6 ms·

I'm starting to wonder seriously if we haven't already passed an inflection point in the wanton destruction of the environment from which we'll never fully reco

by rosser 13y ago

I'm starting to wonder seriously if we haven't already passed an inflection point in the wanton destruction of the environment from which we'll never fully recover. Someone please convince me we haven't broken our planet beyond its ability to carry us.

cfontes 13y ago
Sorry, If we didn't get there yet I think our "destruction inertia" is too big to stop on time for this environment that currently exists. I bet you that every single one of us here that like outdoors and are 20+ can remember some animal that we can't find anymore as easy as we used to. That must means something! I am not sure what, but it doesn't look good. For me the marker are sea horses. I been diving since very young and I can remember seeing them close to the south of my country like a pest. Several at once. Now it's been more than 10 years since I saw the last one. The thing is... Humans will survive. Nature made us way to good at that. The problem is that we will probably be living in a blue and green empty desert. Another point it that Earth will also survive us... So in the long run, Life as a entity is mostly safe. We are just going to be another event of mass extinction in the history of this planet. Evolution must be so proud :D But this is just my IT/Biologist point of view.
- crag 13y ago
  "Another point it that Earth will also survive us... So in the long run, Life as a entity is mostly safe. We are just going to be another event of mass extinction in the history of this planet. Evolution must be so proud " A couple of million years is piss from the planets point of view. And in those millions of years we will evolve (despite what certain religions say). Even the mass extinction of the dinosaurs resulted in birds (among other things). We are all part of this world. And life goes on. No matter what. The question is what will our impact have on a future us? What will life be like say in 10,000 years? Hell, even 5,000 years?
  - Crito 13y ago
    > "And in those millions of years we will evolve (despite what certain religions say)." It is possible that we will do much more than just evolve. Normally organisms change over extremely long periods of time through 'natural' processes but humans uniquely have insight into the mechanism of how this happens. We may, in the future, develop the ability (and desire) to take things into our own hands. Just starting it out nice and slow, we could 'finish the job' in a few cases. Knock out wisdom teeth once and for all (somewhere between 9 and 30% of people are missing some or all of them anyway). No real reason to wait around a few dozens to hundreds of thousands of years for those to finish disappearing if we can do it ourselves.
arjn 13y ago
I have long worried about this. Apparently the fish populations in some areas are past this point already, the African rhino is now near or officially extinct, tigers and lion populations are in danger too.
maaku 13y ago
> Someone please convince me we haven't broken our planet beyond its ability to carry us. Nope, we're pretty well boned. Cold, hard truth.
Crito 13y ago
Our ability to modify the environment at an unprecedented scale (deliberately, or often otherwise) is nothing to scoff at. We'll continue to do damage to the ecosystem, serious damage, but as long as any life continues to survive we will continue to find ways to exploit it. We are really good at that. Furthermore, life is remarkably resilient. For all the damage we will do to the ecosystem, some of it will manage to hang on. I find it more likely that we will eventually all kill ourselves in some more direct manner than "humans kill ecosystem, humans die without ecosystem". My money is on something along the lines of "increasingly deadly war combined with logistics induced famine kills humans".
- bad_user 13y ago
  Hurray for kitchen cockroaches :-) You're betting on deadly wars and induced famine to kill humans and I agree, however most wars are over land or natural resources. So if WW III happens at some point and we exterminate each other, you can bet that the continued destruction of our ecosystem will have something to do with it.
- mjmahone17 13y ago
  That would require quite the famine, to kill every human. We are omnivore foragers: we eat whatever we can find. To kill us all would require something that got rid of damn near every edible food we know. Including things like dandelions and mongongo nuts. I doubt that's likely. What seems far more likely to me is that humanity will survive, but for a few generations it will be a survival in a food desert, until our population rebalances to the resources available, and, much like what happened in the aftermath of the wars of the Khans, our environment starts healing. I don't think this will happen within my lifetime (and I'm in my early 20s), but I'd be surprised if, in my lifetime, humanity's quality of life, purely in terms of our ability to feed, clothe, and treat ourselves, didn't noticeably drop. Growth must not be humanity's end goal. If that's all we work towards, then we literally are cancer of the environment: abnormal creatures with uncontrolled growth.
  - crag 13y ago
    Growth is our end goal now. But fresh water is the key. And our biggest problem. Fresh water is in sorry shape all over the world. Environmental issues will change our course. We'll have no choice really. Hopefully I'm dead when the "water" wars begin.
ams6110 13y ago
We're a pretty conceited species. The planet has seen far greater impacts than the likes of us.
- rosser 13y ago
  I'm not concerned about the planet; I'm concerned about our continued presence on it, in a manner worth enjoying. EDIT: Don't mistake me; I'm actually deeply concerned about the planet. But it, and life, will survive pretty much anything we could possibly do, and most things the universe at large could, too. Not us, though, and if we aren't around to appreciate this place, its continued support of life, while consolation, is only academically such.
  - mathattack 13y ago
    The cockroaches will find a way.
- guelo 13y ago
  Some geologists are starting to talk about the "Anthropocene", a new geological epoch characterized by the influence of humanity on the planet. The idea being that humans are having such a huge effect on the environment that it is the beginning of a new epoch.
  - seanmcdirmid 13y ago
    Wait until we start becoming a Type II civilization on the Kardashev scale and start exploiting the resources of the entire solar system. What sort of epoch will that be?
    - Ygg2 13y ago
      Assuming we don't get wiped by the apocalypse of our own making... I don't see us colonizing other planets, the timescale required for us to start colonizing other planets, is probably hundreds of years with presumed prosperity (you don't see African countries launching that many spacecraft). We are looking at 50-100 years of prosperity at best, assuming we get out of the financial crisis.
Daishiman 13y ago
We already have. You think the CO2 in the atmosphere is going to go away by itself? The only question is how long we're in for the ride. The most pessimistic but fact-based theories speculate thirty years before the increase in methane and CO2 emissions produces a 4+ degree increase in temperature and begins the truly profound changes that could result in the death of billions. The rest is just speculation; depending on how big the exponential curve is (that's the problem with exponentials, small variations in the parameters have huge long-term impact), it's anywhere between 30 and 300 years. Now, if we get the more drastic theories out of the way or if we pretend that the melting of the Siberian peat bogs won't matter (that is, nothing that I wrote about is particularly outrageous scientifically), then we're looking at 80 years before the ocean's Ph drops to the point where a substantial amount of molluscs simply die off because of their inability to incorporate calcium to their shells. The thing is, the only thing that can save us at this point is incredible developments in energy technology (10x battery storage capacities, fusion power, more politically acceptable nuclear) coupled with a global reduction in per-capita consumption on a massive scale. None of the superpowers in the world are willing to drop the current model of the consumer society, and fusion is, thus far, just a dream, so in most ways we're at the mercy of the climate now. There is a very real possibility that we'll be the last generation before the Earth becomes a profoundly different, far less ecologically diverse, desert planet, at least as far as the tropics go.
- yummyfajitas 13y ago
  According to our 95% accurate climate simulations, we can also use geoengineering and inject reflective particles into the stratosphere, Pinatubo style. The scientific case for this is stronger than the case that climate change is caused by CO2, since we have multiple natural experiments rather than simply one (specifically, multiple large volcanos).
  - Daishiman 13y ago
    I'm in favor of pretty much anything that can help, but releaseing soot into the atmosphere isn't free, and particulate pollution impacts our health in many other ways, not to mention that the reduction of sunlight has some very well-known effects on plant life.
kruipen 13y ago
I think humanity is more important than a planet. As far as we know we are unique and planets are plenty. Exploit this one and move on I say.
- rosser 13y ago
  I think we're a lot farther away from being able to exploit another planet than we are from the point where the only one we can exploit now can no longer meaningfully carry us. That is to say, if we don't check our approach to resource exploitation now, I don't think we'll be in a position to exploit another planet, ever.
- bad_user 13y ago
  Given that this is the only known planet on which life is sustainable, I think your view is kind of shortsighted. Humanity happened because of our planet, not in spite of it. Good luck moving to Mars.
- Patient0 13y ago
  hehe nice troll! At least I hope you are trolling...
rimantas 13y ago
Do you think environment should never change? Without some changes (thanks cyanobacteria) we wouldn't even be there to speculate about it. More than 80% of species were wiped out without any help from humans at least twice. So, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NL8HP1WzbDk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NL8HP1WzbDk
- gutnor 13y ago
  GP problem is not the continuity of life on the planet, just the continuity of human life on the planet. Sure it is unlikely that humanity will be wiped out by anything else than ourself. Still life could become a lot harsher. Of course, even a few billions less people is not big deal. They were going to die anyway and it solves overpopulation in one shot. From a high level perspective, with enough time spent after the events almost everything is no so bad after all. Look how good was WW2 for the US. Still at some point you have to take a step back. We pretend we are above animals. Consuming all your resources without planning, survival of the fittest, don't care and see what happens is what animals do. We can design wonderful piece of technology, think in abstract math, understand the intricacies of the universe, but somehow our legacy for the next few hundred years will a destroyed environment and much later be labelled in history book as a clever monkey.
  - bad_user 13y ago
    > Consuming all your resources without planning, survival of the fittest, don't care and see what happens is what animals do. Animals don't consume more than they need. We as humans, no matter how much we have, always crave for more, a hunger that will never be satisfied. No, we are not animals. We are worse.

by rosser 13y ago

cfontes 13y ago

Sorry, If we didn't get there yet I think our "destruction inertia" is too big to stop on time for this environment that currently exists. I bet you that every single one of us here that like outdoors and are 20+ can remember some animal that we can't find anymore as easy as we used to. That must means something! I am not sure what, but it doesn't look good. For me the marker are sea horses. I been diving since very young and I can remember seeing them close to the south of my country like a pest. Several at once. Now it's been more than 10 years since I saw the last one. The thing is... Humans will survive. Nature made us way to good at that. The problem is that we will probably be living in a blue and green empty desert. Another point it that Earth will also survive us... So in the long run, Life as a entity is mostly safe. We are just going to be another event of mass extinction in the history of this planet. Evolution must be so proud :D But this is just my IT/Biologist point of view.

crag 13y ago
"Another point it that Earth will also survive us... So in the long run, Life as a entity is mostly safe. We are just going to be another event of mass extinction in the history of this planet. Evolution must be so proud " A couple of million years is piss from the planets point of view. And in those millions of years we will evolve (despite what certain religions say). Even the mass extinction of the dinosaurs resulted in birds (among other things). We are all part of this world. And life goes on. No matter what. The question is what will our impact have on a future us? What will life be like say in 10,000 years? Hell, even 5,000 years?
- Crito 13y ago
  > "And in those millions of years we will evolve (despite what certain religions say)." It is possible that we will do much more than just evolve. Normally organisms change over extremely long periods of time through 'natural' processes but humans uniquely have insight into the mechanism of how this happens. We may, in the future, develop the ability (and desire) to take things into our own hands. Just starting it out nice and slow, we could 'finish the job' in a few cases. Knock out wisdom teeth once and for all (somewhere between 9 and 30% of people are missing some or all of them anyway). No real reason to wait around a few dozens to hundreds of thousands of years for those to finish disappearing if we can do it ourselves.

arjn 13y ago

I have long worried about this. Apparently the fish populations in some areas are past this point already, the African rhino is now near or officially extinct, tigers and lion populations are in danger too.

maaku 13y ago

> Someone please convince me we haven't broken our planet beyond its ability to carry us. Nope, we're pretty well boned. Cold, hard truth.

Crito 13y ago

Our ability to modify the environment at an unprecedented scale (deliberately, or often otherwise) is nothing to scoff at. We'll continue to do damage to the ecosystem, serious damage, but as long as any life continues to survive we will continue to find ways to exploit it. We are really good at that. Furthermore, life is remarkably resilient. For all the damage we will do to the ecosystem, some of it will manage to hang on. I find it more likely that we will eventually all kill ourselves in some more direct manner than "humans kill ecosystem, humans die without ecosystem". My money is on something along the lines of "increasingly deadly war combined with logistics induced famine kills humans".

bad_user 13y ago
Hurray for kitchen cockroaches :-) You're betting on deadly wars and induced famine to kill humans and I agree, however most wars are over land or natural resources. So if WW III happens at some point and we exterminate each other, you can bet that the continued destruction of our ecosystem will have something to do with it.
mjmahone17 13y ago
That would require quite the famine, to kill every human. We are omnivore foragers: we eat whatever we can find. To kill us all would require something that got rid of damn near every edible food we know. Including things like dandelions and mongongo nuts. I doubt that's likely. What seems far more likely to me is that humanity will survive, but for a few generations it will be a survival in a food desert, until our population rebalances to the resources available, and, much like what happened in the aftermath of the wars of the Khans, our environment starts healing. I don't think this will happen within my lifetime (and I'm in my early 20s), but I'd be surprised if, in my lifetime, humanity's quality of life, purely in terms of our ability to feed, clothe, and treat ourselves, didn't noticeably drop. Growth must not be humanity's end goal. If that's all we work towards, then we literally are cancer of the environment: abnormal creatures with uncontrolled growth.
- crag 13y ago
  Growth is our end goal now. But fresh water is the key. And our biggest problem. Fresh water is in sorry shape all over the world. Environmental issues will change our course. We'll have no choice really. Hopefully I'm dead when the "water" wars begin.

ams6110 13y ago

We're a pretty conceited species. The planet has seen far greater impacts than the likes of us.

rosser 13y ago
I'm not concerned about the planet; I'm concerned about our continued presence on it, in a manner worth enjoying. EDIT: Don't mistake me; I'm actually deeply concerned about the planet. But it, and life, will survive pretty much anything we could possibly do, and most things the universe at large could, too. Not us, though, and if we aren't around to appreciate this place, its continued support of life, while consolation, is only academically such.
- mathattack 13y ago
  The cockroaches will find a way.
guelo 13y ago
Some geologists are starting to talk about the "Anthropocene", a new geological epoch characterized by the influence of humanity on the planet. The idea being that humans are having such a huge effect on the environment that it is the beginning of a new epoch.
- seanmcdirmid 13y ago
  Wait until we start becoming a Type II civilization on the Kardashev scale and start exploiting the resources of the entire solar system. What sort of epoch will that be?
  - Ygg2 13y ago
    Assuming we don't get wiped by the apocalypse of our own making... I don't see us colonizing other planets, the timescale required for us to start colonizing other planets, is probably hundreds of years with presumed prosperity (you don't see African countries launching that many spacecraft). We are looking at 50-100 years of prosperity at best, assuming we get out of the financial crisis.

Daishiman 13y ago

We already have. You think the CO2 in the atmosphere is going to go away by itself? The only question is how long we're in for the ride. The most pessimistic but fact-based theories speculate thirty years before the increase in methane and CO2 emissions produces a 4+ degree increase in temperature and begins the truly profound changes that could result in the death of billions. The rest is just speculation; depending on how big the exponential curve is (that's the problem with exponentials, small variations in the parameters have huge long-term impact), it's anywhere between 30 and 300 years. Now, if we get the more drastic theories out of the way or if we pretend that the melting of the Siberian peat bogs won't matter (that is, nothing that I wrote about is particularly outrageous scientifically), then we're looking at 80 years before the ocean's Ph drops to the point where a substantial amount of molluscs simply die off because of their inability to incorporate calcium to their shells. The thing is, the only thing that can save us at this point is incredible developments in energy technology (10x battery storage capacities, fusion power, more politically acceptable nuclear) coupled with a global reduction in per-capita consumption on a massive scale. None of the superpowers in the world are willing to drop the current model of the consumer society, and fusion is, thus far, just a dream, so in most ways we're at the mercy of the climate now. There is a very real possibility that we'll be the last generation before the Earth becomes a profoundly different, far less ecologically diverse, desert planet, at least as far as the tropics go.

yummyfajitas 13y ago
According to our 95% accurate climate simulations, we can also use geoengineering and inject reflective particles into the stratosphere, Pinatubo style. The scientific case for this is stronger than the case that climate change is caused by CO2, since we have multiple natural experiments rather than simply one (specifically, multiple large volcanos).
- Daishiman 13y ago
  I'm in favor of pretty much anything that can help, but releaseing soot into the atmosphere isn't free, and particulate pollution impacts our health in many other ways, not to mention that the reduction of sunlight has some very well-known effects on plant life.

kruipen 13y ago

I think humanity is more important than a planet. As far as we know we are unique and planets are plenty. Exploit this one and move on I say.

rosser 13y ago
I think we're a lot farther away from being able to exploit another planet than we are from the point where the only one we can exploit now can no longer meaningfully carry us. That is to say, if we don't check our approach to resource exploitation now, I don't think we'll be in a position to exploit another planet, ever.
bad_user 13y ago
Given that this is the only known planet on which life is sustainable, I think your view is kind of shortsighted. Humanity happened because of our planet, not in spite of it. Good luck moving to Mars.
Patient0 13y ago
hehe nice troll! At least I hope you are trolling...

rimantas 13y ago

Do you think environment should never change? Without some changes (thanks cyanobacteria) we wouldn't even be there to speculate about it. More than 80% of species were wiped out without any help from humans at least twice. So, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NL8HP1WzbDk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NL8HP1WzbDk

gutnor 13y ago
GP problem is not the continuity of life on the planet, just the continuity of human life on the planet. Sure it is unlikely that humanity will be wiped out by anything else than ourself. Still life could become a lot harsher. Of course, even a few billions less people is not big deal. They were going to die anyway and it solves overpopulation in one shot. From a high level perspective, with enough time spent after the events almost everything is no so bad after all. Look how good was WW2 for the US. Still at some point you have to take a step back. We pretend we are above animals. Consuming all your resources without planning, survival of the fittest, don't care and see what happens is what animals do. We can design wonderful piece of technology, think in abstract math, understand the intricacies of the universe, but somehow our legacy for the next few hundred years will a destroyed environment and much later be labelled in history book as a clever monkey.
- bad_user 13y ago
  > Consuming all your resources without planning, survival of the fittest, don't care and see what happens is what animals do. Animals don't consume more than they need. We as humans, no matter how much we have, always crave for more, a hunger that will never be satisfied. No, we are not animals. We are worse.