Slashdot Mirror
Will Earth Expire By 2050?
_josh writes: "Will overconsumption force humanity off this planet in less than 50 years? It may sound sci-fi, but according to the WWF in this story at the Observer, it's entirely possible. Maybe now I can convince my brother not to buy that SUV ..." Take with as large a grain of salt as you think appropriate.
From the article:
The report offers a vivid warning that either people curb their extravagant lifestyles or risk leaving the onus on scientists to locate another planet that can sustain human life. Since this is unlikely to happen, the only option is to cut consumption now.
Okay, does this strike anyone as leaving out the most likely option? It's highly unlikely we'll massively change our ways. It's also highly unlikely that we'll colonize other planets in the next 50 years.
What's that leave? Simple! Massive resource wars! Woohoo!
It just amazes me that the whole article ignores the inevitable outcome... we'll all fight over dwindling resources, thus thinning the population down to sustainable levels.
The Earth will not expire in 2050. Simple economics will keep it from doing so. When certain resources become scarce, they will become expensive, and people will be forced to stop using them and seek alternatives.
Interesting they compare the United States' use of resources to that of Burundi. This comparison is truly startling. For those who enjoy startling statistics, allow me to offer a few others:
The population of Burundi is expanding at three times the rate of the United States. The percentage of people in Burundi infected with HIV/AIDS is 20 times that of the United States. The average lifespan in Burundi is 31 years shorter than that of a person living in the United States. The literacy rate of Burundi is 35%. 1 in 3000 people have Internet access. (Statistics courtesy of CIA World Factbook).
Are you still interested in reducing your resource consumption by a factor of 24? Personally, I'm not interested in selling my pickup, as I don't think it has any connection to the fact that the number of black rhinos has fallen from 65,000 to 3,100. Considering that my "extravagant lifestyle" doesn't involve poaching, I don't think I can help.
As an aside, this article brings one more thing to mind: every environmentalist needs to understand that he is not "saving the Earth." He is only saving himself and his descendants. The Earth will recover from every incosiderate act man has done to it in the blink of an eye (relative to its lifetime), and graciously replace us with other species if we destroy our way of life.
And Timothy, you might want to encourage your brother to go ahead and buy that new SUV. If his current car is more than five years old, that new SUV will be adding less pollution to the atmosphere.
Whether it's 50 years or 500, we are currently using resources faster than they are replenished. And the U.S. does consume a disproportionate amount of the resources in the world.
100% accurate or not, reports like this aren't going to change the way the U.S. lives -- we're too comfortable in our lifestyles to make big changes. It's going to take some catastrophic change that impacts the U.S. directly to get us to wake up. Unfortunately it's developing countries which are going to feel those changes first.
Instead of helping the "third world" countries with infrastructure, stable government, and ways NOT to pollute, they want to take the "first world" countries and take wealth away from them and give it to the poorer countries (of course, they'll help do the redistribution ... one for you, one for me)
Go ahead and mod me down for this, because it is a different angle on this type of story.
Karma? Karma? I don't need no stinkin' karma.
Supplies don't? Well, you're right to some extent, but in other ways, totally wrong. Food, for instance. The food supply increases as technology allows growing more food per acre, and as it allows fewer people to grow more of it, even in less than ideal soil. Technology also brings electricity from the atom. There is also solar, wind, wave, and nearly uncountable other ways of generating electricity, with which you can do anything - especially loose hydrogen and oxygen from water to fill your fuel cell, and make breathable air.
;p
Honestly, with only 1/3 of the earth land, and even less than that actually habitable, I think the first thing we'd run out of given enough technological innovation is a place to stand.
What will happen will be this - eventually we will run out of oil... rather - the cost of getting more oil out of the earth will outweigh the value of the barrel of oil you could extract. I hope fervently for this day, since while everyone equates this with disaster, this will solve the vast majority of our problems. This will stop the pollution that makes me wheeze. Nuclear waste is amazingly insignificant when compared with burning coal and oil. Just build a big lead thing, deposit the (amazingly, amazingly small) 30,000 tons/year, and keep it around for a thousand years, by which I'm sure some bright boy will have developed a way to use electricity to power am effecient railgun, and fire it off into space a bit at a time. Then just keep on keeping on until we either run out of room to stand, or run out of material to power a nuclear power plant. By that time (upsettingly far in the future) well, someone else can come up with another damn idea.
I think folks who think we'll run of oil very soon are deluding themselves.
The problem with the alarmists who think we'll run out of oil are only considering the idea that the last deposits of oil will be in the Persian Gulf.
How wrong they are! Considering the following factors of the last 12 years:
1. The oilfields of the former Soviet Union are now being exploited on a very large scale by Western oil companies. There are massive oilfields in Siberia and Kazakhstan have barely been touched, not to mention we haven't even begun to exploit the Caspian Sea oilfields on a large scale.
2. China has large oilfields in Xinjiang Province that haven't been exploited due to transportation issues.
3. Afghanistan is potentially sitting on top of a big oilfield.
4. The Gulf of Mexico--according to British Petroleum engineers--have an amazingly large amount of oil yet to be exploited. The only reason why we haven't gotten more is the high expense of drilling for oil well into the Gulf of Mexico.
5. Canada has huge tracts of oil tar sands that could yield enough oil to equal all of the Persian Gulf states combined.
6. The Saudis are only concentrating their oil production on the oilfields near the Persian Gulf, not yet exploiting oilfields in other parts of the country. Tests by ARAMCO engineers have shown there are large oil deposits in the southern part of Saudi Arabia (called the Empty Quarter), but the Saudis have yet to tap these oilfields.
As for the issue of food production, the very rapid development of farm machinery, agricultural chemicals and better means to store and transport food has increased the amount and variety of food available to everyone on a scale that is mind-boggling. Think about it: compare what is available at your local food market in 1902 versus 2002, and you can eat foodstuffs today from literally all over the world.
In short, the alarmists don't know what they're talking about--a classic case of junk science.
This is the classic Liberal's delimma. The liberal screams and shouts that something is very wrong -- people open there eyes a bit and things get quite a bit better. Then the conservatives come along later and say: "Gee, the liberal was wrong, see we're ok now."
About 15 years ago I remember the "Skeptical Environmentalists" saying that the temperature of the earth won't even go up one degree by 2050. Well. It appears as if they are wrong. In some parts (the artic regions) we are anywhere from 4 to 7 degrees warmer. As I remember, it may have even been Julian who made these predictions (or who re-quoted them).
It's clear that we are seeing an acceleration in global warmth which is going to dramatically change our climate (and is doing so as we speak). What are you going to do about it? Close your eyes and say that we humans will adapt? Do you have that much faith in technology... I don't. How can you be sure it doesn't warm even faster?
I don't know about you, but I'd rather err on the "conservative" side of things and take action now rather than wait till it becomes a crisis. No?