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Megafauna Extinction Due to Climate
jvchamary writes "Most biologists believe that Earth is currently undergoing its sixth mass extinction. The cause? Human activity, either directly (e.g. the Dodo) or indirectly (e.g. the Amazon rainforests). The disappearance 30,000-45,000 years ago of the Australian megafauna, large animals such as the marsupial lion, is often attributed to hunting by Aboriginal settlers. However, recent research in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggests that it was more likely a shift in climate, rather than hunting, that caused the over-sized organisms to die-out (via Nature and the BBC)."
We Win!
That's too bad...I've always liked the idea of my ancestors storming across the land, exterminating entire species of giant animals with spears and rocks.
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
Interesting bit about the mega mammals. There's a diarama at the Chippewa Nature Center, Midland, Michigan, depicting a giant beaver. Stood about 6 feet tall, probably a few hundred pounds. (what kind of trees did this thing gnaw anyway, it'd need lots of them) Always wondered how they would have died off, I can't imagine too many bow-and-arrow or spear wielding humans able to take on something like that.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I envy early man and his wider variety of animals to eat
When you kill stuff, it stays dead. When you kill all stuff, it's all dead! Weather coming up, after the break.
And tomorrow the stock exchange will be the human race
Since the hand of human civilzation is turning up the thermostat on ol' Mother Earth?
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
Global warming will speed to extenction of many creatures, but it will also aid evoltion of many more.
sorry 'bout the mess...
Castoroides ohioensis
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
What percentage of animals that once lived are now extinct? (this is sort of a trick question for the christian "scientists" who go looking for dinosaurs in Africa, but lets ignore those morons for a moment.)
Over 99%? Oh.
Yes, species die off. Sucks for the those animals, and makes us feel guilty if were are causing it, but the fact is that natural processes have killed off more animals than humans have.
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I would better call that partial mass extintion, or how would they explain we're still here after five previous mass extinctions?
I could swear the Smith agent said the exact same thing to Morpheus.
I guess the point of the article is that every human being needs to grab their letter opener from their desk and stick it in the temple.
I hope the author goes first...
"Who are you?" "No one of consequence." "I must know." "Get used to disappointment."
This debate has been around for a long time.. climate change has been preached for years by creationists, in conjunction with the biblical flood.
I've always thought it made a lot of sense and never understood why it wasnt more widespreadly accepted by both parties.
"Comedy's a dead art form. Now tragedy, that's funny."
They died out because they were over-sized! If they were right-sized, they would still be alive! Everyone knows that obesity is the leading cause of anguish and suffering.
Or wait, I'm sorry, they were right. I forgot that climate shifts due to human activity are the cause of all evil.
"If you could press a button, and kill all humans on the planet (painlessly), would you?"
No, for two reasons:
^_^
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~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
However, this is not an excuse for an "anything goes" attitude. We still need to work hard to preserve the earth; it is one of our greatest responsibilities.
Taken From "http://www.exploratorium.edu/sunspots/"
Personally, I've always found it rather arrogant to believe we are the greatest cause of climate change on Earth. Lol, it could be that the Sun is literally causing us to use more energy...but thats taking the butterfly effect a little too literally - maybe.
... when you're the last remaining creature, standing on a barren planet (or what's left of it)
Hmm. I know a relatively famous (in his field, at least) paleoanthropologist,and was just talking to him about this very thing. I asked him his thoughts about the two competing theories of large animal extinction.
He said that while it was currently fashionable to blame the climate and exonerate aboriginal hunters, he said it makes perfect sense that it was probably a combination of the two.
We modern humans have a definite tendency to underestimate the intelligence, resourcefulness and persistence of our forebears. A good example of this is all the mysticism and voodoo crackpot theories of how Stonehenge, the pyramids, etc. were built. The fact is that ancient people were quite -- sometimes ingeniously -- resourceful at accomplishing what they wanted to do.
Along that same vein, I have no doubt that they became quite expert at killing such things as mammoths, which would feed a whole clan for months (esp. if you dry some of the meat, etc) and provide ivory, bone and fur besides. Mammoth hunting would also have been a great opportunity for clan members to show their skills, bravery and dedication to the tribe -- something of great importance in many aboriginal societies.
Paleoanthropologists are a pretty interesting bunch to talk to.
- Alaska Jack
in my Romantic Movement in American Literature class (English major), the whole point of Whitman was "love your transience" (just because im an english major doesnt mean i can spell, ok? sorry if its off).
Anyway, the fact is that the world is going to change for good or for ill and there isn't that much we can do about it. If we bitch and whine about the specled horned winged dragonfly squirl or some crap, then we're going to have to make sacrifices that are going to hurt people. However, we go around willie-nilly wasting shit we're going to hurt people. Fuck the squirl, it's about people. We can live without a lot of that "bio-diversity" just fine and you know it.
why does it matter? of course there is the jurassic park "just becuase we could didn't mean we should" thing. It's riddiculous. Sure, we need to make the planet livable. But if Denmark sinks who cares if its because a commet hits or because of the v8 turbo desiel truck we use for work (working demolition/construction this summer)? Its going to happen. we can't stop it. We may be able to slow our effect, but it's going to happen anyway? Who's to say the outcome wont be better? Just because we like the map now doesn't mean it's always been that way (it hasn't been) or will be forever (it wont be).
When will these "scientists" (who are obviously biased liberals) realize that it's not megaflaura extinction, it's that the megaflaura are experiencing their rapture?
A Scene from the recent hitchikers film.
Near the end, Slartibart fast informs Arthur that as the new Earth is so nearly complete they [the magratheans] are going to finish it anyway. He then asks if there are any changes Arthur wants made, or anything the earth could do without.
Arthur responds: "yes, me."
Help save the critically endangered Blue Iguana
The advances you talk about are possible, perhaps, but in the time frame you mention (50 years) only likely in the most highly developed part of the world.
The most important environmental challenges are those in the developing world, where a lack of technological innovation results in slash and burn farming and the use of fuels that cause excessive damage to the environment.
While the technology you're talking about will certainly be helpful, spreading existing technology to less-developed parts of the world will have a much more powerful effect immediately than waiting and wishful thinking.
Yet the Americans continue to deny global warming.
Not all of us, dude...just our elected officials.
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
"...humans will be irrelevant as Transhumans move off-planet..."
This off-planet stuff is confusing. If the population continues exploding, then even within my lifetime there will be a hundred billionish people on Earth. How the heck are we going to get even a million people off the planet, let alone billions of them?
I look out the window and see the beautiful blue San Francisco Bay. I see the beautiful Golden Gate Bridge in the distance and green trees all over the hillsides of Oakland. The sunset looks glorious, as it often does here, with tufts of white interspersed with shades of blue, gray, violet and gold...sorry...I got distracted...what was it you were asking?
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
Who's to say the humans didn't arrive after fleeing their original homes when their hometown megafauna finally disappeared? Already pressured by climate change, humans could have pushed their prey over the edge (pun intended :). Why not just move on, and repeat the success elsewhere? Our current mass extinctions are probably the same: humans pushing the sustainable cycles too far, past the breaking point.
Of course, we're doing the same to the climate itself: while our emissions are dwarfed by other "natural" emissions, our extra pushes the system past its buffers, crashing it into new equilibria. Since humans can clearly have ripple effects that into other species, and climates, perhaps we have done so many times. Some ecosystems are both fragile and essential to the stability of others. When we create a desert somewhere, it just might tip a larger climate elsewhere, or maybe even everywhere. Here we go again.
--
make install -not war
Have any /.ers read it?
Oh Please! How do you *know* this? What if large changes *within* the next 50 years result in massive wars, starvation and disease? Do you think that could potentially have an impact on your predicted utopia?? You shouldn't assume that we can dig ourselves out of this using technology.
Well, there are three possible ways to look at this:
1. We're the product of evolution. We're the greatest and most interesting species evolution ever produced. We owe nothing to anyone but ourselves for our success and if we want to wipe out a few other forms of life so be it. We rock! And of course in the grand scheme of things if we did wind up wiping ourselves out, nobody will be around to care.
2. We're the product of intelligent design. If the Christians are right, the whole world is here for us to fill, subdue and use for our benefit. If we need to knock out a few species, its no different than me knocking out a wall in my house to make room for a pool table. We're the pinnacle of creation, We ROCK! And after ragnarok, there will be a whole new creation anyway.
3. We're either created or evolved, but we're adaptable enough that if the need arises we'll find a way to create new species to replace the ones we eliminated. Heck maybe we'll make whole new worlds. In this case, I guess the Mormons would be right. In any case, we're the smartest and most adaptable. We ROCK! In any case, we can always clean up the mess later.
Who am I to suggest I have the right to wipe out whole species? I AM MAN!
Trying to use sarcasm in text-based forums does not work.
I'm not quite sure why. I'll have to check democratic underground to find out.
"Oh Beautiful for smoggy skies, insecticided grain,
For strip-mined mountain's majesty above the asphalt plain.
America, America, man sheds his waste on thee,
And hides the pines with billboard signs, from sea to oily sea."
-George Carlin
I wasn't a fanboy when Sega was around, and by god, I'm not one now.
The article makes some substantial assumptions with little real science explaining how it reaches the conclusion that humans are causing a mass extinction. It lists the five major extinctions where at least 17% of species died (huge proportion of them sea based) and attributes this to major shifts in global climate. It then goes on to just assume that humans are responsible for the current minor trend of rising temperatures. Im yet to see definitive proof that humans are the primary cause. Ice ages come and go all the time (on an evolutionary time scale) and long before humans could have contributed, correlation does not imply causality. Perhaps we've just reducing the time until the next one?
I've no doubt that we have had an impact on the global climate but we dont know enough about long term changes to be pointing fingers just yet. If the article is correct then it would imply we've already tipped the scales. if that's the case were screwed (well, life is going to become very difficult) because once the ice starts melting theres no going back for a few tens of thousands of years. Remember global warming will lower temperatures in the long term. When the polar caps melt it will reduce salinity and prevent transportation of warm water across the atlantic. No warm currents, no warm thermals = major reduction in marine species + frozen Europe.
When I was a kid (I'm 47 years old), they said that in 50 years flying cars would be commonplace. Funny how we're esentially getting around with the same--if only slightly improved--planes, trains and automobiles as before.
It's easier to wear the spandex than to do the crunches. --David Lee Roth
Reminds me of that scene where the I see dead people kid is an adroid ressurected eons after earth's extinction by interstellar archeologists. I forget the name of that movie.
But in 50-100 years? We don't even have flying cars yet. Popular Science has been promising these since the magazine's inception.
In Australia there are chocolate things that contain a plastic toy of an extinct animal, with a little sheet of paper describing the critter and its means of extinction. My favourite is one species that became extinct by the actions of a single domestic cat.
A nanotech that is capable of eliminating human stress on the environment is also capable of giving a single human being the power to destroy all life on the planet. Given that we currently have a large number of sociopaths that have adopted a "Kill them all and let God sort it out!" approach, that does not bode well for the prospects of survival of ANY Terran species. In short, technology may not be the silver bullet you're looking for after all.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Your lion wants more tofu.
Climate change maybe a large factor, especially if it resulted in dryer conditions. Still one of the ways that it is thought the Australian Aboriginal ancestors effected the australian environment was to use fire as an extensive hunting tool. Australia vegetation is setup to burn (and often require it for renewal), what humans did is to use controlled burns to flush out animals and catch them when they are fleeing the fire and most vulnerable.
The environmental issue is that it increased the frequency of burns, as they were intentionally lit instead of from natural causes (lightening strikes). It also decreased the intensity and size of the fires, as the fires were lit to be small and safe. So large infreqent blazes were replaces by small more frequent controlled ones. The real upshot is this change would have an effect on the make up of plant species and thus indirectly on the animals that feed on them.
Of course the advent of the use of fire in this way may have been a response to a change in the climate that created dryer conditions.
There is a false idea that native humans (on all continents) didn't impact the environment at all when they happened to arrive. This is obviously not true, a new species as dominant and capable as humans would obviously have a huge impact, but most societies were able to return to a stable equilibirum with the environment after a number of generations. What is the problem with our modern life is that we are continually changing our way of life almost per generation, and there is no way to return to equilibrium with this continued change if we don't actively seek an environmentally balanced sustainable society all the time.
Next time your driving on the road, count how many of your fellow citizens are driving alone (and in rush hour) in a big fat over bloated land-yacht. Also known as an SUV.
Fact is, you can't put the blame on just the politicians. I wish it was that simple, but it's not.
Note: I'm not against SUVs. I'm just pissed off at the fact people drive them for status and NOT for utilitarian reasons (which makes up the U in SUV)
Life is not for the lazy.
I'd been skeptical for a while that humans ate all the horses. They can survive on the nastiest scrub, are basically too tough for wolves and coyotes (moose may be bigger, but moose are solitary), and they are fast. It's true that humans can cover more ground in a day (if those humans are apaches) but not more ground in an hour. They have excellent senses, so they are hard to sneak up on. Really, the way to catch them is to have caught one already.
Everyone knows SUV's got way worse mileage 30 to 50,000 years ago. What did they expect?
Personally, I beleive that all the carbon dioxide we've released in the last 100 years must be having some effect.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
I see people who admit that we're probably causing significant global change and people who claim that it's totally natural, but relatively few people who say "it's probably natural but maybe we should be on the safe side..."
Popular Science has been promising these since the magazine's inception.
That's because people don't want to read about the reality of futuristic transportation.
"Marvel at the amazing car with reduced emmisions! Gaze in wonder at the practical public transportation system!" Oooooo....Ahhhhh!
Ok now I'm just being silly....
Man stuff like this is really getting on my nerves.
Its a bit like oh Humans are destroying the Enviroment. Yes and how are we going that, we are merely changing it, burning fossil fuels which we're laid down millions of years ago. That carbon came from somewhere (the atmosphere) and we're putting it back there. The only way we can destroy the enviroment is if we destroy the entire earth, and luckily we cant.
I was taught in biology the main limiting factor from plant growth was CO2 levels. Back in yé day with yé dinsaurs. C02 levels were 5 times what they are now which allowed much greater plant growth which allowed big dinosaurs. In the late Jurassic antartica was a rainforrest which froze over during winter. There are fast oil and coal deposits down there, but luckily there is that international agreement to stop mining and drilling. (wonder how long that will last, 30 years max?). So with climate change things change. Parts of nothern russia and canada will warm up and become more hospitable. I also read some of africa becomes wetter. But india and china dry out. Things change, populations will shift.
Yes humans are changing the world, it will be no better or worse as there is no net loss of anything apart from the ocassional thing we blast into space. Things are only better or worse if you narrow your specifications, but as the planet as a whole its only change. But we are fools to change it to something that isnt hospitable for us.
Automation - The Car Company Tycoon Game
defeating viruses before they get too mutated to contain
Do you honestly expect that we will *ever* be able to "defeat" viruses, or contagious disease in general (bacteria et al)? That's a war that can never be won. The microbes predate us by ages, and some of them got together to form into things like us because it was for their benefit; and if we get too out of line and keep trying to wipe them out, all we'll do is selectively breed them to be better and killing us. They breed faster, adapt faster, and can survive in a greater range of climates than ever we can. They will always outlast us.
Our only hope is to make *ourselves* more tolerant of them. Consider: the human immune system is one of the greater ones on the planet right now, and we're just crawling with bugs compared to things like cats or dogs, who need to be mostly sterile or else they'll die; their immune systems focus on keeping them clean of parasites, ours just makes sure they don't get out of hand. Certain reptiles have even us beat in that department, and they're veritable disease bags by comparison. Tolerance of non-lethal parasites is the only successful strategy here: tightening down the screws will only breed for more lethal ones.
(Replace "microbes" and "people" with "individuals" and "governments" and you might have some political commentary there, too).
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
"If the population continues exploding, then even within my lifetime there will be a hundred billionish people on Earth. How the heck are we going to get even a million people off the planet, let alone billions of them?"
.agrippa.
The population of the world will continue to grow, then start declining midway through this century.
This is because of several factors:
1. The USA and Europe will go into population decline in about 20 years. Their birth rates have stagnated. EU will go faster if its member states don't start allowing more immigrants in to replace the dying population. The USA will be better off because of its immigration policies, but will still face population decline because there will be more old people than young workers to take their place.
2. As large nations (India, China, Brazil) transform economically, they will (and are) experiencing a declining birth rate. China already has reduced its birth rate rather substantially. This will dramatically slow down population expansion.
3. AIDS has killed off, and will continue to kill off, a substantial number of the younger population in Africa. Less young people = less kids = population decline over time.
4. Japan is already in the throes of population decline. In Japan there are regions almost devoid of children and schools closed down and turned into elderly care facilities. The birth rate in Japan is horribly low and they have more elderly than young. Their xenophobic culture restricts their resupply of young workers.
If you want a really good analysis of all of this, read The Pentagon's New Map by Thomas Barnett.
some places are beautiful still, some look it, some are being restored...and some are disgusting.
By and large, language is a tool for concealing the truth. -- George Carlin
You've obviously never heard of the sport-utility boomerang.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Implying a weak correlation, not a causality.
1. It isn't in corporations' best interests to significantly improve life for the population unless either A. they think somebody else will get there first and beat them to the market or B. people stop buying what they're already producing. As long as people buy tons of cars as they are now, and as long as the five or ten auto manufacturers all know that the others are not to try to develop flying cars, where's the incentive to innovate?
2. Most people can't even figure out how to drive in two dimensions. Do you honestly expect them to be able to handle three? We would basically need vehicles that can drive themselves. This hasn't happened yet (even for non-flying cars) because of reason 1.
It would be trivial to design a flying car with current technology, energy requirements notwithstanding. Energy technology has not improved because certain large corporations have a vested interest in making energy cost as much as possible. See reason 1.
Unfortunately, when it comes down to a question of whether the human race will survive, I think Futurama got it right. "There was a company that was close to finding a cure, but I bought it and killed it and sold off the remains. Made a cool hundred mil." As long as our species is driven predominantly by selfishness and greed, we're screwed.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
The first linked article's author, at least, could use a cold shower. Every time an interesting and insightful fact was revealed, it seemed that the author took a moment to wallow in polite hatred for all things human, who are, in fact, wreched abominations engaged in widespread destruction of this fragile little blue and green ball of dirt. Apparently I'm supposed to feel guilty.
Fuck that.
Earth activists love to envision a world where we all can live in peace and harmony with mother earth; never stepping out of bounds; preserving the earth as it is ( or was ) for all time. It is a beautiful ideal, and I can at least applaud them for having ideals. It also happens to be completely impossible.
The universe is self-destructive by it's very nature, always building and destroying and reworking atoms on a scale impossible for us to comprehend. The systems of this planet, too, are constantly in flux. This is normal folks. We are supposed to have self-corrections in the ecosystem, as evidence of these corrections date back much farther than our existence.
"But Corbin, the difference is that we're the ones causing it! We're destroying our home, not some giant asteroid!." Heh. How arrogant and presumptuous of a human to suggest that they operate outside of the ecosystem, outside of the natural ways of the universe. We as a species are not capable of knowing the correct course for this planet any more than a dog. As smart as we think we are, humans are still pretty stupid when it comes to the workings of the ecosystem, the way it ties in with the planet's activities, and the infulence of celestial bodies. Even if preservation was the right course of action, we do not know the correct balance of actions that would be required to reverse current trends and restore "balance". And even if we did know, what if it means cooling the oceans, or changing solar activity? Do we really have that kind of power? ( That was retorical, by the way. )
Let it ride. We're already hip-deep in this mass-extinction, we can't stop it even if we wanted to. People inclined to recycle and ride bikes to work should do so, by all means. It will make a small difference, but a difference none the less. Could this cycle kill humans? Very possibly. However, as most people would agree, the earth is over-populated with humans anyway. This can only be a good thing. Could the human race die? Yeah, that's possible too. If we did, then at least there's historical evidence that a better species would evolve in our place. Plus, as an added bonus, we wouldn't be around to screw up the planet anymore. That should make the environmentalists happy. Right?
Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.
Human activity, either directly (e.g. the Dodo) or indirectly (e.g. the Amazon rainforests).
Erm. In what way is the destruction of the Amazon indirect? We chopped those down just as surely as we hunted down the dodos.
Let's try an example like global climate change or construction of roadways that severely limit the habitat of migratory mammals. That's indirect.
-Waldo Jaquith
Thanks. The question still stands, though. How is the off-earth solution a solution at all?
They're just saying that climate change leads to mass extinction, be it normal cyclic (like the last 100,000 years) or cataclysmic (think dinosaurs - they didn't die because asteroid shards hit every single one of them, they died because the debris in the atmosphere blocked out the sun, causing the major producers of the time to die out). Right now the climate is changing, we're approaching a peak, anthropogenically aided or not. Will that lead to another mass extinction? That's the question they're raising. Nice jump to reactionary politicism, though.
Even if global warming is primarily caused by human activity, we're at least 4 years too late to stop it at this point, and more likely 20....and it is a uniquely American crime ending research into biofuels in the late 1970s.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
the movie was A.I. by Spielberg.
too bad you can't see the nutrient loading in the bay, the algal blooms, disrupting it's value as a purifying estuary as salt water fish leave and fresh water fish die off due to lack of oxygen - all disrupting the fragile ecosystem that is an estuary. Hey man, maybe it'll die like the Chesapeake. It'll still be blue, though...for a while.
Did you know that that novel is 36 years old? Perhaps Crichton's writing style has improved in that time. Crichton's scientific discussions may not be 100% accurate, but he is always ahead of the ball on popular trends in science (Jurassic Park - genetics; Timeline - quantum mechanics, time travel; Prey - nanotechnology).
Plus "not unlike" does mean precisely the same thing as "like."
You will fit right in with this group...
http://www.vhemt.org/
It's actually a pretty good cause if you ask me.
Meh.
I'm glad there is evidence that we may not have caused the extinction, but this sentence immediately made me think of Occam's Razor and our likely need to rationalize the devastating effects of humanity on all other species. Just a thought.
Standing on the shoulders of giants.
"I'll have my lunch now. A single pillow of shreaded wheat, some steamed toast, and a dodo egg"
There is another kind of evil which we must fear most, and that is the indifference of good men. -- Boondock Saints
In a recent study, Science asserted that its superior reasoning had laid to rest nagging guilt brought on by the intuitive sense that we are being too heavy a burden on the planet.
.
-shpoffo
At least the ones in power know exactly what's going on. BUT... they're not going to ruin the "american way of life" and admit that there is a problem. Over-spend, over-use, be "happy". Keep the general populace ignorant.
Meh.
For a long time, because it's science. Science is speculative for a LONG time before it's accepted. Of course scientifically, the mechanisms behind the Green House effect are almost universally accepted. We know CH4, C02, and others trap heat in the troposphere. We know their emissions are increased. The question is - how long will the correlation between mean temp increase and increase in CO2 emissions continue? Now, of course, it's politicized, which means if you belong to one camp you have to believe there is a correlation, and if you belong to another you have to believe their isn't one. That only complicates things and lends itself to warped analysis of scientific findings.
You want the real answer?
Because those billions of humans will either be:
1) Killed off.
2) Transmogrified into Transhumans.
3) Left to drop dead in due time from their own incompetence in providing for themselves.
Actually, 4) - all of the above - is the most likely scenario.
When I speak of off-world migration, I'm referring to a consequence of transmogrification to Transhuman status. Transhumans have no need to remain on this planet since they have no biological requirements that must be supported by this planet's resources.
With brains operating thousands of times faster than human brains, figuring out how to get off-planet without draining the planet's resources will be, uhm, a no-brainer...
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
I thought the Monkey People already HAD the planet.
Was I misinformed, monkey boy?
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
"A nanotech that is capable of eliminating human stress on the environment is also capable of giving a single human being the power to destroy all life on the planet."
By George, I think he's got it!
Seriously, this is probably not quite the issue science fiction makes it appear. Certainly the threat is being taken seriously by a lot of people and it's likely that various safeguards and constraints will be in place before quite that level of capability is available to just anybody.
Groups and governments on the other hand are much more of a threat than individuals in this regard. I suspect, however, that those Transhumanists who are aware of the possibilities will be the ones who maintain sufficient control of the situation until the necessary tech for transmogrification is developed. And once that tech is in place and an actual Transhuman exists, nobody else is going to be a subsequent factor.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
I haven't seen it, but the premise as I understand it strikes me as one of the great STUPID concepts of all motion picture history...
Which is probably why I haven't been greatly motivated to see it. Spielberg's fascination with children does not interest me.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Considering the nuclear arsenals many countries on this planet have, you could get billions of people out off planet in about 15 minutes. They'd have to burn alive, though, to get out of here.
Look at it rationally.
What are the odds that anything in the next fifty years is going to happen so FAST and WORLD-WIDE that all economies are going to evaporate and ALL technological progress is going to stop?
Climate change? Very unlikely. It would have to happen so quickly that the world's economies could not adjust or move from hemisphere to hemisphere.
Wars? Local. Even spasm nuclear war between the US and China and/or Russia would only destroy a percentage of those countries infrastructure - they would ramp back up in twenty years or so after it ended. The rest of the world (more scientific research is being done in Europe now than in the US, or at least more scientific literature is being published there) would be relatively unscathed.
Sure, major political, economic and social unrest would occur with any of those scenarios. But enough to STOP technological progress? Much more likely to STIMULATE even faster progress and on the most critically useful technologies to boot.
People are saying we had predictions of flying cars 50 years ago. Well, we had predictions of all-out Doomsday fifty years ago, too. Where is that? If you read the crap put out by environmentalists like Erhlich back in the '70's, we should all be starving today - India should be a dead nation. Doesn't look like it, does it?
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
It is, however, our responsibility to save ourselves (and that is the responsibility of all species, IMHO). You already stated the need for preserving the Earth: We are a natural part of Earth's ecosystem. Anything that happens to that ecosystem ultimately effects us. The Earth will survive our actions.
The question is "will we?"
"Empathise with stupidity, and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot." - Iain M. Banks
;p
"Empathise with stupidity, and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot." - Iain M. Banks
In 10 million years, perhaps all primary terrestrial life will be descendents of Homo Sapiens. Perhaps we are just in the process of a morphological gene renormalization.
We will have human-derivitive predators, human-derivative herbavores, human-derivitive sea mammals, etc..
Sound strange? It shouldn't. Every once in a while, a specific set of genes shows so much ability to dominate that it completely overwhelm all others and then slowly specializes in the ecosystem, taking on the familiar roles we see. The first Dinosaurs were all morphologically identical with differentiation only occuring as the other species in the ecosystem were driven to extinction and leaving room for the different ecological niches to be filled through evolved Dinosaur morphology. Same with Mammals.
I suppose this vision could require a collapse of civilization such that humans actually had to fill all the various niches in the ecosystem, but given 10 million years, I'd say that is pretty likely. It would be pretty gruesome in the beginning, with canabilism and whatnot being fairly common, but after a few hundred millenia it should shake out to a variety of different predators and prey subspecies quite readily.
The reason that it can be true that 1+1 > 2 is that very peculiar nonzero value of the + operator
Damn post-hoc ergo proctor-hoc fallacy.
Actually, there was an interesting article on Slashdot a while back suggesting that a lot of the dinosaurs died from incredibly large amounts of infrared radiation caused by ejecta reentering the atmosphere in the hours immediately following the impact. I thought it was an interesting enough paper to present on it at my department's research seminar a few months ago.
...that was just bad intelligence, honest!
How true, how true.
Irrelevant to the discussion at hands, folks.
Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc
Here is where I digress with you:
Given that we are a natural part of the Earth's ecosystem, it is foolish to pretend that we can effectively separate our own survivability from the health of that ecosystem.
Technology can help us to ride out temporary 'blips' in the ecosystem, but when our misuse of technology causes systemic degradation, the future starts to look very dim.
Consider the problem of deficits: For the last couple of decades, it's been taken as a given that economic deficts are a long-term bad thing -- fobbing off the costs of our current spending on our children. An ecological deficit has the same fundamental problems, but is actualy more real than an economic one -- it's just not as clearly and mathematically provable. As (I think) Einstein said: "To the extent to which mathematics describes the real world, it is not exact. To the extent to which it is exact, it does not describe the real world."
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
We already have flying "cars"; we've had them for 100 years now. They're called airplanes.
Seriously, I don't know what they were rambling about with the "flying cars" crap back then, but it made no sense at all. We've already got flying vehicles that are pretty darn efficient. If we get something that LOOKS like a land based automobile to fly then all we're doing is creating a funky looking (and inefficient b/c of lack of wings) aircraft.
You can't even argue cost as a reason for keeping people out of the sky as a lot of decent aircraft can be had for under $20k used (occasionally under $10k used).
The reasons why we don't have people flying around:
1. Most people can't fly. A whole lot of people on the road now can't even drive a standard transmission. Controlling a vehicle in 3D (and in the air) requires a lot more focus, discipline, and practice. Most of the public or unable and/or unwilling to learn this.
2. Most people won't fly. They're terrified of it. 'nuff said. I know people who wouldn't fly with the most experienced pilot ever in the world's safest plane. They think it's unsafe/unnatural, and hence they want no part of it.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
We don't really have many large animal species in aus. I ride a kangaroo to work every day but just imagine if I had a wombat as big as a car or a man eating lizard. I think having giant drop bears would mean even more tourists get eaten though. :-)
If you want some more info check out:
Some aussie megafauna
Reasons For Extinction
BAH! I live for elaborate theories on what makes us tick for every tock of the environment, earth, and universe. However....
I despise people theorizing to the point of absolute knowledge that, for example, they know that variables x,y, and z are required for the continuing value of the variable a to be constant and desirable.
The theory assumed by the article, is the variable a is state of life on earth, and they absolutely know that variables x,y,z are required to be a certain value in the algorithm they have for existence. I would agree, that they can prove that x,y, and z's value effect a. Further more, I would agree that they can prove x,y,and z's values are diminishing from our point of view(hey! we need that oxygen!! Too much carbon dioxide! EEK, death destruction)
They fail to acknowledge that while existence/life can be represented by some algorithm possible, we have absolutely no way whatsoever to comprehend the infinite levels of variables involved or how they react/don't react with each other. x,y, and z may diminish my friend but maybe, just maybe, the diminished values of x,y,and z caused the variables m,t,and q to act differently in such a way, and to such an extreme extent, that we(which happen to a variable ourselves) realize shit, we don't need x,y,and z. since m,t,and q allow us to exist so much healthier.
These guys should really spend some time conversing with a cryptologist, not that I claim to be anywhere near there level of thinking.
Variables my friends, are our great unknown. Life is a bunch of maybe's and probably's all jammed together and we only transform a maybe into a known when we define a level of precision that we are comfortable measuring. It's in the precision.
Disclaimer: this an extreme counter. I would not say if we run out of drinking water,
something probably will replace its importance.....In the end, maybe the value of the variable a, which represents our existence, is not important at all. I feel that extinction theories, by nature, tend to be overwhelmingly extreme.
...broccoli would go extinct.
CBAPNYB no wait...
CPABNYP no wait...
CDDBISK wait...
SJLDKKD no wait...
SUCKS...There ya go!
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Well, at least I still have my books. And the best thing is, there's time now... all the time I need.
<<Picks up a book, but glasses fall off and break.>>
That's not fair! That's not fair at all! (source)
It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has plenty of work to do.
- Jerome Klapka Jerome
The CO2 concentration was 7000 ppm during the Cambrian period, 500 million years ago. Was this a time of mass extinction? Not at all. During the Cambrian Explosion, your relatives started having sex, and evolved into animals at a tremendous rate.
What is the carbon concentration now? A measly 350-380 ppm.
What does this low rate mean. MASS EXTINCTIONS!
Or does it?
Let's recap:
350 ppm CO2 = MASS EXTINCTIONS!
7000 ppm CO2 = A pretty good time for evolution.
On what do you base the claim that a warmer climate leads to more intense and random weather patterns? We have very little data on the topic, but what data we do have seems to suggest this is false. There has been a minor warming trend during the last 100 years of about one degree, which is the only time span foe which we have accurate weather data. During that time, however, we have not noticed an increase in the intensity or randomness of weather. Indeed it seems to be as it always was.
Now remember: That the weather today is different from 20, or 30, or any arbitrary number of years ago isn't weird, it's normal. Weather is marked by change, during the day, during the year, during centuries, etc. As best we know weather always changes and whatever is "normal" for a given time will not be in the future.
I'm not going to get in to a global warming fight, but you really need to question your assumptions and seek out more information. Your first assumption seems to be false according to all available empirical evidence. I think perhaps you have come to a conclusion without really investigating the evidence carefully, and examining all the theories. It's not as cut and dried as you paint it.
Friends, people from work, personal observation in my local appartment complex whom have no children...etc.
Don't take my word for it of course. Do your own research.
Life is not for the lazy.
What about the Australian Drop Baer? How do they explain that?
Concurrency does not necessarily imply causality.
I'm amazed how past climate change incidents are never mentioned as a possible cause of "global warming", although the historical record is rife with natural climate change. There is no evidence that today's changes are not part of a natural cycle.
In fact, we are coming out of a long period of cool coming off of several ice ages starting 10K years ago, to the "little ice ages" of the past 5K years and the catastrophic incidents due to volcanic activity in 300bc and 540ad.
The earth might just simply be adjusting back to its normal balmy climates.
Mmm.. megafauna. :)
Good ground up with macroketchup and hypermayonise with a superpickle on top.
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
I did a double take when I saw the title of this post. I thought it said "Marijuana extinction caused by...". Must have been a Freudian thing:)
"Lack of technical competence coupled with the arrogance of power, as usual, leads to no good end."
Does this mean no more Esuvee's? We can only hope...
The interesting thing about the Aboriginals is that they introduced fire as a hunting tool (herd animals in a certain direction) and they brought thier dogs with them. In Tasmania the Aboriginals were cut off before they learnt how to use fire and dogs. The extinction record of Tasmania is very different to the mainland. Human initiated fires have been blamed in many places for changing forests into grassland and grasslands into desert.
Unfortunately when Europeans arrived they hunted the Tasmanian Aboriginals and the Tasmanian tiger into extintion.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
The best way I've heard this expressed is Nature doesn't make waste. Nature makes food. (I'd love to claim this, but I can't remember for sure who said it. It might have been Bucky or Amory Lovins. At any rate, all the other species make food, and participate in the food chain and cycle all waste around.
We, as humans create waste that no biological process can deal with. Now humanure can be composted and reused, but there's lots of stuff that is good for no living thing.
That's the big difference. Waste not, want not.
w00t! w3 pwn teh p14n3tx0r!
"Words of wisdom: drop that zero and get with the hero" -- Vanilla Ice
Tell that to the Cockroaches and Ants, they need a good laugh.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
"What would happen if the Earth was hit by a giant asteroid? Well, judging from realistic simulations invilving a sledgehammer and a common laboratory frog, the result will be pretty bad."
Shyeeeah... riiiiight... Dude: we stand a much better chance finding ourselves in a weird reduced form of solar based medievalism in a 100 years than your Trans-Humanist fantasy nonsense.
We're facing a global DIEOFF:
http://www.dieoff.org/
and Chuckie here thinks we're going to live in space and push buttons for a living. Talk about living in a fantasy world.
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
To be entirely fair, he'll need to start with other people to keep up with the rate of birth.
...it's really a sad day for America when we require a goddamn ACT OF CONGRESS to make our DVD players work properly. ~
Can you show us some evidence for this assertion or am I meant to be laughing?
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
I fail to see relevance. Racism is a convenient lable to stick on things (in this case, for no apparrent reason), but it in no way affects the validity of Mr. Darwin's point.
...it's really a sad day for America when we require a goddamn ACT OF CONGRESS to make our DVD players work properly. ~
Oh, you're facing a die-off all right!
Believe me, when we Transhumans get cooking, your type of monkey will definitely be dying off!
Have a nice day.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
That's what IUCN Red List has. And although an extinction is "official" only after 50 years of not finding any specimens around, there are only a handful of cases "waiting in the line", species that we would only recently have stopped finding in wild.
The only problem are the myriads of unknown small, rare and local species that we don't perhaps know anything about, until they are already gone. BUT WHAT PROBLEM IS THIS REALLY? First, the numbers are highly speculative. Second these obscure species are typically small variants of each other, and a loss of one is not of very big imporatnce to even the local ecosystem. This whole extinction scare is irrational and emotional.
Note that there is an answer to saving those species that are endangered by hunting or scavenging: if they are sought after, they have a price. Capitalism and property rights are the key. Let the local people own them, cultivate or heard them, and use or sell them! They will soon be no more extinct than rice or cows.
The human nature of primates is a little different question. Rather than letting the local homo sapiens to own and eat the chimpanzee and gorillas I'd rather grant "half-human rights" to their bodies and some kind of "ownership" to their habitat, to be administered by some human custodian.
Anssi Porttikivi / app@iki.fi
The thing about most other predator/prey relationships is that a predator can only live on a given set of prey species. E.g., you don't see foxes hunting bear when rabbits become scarce, nor wolves catching mice and birds for a change.
So there's an equilibrium. When rabbits become scarce, some foxes starve too, when rabbits become abbundant, more fox cubs have enough food to live on and breed some more. So one species can't "win" or push the other into extinction.
Even mild climate changes can't instantly shift the balance too much. E.g., if there'll be less food for rabbits in the new climate, then the number of foxes will drop proportionally. The balance is preserved.
Humans are the case that was completely outside this equilibrium scheme. When mammots became scarce, humans didn't start dying off too, to give the mammoth a chance to repopulate. Humans still found sustenance (on other game, berries, etc), kept breeding, and kept killing mammoths into extinction.
With humans it's not as much a case of being determined to kill only mammoth, or becomming the ultimate mammoth-killing experts. It's just being able to keep at it, unlike any other predator. Precisely _because_ they weren't killing only mammoths for dinner.
Combine that with climate changes, and you have some doomed species real fast.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Seems to me like nowhere did He say that they can't be named post-mortem. "I hereby dub thee Sir Moosalot the Cheeseburger." *CHOMP* Problem solved, and the Lord must be pleased ;)
Or even if you want the animal to be named while alive, it seems to me that the more logical approach would have been to have a market for parts of named animals. I mean, people spend a bit of extra money on eggs from chicken that didn't grow in cages, or the milk of cows that grew on open pastures. If obeying the Lord's will is that important to someone, I'm sure someone could sell them the meat together with a small certifficat saying "This cow was named Bessy."
See, it didn't get in the way of naming anything then. In fact, it would just do the proper Christian thing of encouraging the peasant to name his/her cows.
Or better yet, isn't the Lord satisfied with just naming the whole species? I'm pretty sure any meat you can buy these days will be from some named species, like "cow", "chicken", "pig", "turkey" or the like. I don't think any shop would stay long in business if they sold meat from some unknown species that noone had seen or named before. ("No idea, guv'nor. It was this weird looking three-legged green alien that landed in my back yard and I shot it. Want a pound of it?")
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
"We cant even predict the weather without real-time pictures, to say nothing of climate prediction."
... um suck."
This is by far the most common fallacy when climate change is being discussed, I can't be bothered explaining, look it up for yourself using peer-reviewed sources.
As for sunspots, accurate records were not available until well after the invention of the telescope, so claims regarding unusual sunspot activity before the 17th century are anecdotal at best. To then go on and claim that the non-existant records are correlated with climate fluctuations is pure bullshit. I do know of any peer-reviewed study that has been published linking sunspots to major climate change but there are a plethora of industry shrills and whaco's who spout this crap to anyone who is still willing listen.
""the best-predicting climate models"
I don't understand the pathological aversion to climate models by so called scientifically minded people. I don't hear anyone refuting physists, chemists, etc, with such well thought out arguments as "um suck". Science is the art of building and refining models. If you can't, (or don't want to), understand that fundemental point then I suggest you might find more solice in religion or witchcraft.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
"If you claim the Bible to be completely holy, you put it in the place of God" - That is the most rational argument I have ever heard to counter the "do it my way because the bible says so" crowd.
Many people also "discount its actual worth" simply because it is a religious text. Even if you do not belive in the Christian God, the Bible is chock full of valuable life lessons. To take each word literally would imply the reader is either brain-dead or cannot see the forest for the trees.
Personally I sit on the fence between agnostic and atheist, I realise both views are a matter of faith, even my precious science is based on the faith that something called the Universe exsits outside my own thought processes.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Seriously. Top predators (us) are vulnerable to extinction. What'll be left are the rats. The next intelligent race will be the rat people.
Deleted
Well, at least I still have my books. And the best thing is, there's time now... all the time I need.
[Picks up a book, but glasses fall off and break.]
That's not fair! That's not fair at all! (source)
[skips a few lines]
Why should I believe you? You're Hitler!
You can't take the sky from me...
Scientists don't even have an accurate count of how many species there ARE on this planet - they could be off by factors of ten or more.
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
Am I the only person who misread the headline as "Marijuana Extinction Due to Climate"?
If all the world's a stage, anyone who says they want better lighting spends far too much time in a dark theatre.
So can anyone tell me where it says things aren't supposed to go this way? Is there some master book of the Earth that describes appropriate time lines for temperatures and species die-off?
I'm just wondering how it is we know all these thing to be bad, and or in need of correction. Perhaps its just simply the fact that doom sells, and scientist need money to continue their work?
I'm not for raping the planet, but then again I don't see how we are doing anything other than that which we were designed/destin to do.
Apple free since 1990!
Well, there's Hubbert's 1956 theory that foolishly predicted a peak in US domestic petroleum production would happen in the mid 1970's, and global production would peak between 2000 and 2015. Er, hang on....
Well, we had predictions of all-out Doomsday fifty years ago, too. Where is that? If you read the crap put out by environmentalists like Erhlich back in the '70's, we should all be starving today
While any number of the environmental doomsday prophets were nothing more than fuzzy minded Chicken Littles with nothing but unreasoned luddite prejudice behind their diatribes, some of them were backed by sound engineering, mathematics, and hard science. The most scientifically rigorous of those works was the original "Dynamics of Growth in a Finite World". The good news is that Global System behavior thus far is consistent with a scenario between the median and conservative predictive runs, with the worst pessimistic scenarios ruled out. The bad news is that it is consistent with the conservative to median simulation runs... and those mostly end in disaster anyway.
Disaster is still not unavertable; but it is very likely. (Even if it is, it won't be total; an easrly 1800's level of technology should be sustainable even post-collapse... once the population settles.) From where I sit, it looks like the race between disaster and trancendence will be decided by whether the global Hubbert peak beats out deployment of a space elevator. With a space elevator, economical access to space-based resources postpones collapse for on the order or a century; without, a shortage of accessible energy will induce a traditional horsemen collapse.
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
What a typical defensive position.
/. idiom for the above.
b ad-about-climate-models point of view. It's not a "pathological aversion", it's about accepting the current state and limitations of the models.
First things first. I never said that Weather = Climate. Of course it doesn't. The point is that predicting the weather should be a lot easier than predicting the climate as weather is here and now (i.e. days or weeks) while climate is obviously a long term problem.
Second point.
I work with models that predict the eruption of solar events and the subsequent energetic particles that make their way to Earth. There are a lot of smart people working on this problem. And you know what... the models "um suck". That's right, I am criticizing my own models. The scientific community has some models that work very well while that vast majority have a long way to go.
"I don't hear anyone refuting physicists, chemists, etc, with such well thought out arguments as "um suck""
No? I guess your in a tizzy over the choice of words here? If I had said "leave a lot to be desired" would that be better? How about "not very accurate" "huge error bars" etc...
I defend "um sucks" as a
If you don't think that physicists challenge each others models, get in very heated arguments over them, use disparaging vocabulary while discussing them, then you don't spend much time around scientists.
Anyone who actually does climate modeling want to stand up and tell us how great these models are, how close to accurate they are, etc... I doubt there will be many takers here.
I guess you support the first-rule-about-climate-models-is-we-don't-talk-
"Truth is much too complicated to allow anything but approximations"
We're so self-important. So self-important. Everybody's going to save something now. "Save the trees, save the bees, save the whales, save those snails." And the greatest arrogance of all: save the planet. What? Are these fucking people kidding me? Save the planet, we don't even know how to take care of ourselves yet. We haven't learned how to care for one another, we're gonna save the fucking planet?
I'm getting tired of that shit. Tired of that shit. I'm tired of fucking Earth Day, I'm tired of these self-righteous environmentalists, these white, bourgeois liberals who think the only thing wrong with this country is there aren't enough bicycle paths. People trying to make the world save for their Volvos. Besides, environmentalists don't give a shit about the planet. They don't care about the planet. Not in the abstract they don't. Not in the abstract they don't. You know what they're interested in? A clean place to live. Their own habitat. They're worried that some day in the future, they might be personally inconvenienced. Narrow, unenlightened self-interest doesn't impress me.
Besides, there is nothing wrong with the planet. Nothing wrong with the planet. The planet is fine. The PEOPLE are fucked. Difference. Difference. The planet is fine. Compared to the people, the planet is doing great. Been here four and a half billion years. Did you ever think about the arithmetic? The planet has been here four and a half billion years. We've been here, what, a hundred thousand? Maybe two hundred thousand? And we've only been engaged in heavy industry for a little over two hundred years. Two hundred years versus four and a half billion. And we have the CONCEIT to think that somehow we're a threat? That somehow we're gonna put in jeopardy this beautiful little blue-green ball that's just a-floatin' around the sun?
The planet has been through a lot worse than us. Been through all kinds of things worse than us. Been through earthquakes, volcanoes, plate tectonics, continental drift, solar flares, sun spots, magnetic storms, the magnetic reversal of the poles...hundreds of thousands of years of bombardment by comets and asteroids and meteors, worlwide floods, tidal waves, worldwide fires, erosion, cosmic rays, recurring ice ages...And we think some plastic bags, and some aluminum cans are going to make a difference? The planet...the planet...the planet isn't going anywhere. WE ARE!
We're going away. Pack your shit, folks. We're going away. And we won't leave much of a trace, either. Thank God for that. Maybe a little styrofoam. Maybe. A little styrofoam. The planet'll be here and we'll be long gone. Just another failed mutation. Just another closed-end biological mistake. An evolutionary cul-de-sac. The planet'll shake us off like a bad case of fleas. A surface nuisance.
You wanna know how the planet's doing? Ask those people at Pompeii, who are frozen into position from volcanic ash, how the planet's doing. You wanna know if the planet's all right, ask those people in Mexico City or Armenia or a hundred other places buried under thousands of tons of earthquake rubble, if they feel like a threat to the planet this week. Or how about those people in Kilowaia, Hawaii, who built their homes right next to an active volcano, and then wonder why they have lava in the living room.
The planet will be here for a long, long, LONG time after we're gone, and it will heal itself, it will cleanse itself, 'cause that's what it does. It's a self-correcting system. The air and the water will recover, the earth will be renewed, and if it's true that plastic is not degradable, well, the planet will simply incorporate plastic into a new pardigm: the earth plus plastic. The earth doesn't share our prejudice towards plastic. Plastic came out of the earth. The earth probably sees plastic as just another one of its children. Could be the only reason the earth allowed us to be spawned from it in the first place. It wanted plastic for itself. Didn't know how to make it. Needed u
Extinct Megafauna Found In Zoo
"A 13-year-old resident of the Bronx has found the long-thought extinct marsupial lion. The animal hasn't been seen for 30,000 years and has been rediscovered on exhibit in the Bronx zoo. Sadly, it no longer has a pouch, but this can be attributed to evolution, researchers say."
Sorry, even though it's not a dupe, I had a flashback to the other day.
http://kansieo.com
Are we somehow magically* exempt from this figure, or will we, too, die off one day?
It's not great to think about, but...
*smacks too much of religion
Wow! 70 people can extinct multiple species over a 6 million-square-mile continent. Humans are Amazing !
Why, oh why, didn't I take the Blue Pill?
Review Part One
Review Part Two
The posts on that site are well worth it - at least, you'll learn more than you would in arguing with slashdot trolls.
"I will take the Ring," he said, "though I do not know the way."
I'll have to check Free Republic or listen to Rush to find out why.
You can only drink 30 or 40 glasses of beer a day, no matter how rich you are.
-- Colonel Adolphus Busch
"Peak Oil" is exactly the sort of stimulant nanotech would need to be fully developed. Nanotech can get you all the oil you want - or render oil unnecessary.
A space elevator is highly unlikely to be developed before it is rendered unnecessary by other nanotech-based technology.
The same applies to just about every other scenario you can come up with. Shortage of food? Nanotech. Shortage of energy? Nanotech.
The only shortage we can't live with is nanotech research - which is unlikely to occur even if the US is dumb enough to prohibit it under some rightwing religious (or leftwing political) nonsense.
Besides which, I said Transhumans will go off-planet - not every monkey-ass primate who can wipe his nose. If the latter die by the billions, it's NOT a disaster.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Actually, most climatology textbooks will tell you that 90% of the climate is based on the temperature of the oceans. Dig deep enough and they'll tell you that the deep ocean thermal transport runs on a 1000 year cycle, so that the heat of the ocean today is based on the input from 1000 years ago. This would mean that if we got rid of all technology today, that the change in temperature would occur in 3005.
Tell me again why I should listen to even one climatologist when they talk out of both sides of their mouth?
If Kyoto was enacted, full-force, today, we would delay the rise in temperature in the year 2100 by 280 days. At a cost of 50 Trillion dollars.
Anyone volunteering?
Life, the Universe, and Everything... in my image.
Incomplete, and thus inaccurate. Nanotechnology is likely to make petrochemical synthesis from alternative raw materials possible, and alternate materials may partially replace plastics. (Pla However, the key difficulty in replacing oil is that it is a pre-existing compact form chemical energy storage. Nanotechnology might concievably produce a replacement energy storage technology-- although the high energy profit ratio and reasonable energy density of gasoline make this somewhat questionable. However, if you are using nanotechnology to synthesize a form of energy storage, you still need the energy as an input in one form or another. Nanotechnology is primarily materials science; it does not provide new energy sources.
A space elevator is highly unlikely to be developed before it is rendered unnecessary by other nanotech-based technology.
Um? A space elevator allows for access to space via a Conservative system. Unless losses to entropy are far higher than projections for fullerene conductors indicate, there is NO more long-term economical way for bulk materials space transport; the costs are prinicpally capital set-up costs, of which the bulk are projected for the initial semi-orbital space deployment... of just the sort that a beanstalk can ameliorate.
Furthermore, large scale space solar is the ONLY kind of energy source capable of sustaining humanity to a Singularity scenario, barring a suprise in a GUT breakthough well beyond what is expected at this point from string theory models. Nanotech is primarily an improvement in materials science, not physics. It has the potential to improve energy storage and transportation, but very limited possibilites for improving energy production.
Besides which, I said Transhumans will go off-planet - not every monkey-ass primate who can wipe his nose. If the latter die by the billions, it's NOT a disaster.
Unfortunately, until said Transhumans are living in a self-contained biosphere, they are probably reliant for production of their food supply on said monkey-ass primates. Even then, the transhumans will need a self-sustaining technological infrastructure. Haven't you read Marooned in Realtime? Merely because something is stupid does not mean it is safe to remove from your local economy nor ecology. Additionally, diminished biodiversity within a species-- even (trans)humans-- is generally a bad thing; too much risk of single point of failure from epidemics and the like.
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
"However, if you are using nanotechnology to synthesize a form of energy storage, you still need the energy as an input in one form or another. Nanotechnology is primarily materials science; it does not provide new energy sources."
Irrelevant. Nanotech provides the technology to construct new ways to IMPLEMENT existing energy sources and discover NEW energy sources. Synergistic effects.
Orbital materials transport? WHO GIVES A SHIT? You get your resources from the entire freakin' solar system by transporting a few grams of nanotech assemblers! Christ! Get some imagination! You're so locked in to low-tech five-years-from-now concepts you can't see the forest for the trees!
"Nanotech is primarily an improvement in materials science, not physics."
Nonsense. Get some more knowledge about nanotech. Limited to materials science indeed!
Transhumans reliant on food supply? Epidemics? Jesus Baron von Christ! You really have no clue what you're talking about, do you?
Let me give you a hint: TRANSHUMANS DON'T EAT!
Let me give you another clue: TRANSHUMANS ARE NOT A BIOLOGICAL SPECIES! They are POST-biological!
Also, nanotech eliminates the concept of "infrastructure". The only things a Transhuman needs are: 1) Energy sources; 2) matter; 3) knowledgebases; 4) nanomass; 5) computing power. The latter three are self-contained within the Transhuman; the former two are EVERYWHERE!
You're so limited in your concept of nanotech and its applications that you really have no business discussing it publicly.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
You can look at writing claiming Negros are closer to Gorillas than Caucasians are and calling for the extinction of all Negroes, Chimps and Gorillas and say with a straight face that you don't see how a charge of racism is relevant? You think the claim that Causians are superior to all other races is a valid point? You're a sick puppy, you know that?
Who is John Cabal?
Judging by your replies to the other posters, I take it this is a serious question.
Honestly, presuming you have somewhere to put the humans once they get into space, it is not a difficult proposition at all. You just have to look at the physical limitations of the problem, and not expect the technologies of today to be the limiting factor. A typical human weighs less than 100 kg. The amount of energy to put this mass into low earth orbit is about 5000 MJ - or about the same amount of energy in 200 gallons of gasoline. Now, our current mechanisms of putting masses into orbit are very inefficient; typical chemical rockets have a less than 1% efficiency when viewed from the standpoint of the energy used versus the kinetic energy of their load when delivered to orbit.
Of course, if the mission were to deliver billions of people to low earth orbit, our current methods would not be feasible. However, just as the Irish didn't flee the potato famine in ships like the Santa Maria, I doubt we will be using the same methods for mass transportation a century from now that we used for exploration in the last century.
Looking at the physical limits, would you believe that billions of people would use less than 2000 kilowatt hours (about $360 dollars worth at $0.18/kwh) worth of energy to get off the planet? It seems like an emminently achievable cost to me. Of course, we would need better propulsion mechanisms than currently used. There are many possible technologies which are being developed (slowly) which could meet the stated challenge. There is nothing in the laws of physics to suggest that we could not get into space a hundred times better and cheaper than we are doing them now.
Whoops, got so angry I didn't proofread enough. That "Causians" is of course meant to be a second use of the word "Caucasians", Sorry.
I'm trying hard not to flat out hate some people here. I've seen it claimed before that Darwin wasn't speaking with approval of these hypothetical extinctions, simply stating it as a likelyhood. Maybe some people really believe that. As for the rest, the quote is accurate, and speaks on its own - shoot the messenger all you want, the message is still true.
Who is John Cabal?
Think so? Go rent a copy of The Quiet Earth; film from new zealand, came out back in the early 80s and only watch the part up 'til the girl appears. You could be just like that guy, living in an empty mansion by candlelight, dressed up in clothes of the opposite gender, looking in a mirror.
O~ Him that studies revenge keeps his own wounds green. -- Francis Bacon
I work with several engineering researchers in the field, as well as an ethicist whose research into the ultimate potentials (and pitfalls thereof) required a broad survey of both Scientific and SF nanotech literature-- I had read most of the SF. I routinely discuss both the possibilities and practicallities with them over lunch. Given sufficient technological advancement, most of the developments you suggest do not violate the laws of physics. But we won't get to that level before facing the Hubbert Peak. Your post-human state may not be achievable given the present cultural, resource, and technological state. Unfortunately for you, there are many intermediate steps along the way. You can't develop new technology if you don't have a production surplus beyond basic life support.
I believe your optimism overlooks basic principles such as the the time value of resources, the law of scarcity, the resource demands of initial nanofabrication, the difficulties in human intelligence augmentation, a realistic projection of near-term energy supply and demand (and the economics thereof), basic orbital mechanics, the (im)practicality of nucleonic transmutation and the difficulties of isotope separation methods, the effects of radiation on nanomaterials and especially computer circuits, some annoying aspects of exponential growth curves, and the second law of thermodynamics.
However, I wish you luck. Particularly with the intelligence augmentation.
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
Why should I believe you? You're Hitler! *gasp* The argument is over! In record time, too!
'Rora
80's Cartoons Central
"The point is that predicting the weather should be a lot easier than predicting the climate as weather is here and now (i.e. days or weeks) while climate is obviously a long term problem."
You still don't get the point, Climate is much easier to predict than weather. As an example lets use the Sun.
"I work with models that predict the eruption of solar events and the subsequent energetic particles that make their way to Earth."
In other words you work on models that predict short term Solar weather, Solar weather is influenced by the sunspot cycle (Solar Climate). Would you say that the intensity, location and timing of an individual sunspot is easier to predict than the 11yr cycle maxima and minima?
"If you don't think that physicists challenge each others models"
This come under the heading of "refining the model" (see previous post), "um suck" is not an acceptable challenge unless it is has some explaination added to it. The "huge error bars" you speak off relate to the rate of warming. No peer-reviewed litrature doubts that the climate record is showing an alarmigly rapid warming of the planet since the early 1950's
"you don't spend much time around scientists" - I have a BSc(CS) and have worked with countless Phd's for over 15yrs, does that qualify?
OTOH: I accept there are many serious limitations to the various models (although you have failed to point one out yet). I also loved the movie "Fight Club".
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
" Climate is much easier to predict than weather"
/. There is obviously a lot of different points of view (i.e. the models suck - and in the professional forums there is every bit as much disagreement on the cause).
Ok, I don't buy it but I'll follow your chain...
"In other words you work on models that predict short term Solar weather, Solar weather is influenced by the sunspot cycle (Solar Climate). Would you say that the intensity, location and timing of an individual sunspot is easier to predict than the 11yr cycle maxima and minima? "
The 11/22 year cycle is not a model, it's not a prediction. It is an observation. We have absolutely no idea why there is an 11/22 year cycle. If all of a sudden the rotation of the planet went from 24 hours to 30 hours (I'm staying away from another weather analogy because I can tell it's a hot button with you) we would have a very good prediction of when the Sun would "come up". If all of a sudden the sunspot cycle went from 11 years to 17 years we would be freaking clueless. There is obviously a lot of work by a lot of people trying to understand the solar dynamo and probably a lot of other theories that I have never heard of, but to say we have a solar-climate-model is just as silly as saying we have an earth-climate-model (sure they are out there but they both need a lot of improvement == "um suck").
"No peer-reviewed literature doubts that the climate record is showing an alarmingly rapid warming of the planet since the early 1950's"
Then you haven't read George-W-Bush-Science-Reviews lately.... Just joking. I'm a liberal atheist.... But seriously I'm missing your point. I don't doubt that the planet is warming. I do agree with what I have seen in the literature on the subject. Just because I think that the current climate models "um suck" does not mean I disagree with the current observations that the temperature seems to be going up. Just take a look at all of the different posts on this topic right here on
"I have a BSc(CS) and have worked with countless Phd's for over 15yrs, does that qualify?"
They you have heard them fight. Scientists love to fight. Hell, half the fun of being a scientist is to fight with your colleagues on whose model is right and wrong and for what reasons. From the matrix... "you don't know a man until you have fought him". If you prefer to sugar-coat reality to match your romantic views of what science should be then fine. I prefer to knock-heads with everyone who challenges my models, even though I know my models suck and so do theirs, because after the bleeding stops I hope we have gained some ground.
"OTOH: I accept there are many serious limitations to the various models (although you have failed to point one out yet)."
Relationship between the 11/22 year solar cycle and the Earth's climate?
Relationship between the solar wind and the Earth's climate?
Relationship between coronal mass ejections and the Earth's climate?
There are probably many papers (peer-reviewed) that discuss these points but as far as I know the scientific community has not accepted these as anything else but "currently under debate == speculation == um sucks".
"Truth is much too complicated to allow anything but approximations"
I like banging heads too, so I am going to keep trying to sell you on my point that climate is simpler than weather
The sunspot cycle was an attempted analogy to tropical cyclones that flopped badly. I generally agree with most of your post except the paragraph starting with..."The 11/22 year cycle is not a model, it's not a prediction. It is an observation.". Yes it is an observation and I assume it would be inserted into models of the Sun to make certain predictions (gravity is also an observation we cannot explain but we make accurate predictions based on it all the time). I agree with the "sun up" argument because we understand the geometry behind predicting sun rise but I don't see your point unless you are saying that prediction without complete understanding is pointless (refer gravity).
What has got scientists alarmed is the fact that many of the observed features of climate (eg: ocean currents, permafrost, glaciers) that were predictable are now changing (like going from 11->17). This is not hard to explain (in a broad sense) since as something warms it will become more turbulent, therfore you can confidently expect more melting and extreme local weather events.
Take the monsoon season as an example, we can confidently predict that on a warming earth the average number of cyclones in the tropics will increase, we can explain why and recently we have observed that prediction seems to be coming to fruition. However even armed with that knowlage about the climate we have no idea how many cyclones will occur in a given season, nor does it help us work out when (during the season) and where (in the tropics) a particular cyclone will develop. Predicting individual cyclones (local weather) involves taking measurements and extrapolating, because of the chaotic nature of weather extrapolation is useless for predicting anything more than a few days into the future. Because we cannot predict the weather for next week does not mean we can't predict the overall outcomes of climate change over the next hundred years. One climate factor we cannot predict is the amount of CO2 humans will pump into the atmosphere over that time scale, most models expess it as a variable to produce "what if" senarios.
Another example is the "conveyer belt" or the Gulf stream. We can (roughly)measure the rate of increase of fresh water into the artic end of the current due to increased melting. We also know that if "enough" fresh water runs off Greenland then the Gulf stream will slow down or even stall for quite some time (until the icecap is gone or stops melting). If the Gulf stream stalls Western Europeans will freeze thier balls off while at the same time will also be enduring severe drought. This information is useless when it comes to pedicting a white christmas for Barcelona in 2020 or even 2005.
The problem is not that the climate is changing, it has done this in the past before humans even set foot on the planet, the problem is that it is changing so rapidly that (if it continues) life forms will not have a chance to adapt (unless you subscribe to the bush-head-in-the-sand-models). Inceased CO2 is the main culprit. It is not the only factor and somethings such as sunspots and volcanos may have a good or bad influence but that influence (if any) has been part of the record for a few hundred years and is negligable compared to increased CO2.
What am I trying to say: Weather is (semi)chaotic, it is difficult to predict beyond a few days because we do not understand the how to predict chaotic systems. Climate has regular long term patterns based on large scale thermodynamics and geographical features, we alreay understand the basic principles of what drives those patterns and can thus readily create "what if" senarios based on increasingly accurate measurements.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
We weren't around for the 5 previous one genius. They happened hundreds of millions of years ago.
We actually see eye to eye on most points. I agree with everything you said about the weather. I do understand that it's a complicated business to get into. That was kind of my point in the initial comment is that even with all of the observables and real-time measurements we still do a lousy job of it (IMHO).
But as far as climate modeling goes we don't have all the observables. With a weather model we can test the model right away. Whoops, we were wrong, back to the drawing board. With the kind of modeling I do same thing.... Wrong again, next...
No such luck with climate modeling. We simply cannot test the model for obvious reasons. Your example on the Gulf stream is a good one. The models tell us that if the stream goes away we will have frozen balls. But it's just a model, we have no observables, no way to test it. What if a new stream emurges, one that we have never seen before, not even thought about before. I cant justify this will happen yet nobody can prove it wont because we really have no idea.
This is the exact reason why it's so interesting to study other planets. It gives us a chance to use our models on a different system and hopefully improve what we have. Take for instance Jupiter. The "red eye" has been there for at least 400 years right. I would claim that the eye is part of the jovian climate (it's not a transient event). We really do not understand how this happens yet. Who is to say that Earth wont develop a "blue/white eye" some day that would completely alter the climate for a thousand years? The only thing the modelers could say is "well our models were right but we could not have ever seen that one coming".
I do not think that it's "pointless". In fact I'm an enthusiastic supporter of all scientific research, yes even cow farts. The post today on the entire universe simulations for example. Many replies to that post were of the form... but we don't even understand blank yet, how can we etc.... Any they are exactly right. But I still support the attempt as if we wait until we know everything before we start to model it then advancement comes to a halt. Models of the weather, the climate, solar events, or the universe do not scare me. What does scare me is a government that decides to stop funding of the climate because they don't like the results that are coming out, or will not allow stem cell research because of some religious bias. That's what scares me.
"Truth is much too complicated to allow anything but approximations"
Couldn't agree more, the models are an educated guess and we have a lot to learn, life's full of suprises.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.