121–130 of 305 posts
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Or, what if every of those bacteries whose evolution stopped thousands of years ago are simply completely inapt to compete with the ones we've got today, because those had much more time to evolve ?
That’s not how evolution works. That’s like saying that a dog could easily kill a velociraptor because dogs are 65 million years “more evolved”.
It is not just a bomb that can blow the arctic. It can destroy all human civilization. And at this point, we may have lost any ability to do anything. Edit: Doom scale... 1 Inconvenient storms. 2 More frequent natural disasters. 3 Destroying coastal cities. 4 Causing hunger, wars and mass migrations. 5 Decimating human population. 6 Destroying human civilization. 7 Destroying all humans on earth. 8 Destroying all lif…
" It can destroy all human civilization." I think saying stuff like this should be avoided. There is almost no chance that civilization will be destroyed. There will be major problems but the world won't go under. By making up total doom scenarios credibility of climate change proponents goes down a lot in my view.
Just because English lacks the ability to adequately express the far-reaching consequences of untackled Climate Change shouldn't stop us from trying to get the message around. If you think there are better phrases, don't keep them for yourself.
Also permanent advertisement has exploited the alarming features of language. Do you really still expect to trigger immediate action by saying 'please'?
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Humans prior to modern times haven't ever exceeded the carrying capacity of our environment and haven't had a die out that substantially reduced our population in modern times. Your thesis other than being fictional also is an emotional appeal to the concept that what is natural is desirable which is wholly unsound both on its face and because any die out sufficient to be effective is entirely likely to not only take…
Education is not the savior. There is a physical limit to resources here on this Earth. There is only so much food we can make, only so many jobs we can create. The only way to manage population is to control breeding. That is not a scaleable solution.
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and yet our governments
In all countries that matter, governments are elected. And they do what they need to do to be elected for the next term. Assuming they really swept global warming under the rug, they did it because accounting for it was unpopular. We prefer to vote for a candidate that won't reduce our comfort rather than one who decides to tackle a problem most people don't really understand. We are the ones to blame, governments ju…
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"all human civilization"? Isn't that a bit hyperbolic? destructive, sure. It would certainly lead to a lot of death, and a lot of hardship. Human civilization will certainly be changed- perhaps significantly. But I haven't see any evidence that it will cease to exist.
Destroying all civilization doesn't mean destroying all humans, but just the structures that hold society together. A runaway heating scenario may be a pretty effective way of doing that - all crops die, wars for food, nukes get used.
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There is something we can do. We can enjoy what we have here and now, for as long as it lasts, for as long as we can.
As long as I have a guarantee we can preserve our culture, I can care less about my future. Even if we lose our species, we should leave something behind that indicates we mattered.
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It just seems highly unlikely to me. Even if 90% of the world becomes uninhabitable there is still plenty of space left for a lot of people. You can lose 90% or even 99% of world population and will still have a lot of people left. Not saying this is a good thing but I just don't believe civilization will get totally wiped out. Emphasis is on "totally".
I think you are equating "human civilization" with "humanity". I agree that some people are likely to survive a catastrophe, but I don't think that what we think of as civilization is likely to survive a 90% or 99% population reduction. Or as lifeformed put it elsewhere: "Destroying all civilization doesn't mean destroying all humans, but just the structures that hold society together. A runaway heating scenario may…
Again, I am not saying these things are OK. We should worry about displacing millions of people and probably wars but civilization dying seems overblown and damaging to the argument that we should be doing something.