End of the World - won't happen

[ratm545]

why do we think that we'll see the end of the world? or why does anyone? the Earth is young, plenty of good resources, and when you think about it, there's no reason why it would end now if not a hundred years ago, a thousand years ago, or whatever. i think it'll come much later then any of our lifetimes....

(Edited by ratm545 at 9:20 am on Jan. 15, 2003)

[Pete]

"The world ends when the last human dies" or something like that. By George Orwell.

[HS The Whap]

First of all... we do not have enough resources, and the world will reach its carrying capacity. Probably within two decades. Bush's warmongering could set off a WWIII somewhere easily. Also, the end of the world isn't some biblical miracle bullshit. Who cares how young the earth is? For the first time in the history of this millions year earth, we have globalized weapons, and weapons that can destroy the world, so this isnt ecological limit.
Population graphic:
http://www.dhushara.com/book/diversit/pop.jpg

And how old are you? I must say that you are an idiot. You listen to Rage Against the Machine, you have no grammar, and in your sig you wrote: zapatista's. Zapatista's means posessive, not plural.

[ratm545]

ok man, enough with the attacks of my intelligence because i didn't use correct punctuation on my signature, im not real concerned with that.

but anyways, do you not think that there are scientists developing sources of energy? there is so much land thats not being used. population as of now isn't a problem, yes it will be a problem, but for now we're cool.





*long live ratm

[El Brujo]

What we need is BIRTH CONTROL by any means possible (except the Reaganites genocidal "trickle down economics"). Encourage abortion, produce more methods of birth control in more quantities, sterilize people after a certain ammount of children, etc.

[ratm545]

birth control is fabulous, and personally i think the government needs to step in and do somethin, like forcing birth control. some way of minimizing the rapid growth.

isn't China doing this?

[El Brujo]

China has a one child policy. The problem with that is that there are certain "proud families" that wan't their last name spread so they kill or abandon their children if they have girls. Because of that, I think it would be better to relocate the population to more rural areas and adopt a two child policy. Of course, cracking down harder on the law than they did before.

[truthaddict11]

my teacher said that the greatest problem our generation will face will be population. but i disagree with policies of sterlization

[Fires of History]

Great one HS The Whap. Perfect graphic.

Population isn't an isolated issue.

As the population of the Earth increases exponentially over the next century, so will the consumption of resources. The "massive" amounts of resources we think we have now will rapidly disappear when there are twice as many of us, or more.

The world might not end, but this century is going to be fucked. By the time we're older, we will see wars over things like water. We're already seeing them over oil, and the reasons for war are just going to get more and more basic.

Keep in mind too that as the Earth continues to get warmer, and the population expands, we are going to see the most insane diseases. Nature will find a way to decrease our numbers if we will not, and that is one thing you can rest assured of. We are, after all, WAY overdue for the next pandemic plague. Ever read about the Spanish flu? Next time it'll be so much worse, so much more severe, so many more dead. And those hoping for medicine to save them...lol, I hope they like disappointment.

"Even the end of the world wouldn't be the end of the world." -John Updike

Also, for goodness sake, read THIS (http://www.che-lives.com/cgi/community/topic.pl?forum=25&topic=296) for some thoughts on our 'bright' future. Wicked good article.

[Lardlad95]

The concept of the end of the world is mainly religious and cultural in nature.

Since people observed that things eventually die or cease to be that eventually the world will end

whether or not it will happen in a rain of fire and brimstone is open to debate.

However as science progresses we see that the end of the world is possible seeing as how new technological and naural problems have begun to occur

nuclear war: with bush having his finger on the button....I think we all get the point

global warming: I'n my opinion bullshit but who knows

over population: we've all see the population booms in india and china....in a couple hundred or thousand years...who knows

disease: growing aids epidemics. Aids already has a strangle hold on Africa, in south east asia it's rising at a rate higher than that in africa.

So there are tons of possibilities.

One thing is clear though, nothing lasts forever.

[Fires of History]

Lardlad,

The Earth IS getting warmer. That's not being debated by anyone, scientist or layperson. That is a fact.

The only argument is whether or not humanity is causing it. Either way, IT IS happening and it is going to effect us one way or another.

[El Brujo]

Of course, the government could spend more ony hybrid and electric vehichles, which would not only improve the environment but would be more efficient and lower the price of petroleum, but wait a minute, Dubya and Dick are in the oil business. They wouldn't wan't that now would they.

See what I mean? Capitalism will bleed the world to death (unless something is done about it, of course).

[Anonymous]

Earth will naturally bee destroyed, either my a comet or by crashing with the sun or with something else, we are only speeding its destruction...

[Guardia Bolivariano]

The end of the world won't happen as soon as everybody thinks.But what will end and quite soon if we keep this up is the human race.

[Hegemonicretribution]

The end of the world will not happen for a long time yet, only the world as we know it. It is overly sentimental to judge our world only on the here and now. Death of humans woud be of little significance. We may take most other species with us, but billions of years ago, when the atmosphere became oxidised, plants did the same. This is the reason we exist today. Perhaps humans are not the dominant species, we carry the seeds of our own destruction., yet life will survive after us.

Perhaps we have come to far to quickly. However the raping of resources is still controlled by the capatilists. Perhaps through drought, starvation and suffering, the masses can reunite and rise against their oppressors. There will be no other choice.

Only when the last tree has been cut down, the last river poisened and the last fish caught, will man learn that you cannot eat money

[redstar2000]

The "end" of the world?

Well, we can set an approximate limit to the Earth as an inhabited planet. Main sequence stars like our own Sun grow warmer as they age...in about 500,000,000 years, the Sun will be 10% hotter than it is now.

That doesn't sound like much, but it's more than sufficient to evaporate ALL the water on the Earth's surface, forming a permanent cloud cover like the one Venus has now--only water vapor instead of carbon dioxide. The surface temperature of the Earth will be around 400 degrees C or perhaps somewhat higher.

It's possible that some bacteria may survive a mile or more below the surface of the Earth...otherwise, the story of life on Earth will be over.

:cool:

[canikickit]

My money's on Kashmir and India to come to blows and unleash their nuclear arsenal.

Can't wait. I give the planet around 150 years.

[Jaha]

well, think about this. humans are quite ingenius. as long as some survive, they will tend to continue surviving. certainly, humanity is fragile, but i say we got a lot of years ahead of us.

i simply hope the future is worth all the murder that covers or history...