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What Happens When Betelgeuse Explodes?
StartsWithABang writes: One of the great, catastrophic truths of the Universe is that everything has an expiration date. And this includes every single point of light in the entire sky. The most massive stars will die in a spectacular supernova explosion when their final stage of core fuel runs out. At only an estimated 600 light years distant, Betelgeuse is one (along with Antares) of the closest red supergiants to us, and it's estimated to have only perhaps 100,000 years until it reaches the end of its life. Here's the story on what we can expect to see (and feel) on Earth when Betelgeuse explodes.
The article doesn't say shit about feeling anything.
It would be roughly as bright as the 1/4 moon.
There, now you know everything of any substance in the linked article.
Now you left me wondering about what's could possibly be the civilization's next paycheck.
The Club of Rome said total collapse 2040-ish. So far we're on track to get it, apparently ;)
I have supernova insurance
Table-ized A.I.
Nope, nothing happened.
where Ford Prefect and Zaphod Beeblebrox come from?
A long winded article where the crucial information "a little brighter" is hidden between 2 pages of fluff.
I don't have anything to say... I tried to think of something but nothing at all came to mind. The whole experience was disappointing, from the moment I closed FF and updated to v36, re-logged into /. and clicked on the link to find out what the cockroaches would 'feel' in 100,600 years from now. Probably nothing as sound can't travel in space. No big bang here... move along pls.
Don't be apathetic. Procrastinate!
I was under impression that gamma bursts are a lot more interesting things when supernova expodes. What are the chances of it hitting Earth (they are focused, not omnidirectional ?) and how bad it would be for supernova so close to us?
In Q2 we are all going to die, so we should shift as many receivables into Q1 as possible to make our metrics.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
Er, no.
The Club of Rome said total collapse before 2000. Back in 1970. They've been saying this ever since I've been alive - just updating the date to keep the scam running.
In the 1960s it was overpopulation that would kill us. It has been several other things since. But the two fixed points that they always make are that:
1 - Human Civilisation is just about to collapse
2 - The Club of Rome needs more money...
Poul Anderson pointed out in a 1967 story that a supernova could have devastating electromagnetic pulse effects.
Since then, we've found that supernova explosions are asymmetrical. There is plasma moving at very high speeds near a new neutron star's magnetic field and not in a neat way where the effects cancel out.
How far away would you have to be in order not to have all your electronics fried?
You've read some other Club of Rome work, not "The Limits to Growth"
I assume Betelgeuse is on a slightly different orbital trajectory around the galactic center. So, if Betelgeuse is going to explode in about 100,000 years, won't its distance to Sol have changed by then?
You are confusing the medium with the message. That's how you end up with crappy greeting cards.
The Club of Rome said total collapse 2040-ish.
Even if they have, so what? There's two things to note. They've been wrong before.
And second, total collapse isn't going to impact the developed world like it will the worst off parts of the world. Places like Africa or Asia would be hit far harder than places like North America or Europe. This is quite relevant because those are also the places causing most of the overpopulation problem in the first place.
This is one of the ugly facts about overpopulation that groups like the Club of Rome tend to gloss over. Population growth is only happening in certain locations. And since the consequences of population growth also will happen in those same locations, it gives a strong disincentive to care if the shit hits the fan. We aren't all in this together.
My point behind this is to point out what should be obvious. The developing world has the overpopulation problem and has the extreme vulnerability to global trade collapse. Meanwhile the developed world has fixed its shit more or less. Sure there's a few Californias and Greeces out there, but for the most part, the developed world is going to weather any "total collapse".
The Club of Rome is all set to blame the people who aren't causing the problems. Why? Because that's where the money is.
It may also cause ATM machines to fail and vehicles to stop because their EMS systems and ECU units hang up.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
What would happen? We all watch the media struggle to pronounce Betelgeuse. "Scientists are reporting that Behtehlgoose has supernova'd. we go live now to the director of the astrology to see how this will effect our love lives."
Overpopulation is still a risk.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
It gets as bright as a quarter full moon on a pinpoint in the sky.
Where the feel of "what we would see (and feel)" comes into it, I have no idea.
Long article, for simple answer, that isn't even that interesting.
Personally, the most interesting bit was the bit about a previous supernova in the 1000's that looks like a cloud of dust now.
If Betelgeuse was going to supernova tomorrow, there'd still be nothing to be concerned about -- just something to be excited about.
This space intentionally left blank
And second, total collapse isn't going to impact the developed world like it will the worst off parts of the world. Places like Africa or Asia would be hit far harder than places like North America or Europe.
Thats an odd thing to say, considering there are millions of people in Africa that still live as if the developed world doesn't exist - subsistence farming using manual labour, hoes and oxen (just like we did a few hundred years ago), little to no access to modern medical practices (just like us a few hundred years ago), little access to education (just like us a few hundred years ago), little access to electricity (just like us a few hundred years ago) etc etc.
These people go about their daily lives tending the fields, trading small amounts of produce with each other and the surrounding villages, living in mud huts, boiling water over wood burning fires and treating broken bones with wooden splints. If someone can afford a token amount of modern medical help, they walk (or get carried) for dozens of miles to attend a clinic, otherwise they make do without.
In the event of a global collapse, these people will simply carry on as before.
Ok so its apparent magnitude is -16 when it explodes, that's assuming it stays still which its not. The article is a little shallow on how the relative movement of Betelgeuse and the sun will modify this. It could be its so far off by the time it does explode it could be vastly less magnitude.
The associated EMP pulse
* will make all the WiFi Barbies hiccup
* Pebble Smartwatch with AC synchronous motor all start running backwards
* hasten return plague infested gerbils
* make Slashdot say "read rest of comment..." when is no rest of comment to read or is whitespace (oops already happened)
* make AT&T undercharge customers
* will change spelling of some words even in old dictionaries
* will change hidden embedded satanic message into incomprehensible phenomic gobblegook
* will turn chemtrail into contrail
* will contaminate Portland Reservoir with water they will drain and refill at taxpayer expense
* will do nothing out in the desert no surprise there
* will cause brain cloud
* will change Lady Gaga name to Ydal Agag and Huckleberry Finn to Fuckeberry Hinn no one will notice
* will solve discrete logarithm and knapsack problem by making people realize that despite their insolubility everyone is all ok the kids are alright so there really is no problem
* will make apocalypse crazed people reset back to factory defaults and they will walk around with default wallpaper for faces
* will reveal that we have two suns but only to drunk people
* will short out Hillary Russia reset button because it used cheap copper click disc design and was not properly shielded and we do not need woman president we need more female engineers
* will not be televised
<blink>down the rabbit hole</blink>
I look at the sky every night, knowing the light is hundreds of years old. Half of the stars might have gone supernova already. Maybe we can't blame StartswithaBang for just blogging for slashdot effect.
Gently reply
Asy Ray to write it up in his blog. Ray will be the only one of us still alive in 100,000 years.
Overpopulation is self-adjusting. It's not pretty, famine, war and diseases comes in to play, but it is still self-adjusting.
We are not going to see the end of the world because of it.
As the technological level of a civilisation increases, the birth rate decreases. So population does tend to be seld adjusting.
Please have exploded 600 years ago!
Pandemic???
Africa has 1.1 billion people. With an average life expectancy of 71 years. Which means about 15 million deaths per year.
Ebola has killed about 8000 people in the last 15 months.
Which means that ebola has accounted for ~0.04% of African deaths since the end of 2013.
Sorry, 0.04% of your deathrate does not a pandemic make....
Note, by the by, that there were more traffic deaths in each of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Sudan, Uganda, and the United Republic of Tanzania then there were ebola deaths in all of Africa over the last 15 months.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Not Ebola, the drooling morons that refuse to vaccinate their kids. THEY are the problem.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
How would we know?
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
For those folks who may see it 599.99 years before us, a little brighter may not fully capture the magnitude of it. Insensitive clods.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
We might see not much at all because Betelgeuse happens to be located almost exactly in the ecliptic plane (10 degrees or so below it), so at certain times of the year you can't see it because it's just 10 degrees away from the sun. It would really suck if the supernova occurred during those months. I think even Hubble can't observe that close to the sun, so you'd need a telescope in deep space, which we don't really have atm.
Er, no.
Mankind did stuff to 'prevent' the dooms day scenarios of the CoR. Hence the probably date of no return got postponed.
Obviously some nations did not do enough, e.g. looking at the drought situations in the USA and the general farming situations where the draughts are not 'that server' yet.
The idea that the CoR needs money and posts doomsday scenarios to get funding is retarded.
Perhaps you should read one of their books and try to understand them. You certainly have a friend who can help you with difficult parts.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
But it's so much easier when /. links to an article with no substance
The article isn't entirely without substance. For instance, it helpfully points out, twice, that the sun is the brightest object in the sky.
In the night sky. In the night sky. In the night sky. In the night sky. Is that some sort of drinking game?
To ensure perfect aim, shoot first and call whatever you hit the target
The CoR books/reports are not about overpopulation per se but about scarseness of resources, polution etc.
So the main problematic zones are not random nations with a high population growth but a few specific nations that consume most resources of the planet, notable the USA.
Regarding a total collapse, I doubt any developed nation can weather off a total stop of oil, coal or other imports. Most international long distance trade is done by ships. Granted they burn stuff that does not really count as oil, but if the US don't get relevant resupplies from germany the carrier fleet is down in less than 3 month, actually 6 weeks is more correct.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Supernova will be ~1/4 the brightness of the Luna.
There, you can now skip to your loo and read your Kindle.
In the event of a global collapse, these people will simply carry on as before.
If civilization collapses, there will be a reason that it collapsed. Such as a pandemic disease, crop destroying volcanic eruption, asteroid impact, nuclear winter, or runaway greenhouse effect. In any of these events, Africans will not "carry on as before". They will be the hardest hit, because they have nothing to fall back on.
Overpopulation is self-adjusting. It's not pretty, famine, war and diseases comes in to play, but it is still self-adjusting.
We are not going to see the end of the world because of it.
That's not entirely true. Check out the history of Easter Island and also the many simulations and experiments
that have been done. If everyone only gets 50% of what they need then everybody dies. Yes, war, disease,
and cannibalism can help but it still might not prevent a complete collapse. More importantly, like in easter
island, the most likely outcome of overpopulation is that we screw up our ecosystem and make the world
uninhabitable by us. It's possible that a few people will survive but any simblance of civilization probably wouldn't.
It seems as though the quality of ACs has been deteriorating the last few years, while the number of them rises. It's too bad.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
I look at the sky every night, knowing the light is hundreds of years old. Half of the stars might have gone supernova already.
The life cycle of even the largest stars is still in the 10-100 million year range. The chance that one of them has exploded in the last few hundred years is tiny. Galaxy-wide we expect one supernova roughly every century so, unless you get really lucky, practically every star you can see with the naked eye has an extremely good chance of still being there...even Betelgeuse which they estimate has a 100k year lifespan remaining and is only 600 light years away. Of course if you had RTFA you would have known most of this...hope you appreciate the irony!
How would we know?
In theory, a star's brightness should fluctuate as it becomes unstable. This may happen over weeks, days, or even hours. We really don't know, because there have not been any close before/after observations. But there would likely be some sign that it is about to blow.
Ultraviolet glow from impending supernova.
... I made the assumption that it would address how such an explosion happening so close to our own solar system would likely affect this planet.
But.... nothing. Lots there about what to see, but not a speck of text anywhere in the article that addresses what would actually happen for us.
I already have a pretty rough idea of my own on what will happen on Earth anyways... and I suppose I went looking to the article in the hope of seeing either confirmation or denial, but I found neither. If I'm right, however, then talking about what there will be to see when it happens is really kind of pointless.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
If only it were that simple. Vaccines aren't a magic bullet, they only give your immune system a chance to practice fighting a disease without your life being on the line. The process is fairly random though - your body throws random shit at the infection until something sticks well enough to wipe it out, and then keeps a record of what worked. As a result many people find really effective solutions and become effectively immune, but others just get a boost in their resistance - hopefully enough to keep them alive until their immune systems can find a better solution, but there are no guarantees.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Not even technology in general, population growth drops off precipitously in the presence of three factors:
1) Cheap, effective birth control - because not many people are ever going to give up sex.
2) Family planning education - because the benefits of planning the size and timing of your family is a lot more obvious in retrospect, especially in cultures where (1) is a new phenomena.
3) Affordable, quality childhood medical care - children are the retirement plan, if you can't rely on your kids surviving to adulthood, you have more kids.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
How do we know it hasn't happened already? It could have exploded five hundred years ago, and we wouldn't know.
Proverbs 21:19
who bought...*cough* I mean "named" a star after someone at the "international star registry." What a sh*tty gift.
The virus that's most likely to cause an epidemic is the flu, mostly due to how often it mutates. Vaccinations don't help much for a new strain of the Spanish Flu.
The real danger is common bacteria. With the overuse of antibiotics and the resulting antibiotic resistance of bacteria we're likely to be back where we were a hundred years ago with simple infections being the leading cause of death.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
You left out educated women who can take advantage of numbers 1 and 2.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Easter Island is, well, very small. It's large enough to support a semi-stable population, but can never be "very stable" ...the lower bound on the natural population fluctuation is below sustainable. However, for continents, this is not a challenge; they're large enough (and even archipelagos) that a dominant group will maintain control of enough resources to survive. Only if global climate change becomes so bad that there are only unconnected inhabitable pockets will this be an "end of mankind" problem.
If Betelgeuse was going to supernova tomorrow, there'd still be nothing to be concerned about -- just something to be excited about.
In fact, it'll be an amazing event. Betelgeuse would become so bright that it'll outshine the full moon at night....for a few month. It'll even be clearly visible during the day.
I got quite excited a few years ago when news on the net talked about Betelgeuse been about to explode. Sadly we're quite sure now that it won't happen for a few millennium.
Elok
With an article title like this, there's supposed to be an Earth-shattering kaboom! Fortunately, if the article's correct, it seems like we just get a really bright star for a while, but no fatal gamma-ray bursts or anything like that.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
They have to survive to make it to Europe. The other replier was trying to be sarcastic, but Europe has in the past repeatedly demonstrated that killing a few million people is not a hard problem. In a total collapse scenario where "us versus them" genocide gets started, Africa will run out of people long before Europe runs out of bullets and nukes. The same goes for the US which has pretty defensible borders.
Whoosh!
It would take 600 years for us to find out.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
But it's so much easier when /. links to an article with no substance
The article isn't entirely without substance. For instance, it helpfully points out, twice, that the sun is the brightest object in the sky.
To be fair, that's probably specifically tailored for the slashdot audience:
"You know, that hot yellowy-white thing that warms your skin when you're walking outside?"
"Huh?"
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Actually they are not. The one who are vaccined survive. The ones who aren't risk to die. The problem is for the minority of children below roughly 12 month, they are to young to be vaccined and if they catch the desease they might die from it. Everyone who actually is vaccined does not need to bother how many others are vaccined. Except if it is the postman, the milk man and another important servant who suddenly dies from an easily preventable illness.
I am not sure I am going to be too upset about an event that keeps the snotting, drooling, noisy, stinky, bulky, and slow crotch droppings from being dragged out into inappropriate public places all the time.
"Let's keep Junior and Juniess at home for the first several years cuz they might catch something and die" is OK in my book.
Continuously compound interest equation accumulates error in predicted growth rate logarithmically.
That's easy for you to say.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Yeah, I think that was the joke.
ATM machines have built in redundancy. At least when you call them ATM machines. (Automated Teller Machine machines?)
1 ) This could've already happened.
2 ) How long would this be visible for?
Worry, worry, worry, worry, worry, worry, worry, worry, worry, worry, worry, worry, worry, worry, worry, worry, worry, worry, worry, worry, worry, worry, worry, worry, worry, worry, worry, worry, worry, worry, worry, worry, worry, worry, worry, worry, worry, worry, worry, worry, worry, worry, worry, worry, worry, as bright as a quarter moon for a while, worry, worry, worry, worry, worry, worry, worry, worry, worry, worry, worry, worry, worry, worry, worry, worry, worry, worry, worry.
There would be considerably more worrying were it not for Slashdot filters.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Sure there's a few Californias....
Do you mean states that provide the highest percentage of a country's food and send more money to the federal government than they receive? Or states that run a deficit...which is about half of them, red and blue alike?
Do you mean states that provide the highest percentage of a country's food and send more money to the federal government than they receive? Or states that run a deficit...which is about half of them, red and blue alike?
Yes, I mean that state.
Sure there's a few Californias and Greeces out there
These two are nothing alike, unless you think the whole of the developed world can be judged solely by the condition of the central governments. Besides, California's debt-to-GDP ratio is only about 20% - Greece's is 175%.
> that hot yellowy-white thing that warms your skin when you're walking outside?
Please don't talk about my girlfriend that way.
Maybe it already has exploded.
That's an incredibly powerful force for accelerating economic development, but I haven't heard much credible evidence that it has a dramatic effect on population growth directly, and it's not like an uneducated woman isn't going to contribute to her families wellbeing.
It's important to choose your battles - you're going to tend to run in to a lot more opposition to your population-control programs if you're trying to upset the current power hierarchy at the same time. *Everybody* wins from family planning, and the next generation of women will be much better positioned to fight for equality if the culture has already shifted so that they're not expected to be constantly pregnant and struggling to keep their children alive.
Education may be a win for all in the long term, but the impoverished men whose only power is over their wives aren't going to see it that way at first. (And it's mostly the deeply impoverished whose populations are growing fastest)
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Africa has 1.1 billion people. With an average life expectancy of 71 years.
Really? Then it is about time they sent some medical aid to some European countries.
It's not "several" years. It's one. The immune system needs a little age to be ready for it. After the shot, take them everywhere. They aren't nearly as noisy at 6-months as they are at 1+ (so long as you feed them and such).
And there's 1-10% (or more) of the population who has had their shots, and doesn't have immunity. Those are the people that are really the affected. There's nothing they can do. At least with babies, you can protect them, isolate them, but adults with immune problems or just didn't develop immunity often don't know they are unprotected, and if they did, would die even quicker if they choose to quit their job and stay home (and starve).
Learn to love Alaska
My pangalactic device tells me that it has already gone supernova ... yesterday .. wait for 600 years to watch the fireworks .. tada ...
These two are nothing alike, unless you think the whole of the developed world can be judged solely by the condition of the central governments. Besides, California's debt-to-GDP ratio is only about 20% - Greece's is 175%.
Sure, there are some differences between the two. The big one is that California hasn't yet destroyed its big sectors, high tech and agriculture. I give the state ten years to do both of those in. Maybe they'll whack Hollywood while they're at it, but I think that's a bit more resistant to bad governance.
Betelgeuse would become so bright that it'll outshine the full moon at night....for a few month.
Not according to TFA:
...where a full moon is about -13, and:
Apparently it'll be pretty bright for a few days then fade out slowly over several weeks, not months.
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
In the event of a global collapse, these people will simply carry on as before.
If civilization collapses, there will be a reason that it collapsed. Such as a pandemic disease, crop destroying volcanic eruption, asteroid impact, nuclear winter, or runaway greenhouse effect. In any of these events, Africans will not "carry on as before". They will be the hardest hit, because they have nothing to fall back on.
Agree with this. The middle of Africa won't care if there are worldwide blackouts, as long as everybody has their plot of land to grow crops on. That kind of disaster will be very hard on the industrial world when you can't get food into your cities. On the other hand if the problem is that there are more bodies to feed than local land to feed them on, then the people of Africa will have a real problem on their hand, and will probably solve it by killing each other off until it is no longer a problem, since historically that is what tends to happen in these situations anywhere.
Betelgeuse would become so bright that it'll outshine the full moon at night....for a few month.
Not according to TFA:
...where a full moon is about -13, and:
Apparently it'll be pretty bright for a few days then fade out slowly over several weeks, not months.
Oups, yeah you're right. I should have verified my source. I'm still quite sure about what I remember but maybe the calculation of the brightness of Betelgeuse changed over the years.
Elok
Oups, yeah you're right. I should have verified my source. I'm still quite sure about what I remember but maybe the calculation of the brightness of Betelgeuse changed over the years.
In your defence I wasn't playing by the rules when I read TFA. =)
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
My thinking is that an educated woman (or anyone actually) is more likely to understand the benefits of family planning and how to implement it as well as being more motivated to do more with her life then being a housewife.
Of course it also depends on how enlightened the man is which often also depends on education.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
as well as being more motivated to do more with her life then being a housewife.
Education without allowing people to question things is otherwise known as indoctrination. If a woman highly values being a housewife, I see no reason to not let her do so.
A lot of people seem to have this mentality of "if they knew what I did/ if they were more enlightened they would make the same choices as me" people are allowed to make different choices in life. There are trade-offs to every decision. What people truly value can be arbitrary.
It's fine if a woman decides to be a housewife, it's just nice if she has a choice.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
but the many "specific" countries with high population growth rates. :D
Since widely availability of contraception, and most notable TV, such countries don't exist anymore
Sure, a few nations still have a noticeable grows, but imho the population growth is under control since minimum 30 years.
So the main problem is still pollution, erosion, distribution, and behind that imperialism (no matter if religion based in Africa or foreign influence in Asia or south america), wrong approaches in globalization, corruption etc.
The population growth in India, or any other place of the world, has nothing to do with land erosion and loss of agrarian soil or water problems in the USA.
CoR is warning about erosion like in the USA ... your point?
So: limiting populations, how ever you want to achieve that, solves nothing until you start stopping the practices that lead to erosion, land loss and waste of water and finally other resources (like empty oceans).
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Actually how the immune system works is understood since decades, on a certain level at least.
The process is fairly random though - your body throws random shit at the infection until something sticks well enough to wipe it out
No it does not. The first line are macrophages and leucocytes. If they "eat" infected cells, they expose "foreign" proteins etc. on their hull. As examples for the antibody factories to find fitting antibodies exactly against those proteins.
As a result many people find really effective solutions and become effectively immune, but others just get a boost in their resistance - hopefully enough to keep them alive until their immune systems can find a better solution, but there are no guarantees.
That is nonsense. While a small percentage (below 1%) does not get immune, all the others develop the exact same antibody, hence we have so many antibody based tests for illnesses (like for HIV or Ebola).
The background is that most vaccinations only involve X sessions. For measles e.g. X == 2. If they would actually test if the person has developed anti bodies after 2 vaccinations they could decide if he needs one more. That ofc. again only works on those persons that indeed have no problem with their immune system.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Since widely availability of contraception, and most notable TV, such countries don't exist anymore :D
Let's give some examples: Nigeria has a population growth rate of 2.3% (which is a doubling time of just over 30 years). India and Indonesia still have population growth rates of 1.3% (doubling time of roughly 55 years). Pakistan has a population growth rate of 1.8% (doubling time of roughly 39 years). These rates are all due to reproduction and include a bit of emigration.
For example, if we blissfully extrapolate Nigeria's current growth rate and population (127 million today) through the next three centuries, a typical Club of Rome exercise, we get almost three orders of magnitude more people, roughly 110-120 billion people. Even if these people somehow consume only a tenth of the resources of the present global population, that's about half again as much resources consumed just by Nigeria than by the entire world today.
So the main problem is still pollution, erosion, distribution, and behind that imperialism (no matter if religion based in Africa or foreign influence in Asia or south america), wrong approaches in globalization, corruption etc.
Of course not. If the population of the world were a tenth the present amount, these would not be serious problems.
The population growth in India, or any other place of the world, has nothing to do with land erosion and loss of agrarian soil or water problems in the USA.
Sure, they do. Food is an export product of the US and the high demand for food globally helps put more pressure on the US's agriculture resources. Less demand means less land put under the plow.
My view is that this is typical environmental Calvinism that ignores overpopulation, the elephant in the room.
Let's give some examples [worldbank.org]: Nigeria has a population growth rate of 2.3% (which is a doubling time of just over 30 years). India and Indonesia still have population growth rates of 1.3% (doubling time of roughly 55 years). Pakistan has a population growth rate of 1.8% (doubling time of roughly 39 years). These rates are all due to reproduction and include a bit of emigration.
Extremely good examples.
100 years ago the grows was like 30% or bigger.
Food is an export product of the US and the high demand for food globally helps put more pressure on the US's agriculture resources. Less demand means less land put under the plow. :D supporting my point. No one forces the USA to destroy their own farming area, just to sell "a bit of food" to foreign countries (destroying the farming economy btw with that in those countries, to be able to buy land cheap there, doing the same destruction there as well)
Even worse
Blaming population growth there is just cynic. Farm land is destroyed because the big food companies try to manipulate world, just like the oil companies.
My view is that this is typical environmental Calvinism that ignores overpopulation, the elephant in the room. There is no problem. The planet can hold 4 times as many people without problems, perhaps even ten times. The way our economy/politics works is the problem, and that is what the CoR is pointing out.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
100 years ago the grows was like 30% or bigger.
No, it wasn't.
Even worse :D supporting my point. No one forces the USA to destroy their own farming area, just to sell "a bit of food" to foreign countries (destroying the farming economy btw with that in those countries, to be able to buy land cheap there, doing the same destruction there as well)
It's just a good benefit for the US which is the point of trade. Plus that "destruction" is renewable.
Blaming population growth there is just cynic. Farm land is destroyed because the big food companies try to manipulate world, just like the oil companies.
I already explained this. Why are you still here?
There is no problem. The planet can hold 4 times as many people without problems, perhaps even ten times. The way our economy/politics works is the problem, and that is what the CoR is pointing out.
We already have better, present day economic/political systems than anything the Club of Rome can conceive of. Yet again, this line of argument is pointless because it's so far off actual problems of humanity as to be harmful, if we should ever listen to it.
Thoughts are nice, but unless there's actual evidence, a thought is all it is. Personally I suspect that the woman who is struggling to keep two kids fed knows damned well that a third kid is going to mean someone is going to go hungry, and it tears at her heart to realize that sooner or later that is going to become reality.
It's not calculus, every parent knows that children are expensive. "All" you need is a social outreach program to let people know that the world has changed, and every child can be a *choice*, one that can be cheaply and easily declined, or delayed until you can afford it better. The difficult part is swaying social expectations, not explaining the premise.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
"The Nine Billion Names of God" is a 1953 science fiction short story by Arthur C. Clarke.
Now that the Tibetan Monks have laser printers, it is only a matter of time.
Come to think of it, it would also take a great deal of coordination for all the star lights to wink out on earth at nearly the same time.
Tracy Johnson
Old fashioned text games hosted below:
http://empire.openmpe.com/
BT
Yes but its still rising by 80 million ever year - that's 10 new cities the size of London, or 5 the size of New York every year. Most of them are poor and starving and want to come to the US or Europe where they think money and food are given away for free and the streets are paved with gold...
Below the speed of light Special Relativity is one of the most accurate theories in physics - above the speed of light..
Oh no I sounded like a right wing bigot, didn't intend to do that. Most of the poor don't intend to come here, but the media out there is telling how much better off we all are. .. but is does slowly make all the other problems worse and increases urbanization, load on food resources, and stress on remaining wilderness..
The real problem is the shear number who would have to be educated in things like family planning to make a difference - it would literally take tens of millions of educators.. Besides the biggest problems in the third world isn't just simple poverty - its also political corruption, military conflict, dictatorship, intolerant ultra orthodox religious indoctrination, outright theft, lack of general education... Endlessly growing population is a slower problem that often barely gets noticed on the ground
Below the speed of light Special Relativity is one of the most accurate theories in physics - above the speed of light..
I was near the Rio Grande River when the ATM machine refused my PIN number.
This happened once before, within sight of Mount Fujiyama.
There's no time like the present. Well, the past used to be.