Greatest threat to this planet.

People think over population is a greater threat to THE PLANET than the death of the sun? What da ****?

Kobie said:

I don't see "Obama" anywhere on the poll options. :2razz:

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He caused global warming...

Bodhisattva said:

People think over population is a greater threat to THE PLANET than the death of the sun? What da ****?

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I'm assuming the poll means "more immediate threat." The heat death of the sun isn't coming for a few billion years.

Dittohead not! said:

And the tiny blue dot that humans find so big and important will be gone, and who will know or care?

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But just before the end Gringo will say, "I told you so!"

Kobie said:

I'm assuming the poll means "more immediate threat." The heat death of the sun isn't coming for a few billion years.

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As you know, I am too exact of a thinker to do anything as foolish as to "assume".

Bodhisattva said:

As you know, I am too exact of a thinker to do anything as foolish as to "assume".

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When you assume, you make an ass out of Uma Thurman

Kobie said:

When you assume, you make an ass out of Uma Thurman

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I wikipedia'd her and found out that her personal relationships are a mess... she made herself an ass.

Bodhisattva said:

I wikipedia'd her and found out that her personal relationships are a mess... she made herself an ass.

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But as long as Quentin Tarantino is making movies, she'll always have a job.

Kobie said:

But as long as Quentin Tarantino is making movies, she'll always have a job.

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Pretty much... "pick up the phone Lance!" "are you talking on a cell phone? Who is this... crank caller crank caller!!"

Bodhisattva said:

Pretty much... "pick up the phone Lance!" "are you talking on a cell phone? Who is this... crank caller crank caller!!"

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I love that movie for the quotes alone...

"when I got done my towel didn't look like a god damn maxi pad!!" - "well maybe if he had Lava..." :lol:

"You mean I gotta stab her three times?"

Religion.

Bodhisattva said:

People think over population is a greater threat to THE PLANET than the death of the sun? What da ****?

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Me thinks people do not realize exactly the vastness the planet's land mass .. Every person on the planet will fit within the U.S. State of Texas and own 1000-1200 sq. ft.

Have a great day Bodhi

Thom Paine

Thom Paine said:

Me thinks people do not realize exactly the vastness the planet's land mass .. Every person on the planet will fit within the U.S. State of Texas and own 1000-1200 sq. ft.

Have a great day Bodhi

Thom Paine

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And global warming will simply create more liveable areas as ice melts and higher elevations warm up...

Human over population easily because that also causes global warming, although pollution has been going down in recent years in more developed countries such as USA and Japan. As much as I hate to say it, we need a war or a plague. Or something like "Interstellar" to happen within the next 100 years. Ebola anyone?

Terribly worded poll.

The death of the sun is not a 'possibility', its a certainty. But its also a long, long way off...past the point where humans will still be humans, assuming evolutionary pressures will still apply in the future.

A meteor is also a certainty. But it wont 'kill' the planet. Good chance it may wipe out humans/post-human forms one day, but again, this could be millions of years in the future.

Overpopulation wont kill the planet. It will, of course, kill more humans, because the more humans alive, the more that die. Thats basic math. Its also doesnt seem to be an immediate threat, as population is predicted to level off by the end of the century.

Global warming, of course, wont kill off the planet nor humans, but it will make things extremely difficult for many, and it will do it in a relatively short time frame. But thats just educated research scientists who believe that, and we all know they dont know as much as conservative pundits.

Seems like nuclear war would be useful to put on the list if you are talking about the death of humanity. Thats still a real possibility.

sangha said:

I can see why you'd say so, but IMO a population that remained steady at a sustainable level would be a better indicator of success.

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Well, it's a success in the sense that we've overcome the natural dangers and limitations of our environment. I agree, it's not as healthy in the long run for our species or the planet, if we don't find some eco-friendly equilibrium. It seems the technological intelligence of our brain has developed much faster than our emotional reasoning, or we'd easily see this problem and moves towards a fix.

Sheldon Cooper procreating.

Thom Paine said:

Me thinks people do not realize exactly the vastness the planet's land mass .. Every person on the planet will fit within the U.S. State of Texas and own 1000-1200 sq. ft.

Have a great day Bodhi

Thom Paine

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and what would all those Texans eat?

Dittohead not! said:

and what would all those Texans eat?

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Silly question..... BAR_B_QUE .... of course !!! :lamo

with everything that grows elsewhere ... on the side...

:mrgreen:

Great day to ya' Dn

Thom Paine

If we're talking threats to the actual planet, then honestly I can't think of too many. Solar expansion would destroy the atmosphere and the oceans, and boil away a decent chunk of the earth's mass, but there's still be something there after the sun shrank back down. It would just be a lump of dead rock though. A nearby gamma ray burst could do something similar. A large enough impact could destroy the planet, but we're talking something incredibly huge, like the size of the moon or bigger.

If we're talking threats to humanity as a whole, then that opens up a lot more possibilities. Global warming is a threat to society, but not to the global population as a whole. Even if the earth warmed enough to melt all the ice caps and completely change the climate around the whole planet, humanity would survive. It would be tough, and the earth might not be able to support as large a population as it does now, but we'd survive. I don't see how overpopulation could be a threat to humanity, because it's self-limiting. If there are too many people to support, more people will start dying of starvation, disease, and/or lack of water, and the population will go down until we can support it again.

An asteroid impact like the K-T extinction would be a threat, but I think we'd get through that as well. Recent evidence has started showing that it wasn't just the asteroid impact that wiped out the dinosaurs. It was a series of things happening in a short period of time, and the asteroid was the nail in the coffin. An asteroid of that size impacting would be devastating, probably on a continental scale, but humanity would survive. A much larger (or faster moving) impact might wipe us out, but that kind of thing is extraordinarily rare.

A super-volcano erupting would likely have similar effects to an asteroid impact.

Nuclear war wouldn't wipe out humanity, there aren't enough nukes to do it.

I'm not really sure what's the most likely thing that could wipe us out, if anything ever does. I suspect if it did happen, we'd never see it coming.

If I have to guess though, I'm going to go with some kind of large-scale industrial accident. Nanotechnology gone wrong maybe, or a rogue AI. Or some kind of runaway reaction accidentally caused in a particle accelerator.

Clearly, the greatest threat is fleas.

sangha said:

I can see why you'd say so, but IMO a population that remained steady at a sustainable level would be a better indicator of success.

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grip said:

Well, it's a success in the sense that we've overcome the natural dangers and limitations of our environment. I agree, it's not as healthy in the long run for our species or the planet, if we don't find some eco-friendly equilibrium. It seems the technological intelligence of our brain has developed much faster than our emotional reasoning, or we'd easily see this problem and moves towards a fix.

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Eh. The way I see it, you can either have stability, or you can have progress. Of the two, I'd much rather have progress. :shrug:

Would you consider a hunter-gatherer tribe which has maintained a "stable" population of twenty persons or less for the last ten thousand years - while never advancing above a stone age level technology in that entire length of time - to be "successful?"

In a sense, I suppose you could. However, I wouldn't say that they can hold a candle to what the rest of the world has accomplished in that same period of time.

Likewise, would you consider humanity to have been "successful" if it managed to attain "ecological equilibrium" at a 21st century level of technology, but never took the next step beyond that necessary to become a Type II or Type III civilization on the Kardashev Scale? Would you consider such a version of humanity to be more "successful" than one which had depleted the Earth's resources, but found the motivation to become a truly space faring race in doing so?

The Earth is nice. Don't get me wrong. However, it's hardly sacrosanct. It is ultimately a resource to be utilized like any other.

As I already noted with regard to the super volcanoes mentioned earlier in this thread, there is also a very nearly 100% chance that it will wind up being the death of us sooner or later if we do not take proactive measures to ensure the survival of our species.

No. I think I actually have to take the opposite stance of the environuts here. The sooner we liberate ourselves from the confines of this planet, the better.

If that causes pain, discomfort, and destruction along the way, so be it. Nothing worth doing is free of cost.

Gathomas88 said:

Eh. The way I see it, you can either have stability, or you can have progress. Of the two, I'd much rather have progress. :shrug:

Would you consider a hunter-gatherer tribe which has maintained a "stable" population of twenty persons or less for the last ten thousand years - while never advancing above a stone age level technology in that entire length of time - to be "successful?"

In a sense, I suppose you could. However, I wouldn't say that they can hold a candle to what the rest of the world has accomplished in that same period of time.

Likewise, would you consider humanity to have been "successful" if it managed to attain "ecological equilibrium" at a 21st century level of technology, but never took the next step beyond that necessary to become a Type II or Type III civilization on the Kardashev Scale? Would you consider such a version of humanity to be more "successful" than one which had depleted the Earth's resources, but found the motivation to become a truly space faring race in doing so?

The Earth is nice. Don't get me wrong. However, it's hardly sacrosanct. It is ultimately a resource to be utilized like any other.

As I already noted with regard to the super volcanoes mentioned earlier in this thread, there is also a very nearly 100% chance that it will wind up being the death of us sooner or later if we do not take proactive measures to ensure the survival of our species.

No. I think I actually have to take the opposite stance of the environuts here. The sooner we liberate ourselves from the confines of this planet, the better.

If that causes pain, discomfort, and destruction along the way, so be it. Nothing worth doing is free of cost.

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There can't be much progress without some level of stability.

And the purpose of trying to reach some sort of "ecological equilibrium" is not to save the beauty of the natural system, but rather to not let it destroy us, before we can completely control its effects on us.

Type II or Type III civilizations are just a relative scale, not exact science or even high probabilities. What may actually be possible or evolve out of today's civilization could be something of a mix or redux of the past.

If we don't eventually have an off world presence to some sustainable level, it's only a matter of time before some cataclysm wipes us out, super volcano, asteroid, solar event, etc.

I'm not a fan of "tree hugging" bananas either. My only purpose for not unbalancing nature too much is for our survival.

grip said:

There can't be much progress without some level of stability.

And the purpose of trying to reach some sort of "ecological equilibrium" is not to save the beauty of the natural system, but rather to not let it destroy us, before we can completely control its effects on us.

Type II or Type III civilizations are just a relative scale, not exact science or even high probabilities. What may actually be possible or evolve out of today's civilization could be something of a mix or redux of the past.

If we don't eventually have an off world presence to some sustainable level, it's only a matter of time before some cataclysm wipes us out, super volcano, asteroid, solar event, etc.

I'm not a fan of "tree hugging" bananas either. My only purpose for not unbalancing nature too much is for our survival.

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That was frankly in response to Sangha's initial post as much as your's.

I agree that we should not go out of our way to try and destroy our planet's natural order if it can be avoided. I was simply responding to the general attitude (so commonly held by the modern Left) that "stability" and "equilibrium" should be held to trump material progress, and that the "planet" is somehow more important than humanity.

It's a rather regressive and "Hobbit" minded philosophy, IMO, and one which I find to be extremely annoying on the whole.

If it comes down to planet vs progress, I'm very much on the side of progress. lol

The sun isn't going to burn out for a while, so my bet is on a planet-killing meteor. Humans can die off, the planet would still exist if there was global warming or overpopulation to the point of extinction (somehow).