7y ago
  The carbon locked up in fossil fuels and a lot of sedimentary rocks was in the atmosphere at some point. Granted the sun was a bit cooler, but the earth has been drastically warmer in the past and life went on just fine. We have the technology today to grow all of our food in hydroponic greenhouses in Siberia and Canada, but food is so cheap that nobody is bothering to.
- marcosdumay 7y ago
  If we put a lot of effort on removing carbon from stable minerals, there is probably enough of it on Earth's crust to make it uninhabitable. But that's a large engineering effort that I don't think humanity is currently able to achieve.
  - umanwizard 7y ago
    Given that the climate is a chaotic system that nobody fully understands, how do you know this for sure?
    - amanaplanacanal 7y ago
      He said "probably" and "I don't think" which seems like enough hedging for me.
    - marcosdumay 7y ago
      Given that all that carbon that we are extracting has already been on the atmosphere once, with some of what is currently in stable mineral, and life didn't end at the time, it's unlikely that now, with a thinner atmosphere and a weaker Sun it will be enough. We have enough of a disaster to deal with, there's no need for fearmongering.
bryanrasmussen 7y ago
why would a second black plague wipe out humanity?
- tempsy 7y ago
  Because people are more fluid than ever. The world would probably need to stop all air travel and cross border travel immediately to contain it.
  - datpuz 7y ago
    Odds are slim that such a plague would kill every last person, even if everyone were to become infected.
    - decebalus1 7y ago
      You don't have to kill every last person in order to kill 'humanity'
      - bryanrasmussen 7y ago
        sorry, is this like killing civilization or something? When I hear kill humanity I think after you are done killing humanity then humans will be extinct. So you don't need to kill every last person but enough that there wouldn't be any breeding populations scattered around. Seems pretty unlikely that a virus can manage that.
- owenmarshall 7y ago
  "The black plague" may not, "a black plague" may. In other words, Y. pestis might still be treatable with modern antibiotics and is well controlled with modern sanitization. But if MERS-CoV and influenza got together, or NDM-1 genes horizontally transferred to group A strep, you could end up with a highly contagious and highly fulminant threat.
Symmetry 7y ago
Natural pandemics like the Black Death will seldom wipe out more than half the people in an affected area and never everybody. It's possible that someone might genetically engineer a plague to be dormant but transmissible for a year then suddenly kill its host but even with something like that you're probably going to miss pockets of people as large as were left after the Toba supervolcano 70,000 years ago. Nuclear war probably won't wipe out humanity either. Lots and lots of people would die in the countries involved and a few hundred miles downwind of the fallout but other locations would probably only see increased cancer rates. I say probably because while it looks like fears of nuclear winter were probably oversold there's still a fair chance that they weren't and we'd be looking at 5 years with no plant growth after a nuclear exchange. In which case, hey, there's this charity called ALLFED[1] working on how to feed people in the event of a nuclear winter or meteor impact or supervolcano eruption causes a global years long winter. Things like how to operationalize turning dead trees into edible mushrooms at a huge scale. [1]https://allfed.info https://allfed.info

The only reasons I can think of is nuclear war and a second black plague

by tempsy 7y ago

The only reasons I can think of is nuclear war and a second black plague

What about a runaway climate change feedback loop making the earth uninhabitable? Or even more moderate climate change causing a collapse of the food chain?

mieseratte 7y ago
And how likely are either of these?
- audessuscest 7y ago
  very unlikely
jandrese 7y ago
15 years is probably too extreme for even the most pessimistic climate change scenarios where you get to the point of boiling the oceans. However, these kids will be dealing with the consequences of extreme climate change in their lifetimes. Lots of people are going to die. Some societies will collapse. It's not going to be easy and having the world leaders today range from offering emotional support and no effective policy decisions to outright hostile to the entire concept of climate change is not helpful.
abootstrapper 7y ago
Climate what now? /s For real though I swear half of hacker news must work in oil and gas.
blacksmith_tb 7y ago
Human beings haven't relied on "the food chain" for thousands of years, but it's certainly true that climate change will have a big impact on agriculture, the recent IPCC report on land covers the topic in some depth[1]. Models of runaway change don't suggest humans would be wiped out (though I wouldn't want to live near a coastline...[2]), especially not within 15 years. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Report_on_Climate_Change_and_Land https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Report_on_Climate_Chan... 2: https://www.pnas.org/content/115/33/8252 https://www.pnas.org/content/115/33/8252
Aunche 7y ago
The carbon locked up in fossil fuels and a lot of sedimentary rocks was in the atmosphere at some point. Granted the sun was a bit cooler, but the earth has been drastically warmer in the past and life went on just fine. We have the technology today to grow all of our food in hydroponic greenhouses in Siberia and Canada, but food is so cheap that nobody is bothering to.
marcosdumay 7y ago
If we put a lot of effort on removing carbon from stable minerals, there is probably enough of it on Earth's crust to make it uninhabitable. But that's a large engineering effort that I don't think humanity is currently able to achieve.
- umanwizard 7y ago
  Given that the climate is a chaotic system that nobody fully understands, how do you know this for sure?
  - amanaplanacanal 7y ago
    He said "probably" and "I don't think" which seems like enough hedging for me.
  - marcosdumay 7y ago
    Given that all that carbon that we are extracting has already been on the atmosphere once, with some of what is currently in stable mineral, and life didn't end at the time, it's unlikely that now, with a thinner atmosphere and a weaker Sun it will be enough. We have enough of a disaster to deal with, there's no need for fearmongering.

bryanrasmussen 7y ago

why would a second black plague wipe out humanity?

tempsy 7y ago
Because people are more fluid than ever. The world would probably need to stop all air travel and cross border travel immediately to contain it.
- datpuz 7y ago
  Odds are slim that such a plague would kill every last person, even if everyone were to become infected.
  - decebalus1 7y ago
    You don't have to kill every last person in order to kill 'humanity'
    - bryanrasmussen 7y ago
      sorry, is this like killing civilization or something? When I hear kill humanity I think after you are done killing humanity then humans will be extinct. So you don't need to kill every last person but enough that there wouldn't be any breeding populations scattered around. Seems pretty unlikely that a virus can manage that.
owenmarshall 7y ago
"The black plague" may not, "a black plague" may. In other words, Y. pestis might still be treatable with modern antibiotics and is well controlled with modern sanitization. But if MERS-CoV and influenza got together, or NDM-1 genes horizontally transferred to group A strep, you could end up with a highly contagious and highly fulminant threat.

Symmetry 7y ago

Natural pandemics like the Black Death will seldom wipe out more than half the people in an affected area and never everybody. It's possible that someone might genetically engineer a plague to be dormant but transmissible for a year then suddenly kill its host but even with something like that you're probably going to miss pockets of people as large as were left after the Toba supervolcano 70,000 years ago. Nuclear war probably won't wipe out humanity either. Lots and lots of people would die in the countries involved and a few hundred miles downwind of the fallout but other locations would probably only see increased cancer rates. I say probably because while it looks like fears of nuclear winter were probably oversold there's still a fair chance that they weren't and we'd be looking at 5 years with no plant growth after a nuclear exchange. In which case, hey, there's this charity called ALLFED[1] working on how to feed people in the event of a nuclear winter or meteor impact or supervolcano eruption causes a global years long winter. Things like how to operationalize turning dead trees into edible mushrooms at a huge scale. [1]https://allfed.info https://allfed.info