Could our species survive an extinction level event?

[steve_v]

4 minutes ago, Robotengineer said:

Assuming that the event doesn't happen in the next 5-10 years do you all think that it makes sense to start putting survival infrastructure into place ahead of time, before we even know of an extinction level event?

Of course. Good luck getting funding though, it's hard enough to get the general population to care about a certainty 10 years away, let alone preparing for something that probably won't happen in their lifetimes.
It'll take imminent, obvious catastrophe to get any sizeable commitment, and even then there will be plenty who simply refuse to believe.

[Sampa]

Considering the human ability to rise to any challenge, I believe Humans would find a way to survive.  Also, because we are sentient beings, we have certain qualities that past major, extinct species did not, extreme, unmatched intelligence and adaptability.

[Kerbart]

4 hours ago, Nibb31 said:

Does not compute. If we are thrown back to the stone age we are not wiped out.

The human species not. "Humanity" as we know it, with Facebook, The Kardashians and Honey Boo Boo? Yes. I expect civilization to collapse in a spectacular fashion to a point where we could lose all modern technology.

Computes perfectly.

[Rdivine]

Assuming that there would be no habitable areas anywhere on the planet, i guess the majority of the population would not survive.

Most survivors would be living in underground shelters and self-sustaining bunkers, which will probably run out of resources in a century, tops. After which, they are expected to re-enter the wild to look for resources.

 

Since there's an international space station with 6 people currently on board, they might be left with the burden to continue the human race. I doubt they would want to return to earth though. With our current technology and monetary systems(assuming it doesn't break down after news that there would be an extinction level event is released), we wouldn't be able to send many people into space.

However, we do have 6 manmade objects on their way to interstellar space, and clouds of space junk orbiting earth for billions of years to come.

So to answer your question, our legacy would survive, we wouldn't.

[kmMango]

Short of cataclysmic planetary destruction, we would survive. We're too many and too widespread to be wiped out by anything else. Even if those left to die try to sabotage survival efforts, some people will still reach the bunkers. It only takes a few thousand to repopulate. What form our new civilization would take is anybody's guess. It is highly unlikely any existing governments would survive.

[Windspren]

6 hours ago, cubinator said:

All the scientists, doctors, and engineers would live, and all the conspirators, denialists, politicians, and newspeople would die off.

I think he mean a negative event here.

Edited January 5, 2016 by Laythe Dweller

[PB666]

10 hours ago, Robotengineer said:

Could our species survive an extinction level event with prep time of 2-5 years? Be it an asteroid, comet or the Moon spontaneously exploding. The event would be severe enough to make the Earth uninhabitable for thousands of years, forcing humanity into space (or underground) for centuries. We only have 2-5 years to plan, build and install the infrastructure that will be needed to last thousands of years, what should we do? 

I just finished reading the first two parts of Seveneves and it has got me thinking about this issue, which got me wondering what the KSP community would think would be the best way to survive an extinction level event. 

By defintion if its a human spevies level extinction then no one survived, what a waste of time. 

[Nibb31]

4 hours ago, Sampa said:

Considering the human ability to rise to any challenge, I believe Humans would find a way to survive.  Also, because we are sentient beings, we have certain qualities that past major, extinct species did not, extreme, unmatched intelligence and adaptability.

You weren't following the COP21 negociations, were you.

[Nibb31]

5 hours ago, Robotengineer said:

I suppose I left a little to much up for debate while trying not to spoil the book. The sort of event I was imagining is one that would wipe out all human presence on the surface of the Earth. Going under would obviously be an option, but the feasibility of it would depend on the sort of event. 

If the event would wipe out all life (such as it blows up 100% of the Earth's crust), then there is simply nothing we can do about it. There are no plausible evacuation scenarios that would work in 5 years. We might as well accept it and enjoy what life we have left. It's a bit like discovering that you have terminal cancer. You can either spend the rest of your time fighting the ineluctable in chemotherapy and meds, or you can just accept it and spend the rest of your time doing what you like to do best.

If it's an extinction event on the scale of those that the Earth has already been through, we can survive as a species. Society will be toast, most of our ecosystem will be put upside down, and we might get down to another bottleneck event, but we are better than most species at adapting. I don't see why a small number couldn't survive and start all over again, and that number will always be much larger than you could save by trying to evacuate.

Edited January 5, 2016 by Nibb31

[GeneralVeers]

Our predecessors survived an E.L.E., didn't they?

On that basis alone, we know we can survive such a thing, because it's been done already. It's just that next time an E.L.E. happens, it's not 100% guaranteed that we WILL survive........

[magnemoe]

11 hours ago, Just Jim said:

I also think it would depend on the event.  But there is a hypothesis that what you propose nearly happened: the Toba Super volcano event.

From what I understand the hypotheses is this super volcano called Toba in Indonesia blew up so bad about 70,000-75,000 years ago it killed off the entire human population except maybe 3,000-1000 survivors.  It's called the genetic bottleneck theory.  If it did happen, and the theory is correct, then our ancestors, with none of our current technology, already survived an apparently monstrous planet-wide catastrophe that must have nearly wiped out everything.

Makes me think, and hope, that in the end us dumb ol' humans are a lot tougher than we give ourselves credit for. 

Yes, however we as in our species was not spread over all of the world 70.000 years ago but only in some areas in Africa. 
Neanderthals was more spread out and had no issues. 
As I understand leopards was hit harder, they has so little genetic variation you can probably transplant organs between random ones. 

[1of6Billion]

4 hours ago, Nibb31 said:

If the event would wipe out all life (such as it blows up 100% of the Earth's crust), then there is simply nothing we can do about it. There are no plausible evacuation scenarios that would work in 5 years. We might as well accept it and enjoy what life we have left. It's a bit like discovering that you have terminal cancer. You can either spend the rest of your time fighting the ineluctable in chemotherapy and meds, or you can just accept it and spend the rest of your time doing what you like to do best.

If it's an extinction event on the scale of those that the Earth has already been through, we can survive as a species. Society will be toast, most of our ecosystem will be put upside down, and we might get down to another bottleneck event, but we are better than most species at adapting. I don't see why a small number couldn't survive and start all over again, and that number will always be much larger than you could save by trying to evacuate.

You win this thread

[Sampa]

6 hours ago, Nibb31 said:

You weren't following the COP21 negociations, were you.

Never heard of them!

[tomf]

For those who haven't read Seven Eves and aren't to concerned with spoilers (and everything revelaed here is in the first third of the book and most of it on the back cover)

Spoiler

In Seven Eves something destroys the moon meaning that in three years the surface will be subjected to something that will force the late heavy bombardment to be renamed to the early light dusting. It is calculated that the surface will be uninhabitable for 10,000 years and mankind needs to put all of it's resources into establishing an orbiting colony.

In three years I don't believe we could get anything like a self sufficient colony into space. Your solar panels are going to be destroyed by micrometiorites, your reactor uranium is going to run out and we just can't get enough stuff up there to manufacture everything we need to live in space. Especally as getting hold of most elements/minerals that we mine on the surface is going to be impossible.

[KerbMav]

Best chances for me would have "wild tribes" and any other society living like a few hundred years ago, who still know how to grow crops and hunt without the help of modern technology and which plants in the forest are edible etc.

Another guess would be China, they are good at building massive structures fast - or some of the gulf states.

Japan might have a chance too, but that may be influenced by anime.

[wumpus]

17 hours ago, cubinator said:

All the scientists, doctors, and engineers would live, and all the conspirators, denialists, politicians, and newspeople would die off.

The scientists, doctors, and engineers tend to live in relatively urban areas.  This is not a good place to survive.  The ones who will really survive are jacks-of-all-trades (specialists like the scientists, doctors, and engineers  are in trouble).  Conspirators, denialists, politicians, and newspeople will need to be able to see things as they are to survive.  Death would come way faster than they could possibly learn to see.

Also don't expect human technology to go beyond mideival tech.  Coal, iron ore, you name it: if you need it to fuel an industrial revolution, somebody has ripped it out of any easily accessible place (with mideival tech).  Steel would obviously be available (recycle 20th/21st century junk), but the fuel would be an issue.  Also don't expect population to ever recover: the feedstalks needed for fertilizers just won't be available.  Lower population means lower tech growth: there just won't be as many people trying new things and specializing it the stuff needed for the new tech.

Extinction level events collapse ecosystems.  Being one species trying to survive in a collapsed ecosystem may well be impossible (fortunately humanity is world-wide.  Don't expect your little area to have *any* humans left).  But technology acts as an ecosystem as well: try reading/watching James Burke to see why (that's pretty much his only schtick.  Once you get what he's saying, he doesn't have much else to say.  Still worth understanding).

[Nibb31]

2 hours ago, Sampa said:

Never heard of them!

United Nations Conference on Climate Change that took place in Paris last month. It pretty much proved that humans as a group are incapable of rising to a challenge when their entire existence is in balance. There is no reason to believe that a predicted extinction event would be dealt with more successfuly than we are currently dealing with climate change.

5 years? It takes 2 years just to organise a freaking conference !

[AngelLestat]

It depends on the case of "extinction event"...   if the only way to survive is going to the space.. then we are death.. 

 

23 minutes ago, Nibb31 said:

United Nations Conference on Climate Change that took place in Paris last month. It pretty much proved that humans as a group are incapable of rising to a challenge when their entire existence is in balance. There is no reason to believe that a predicted extinction event would be dealt with more successfuly than we are currently dealing with climate change.

5 years? It takes 2 years just to organise a freaking conference !

it was a great sucess if we compared to previous congress.  This was the most important and all countries were agree to keep below the 1.5 to 2 degress.  It needs more evidence in the future to see how countries start to deal with the changes needed.. because nobody is forced..   But this agreement happen because now green technologies can compete for real with fossil fuels.., and many countries as China is already paying the consecuences on their fossil explotation.   They can not breath in their cities, and a lot people is dying due pollution.  

Edited January 5, 2016 by AngelLestat

[Kevin Kyle]

I see very little hope that we will survive ourselves let alone any cataclysmic event we might encounter, but there is always hope if nothing else. So I say slim and none.

[fredinno]

5 hours ago, AngelLestat said:

It depends on the case of "extinction event"...   if the only way to survive is going to the space.. then we are death.. 

 

it was a great sucess if we compared to previous congress.  This was the most important and all countries were agree to keep below the 1.5 to 2 degress.  It needs more evidence in the future to see how countries start to deal with the changes needed.. because nobody is forced..   But this agreement happen because now green technologies can compete for real with fossil fuels.., and many countries as China is already paying the consecuences on their fossil explotation.   They can not breath in their cities, and a lot people is dying due pollution.  

The green energy revolution is only viable if green energy can economically compete and replace fossil fuels- something that is slowly starting to happen. Regulations and carbon taxes are small contributions in comparision.

[GoSlash27]

I'd say "not a chance".

 Create a 100% self- sustaining biosphere that can survive for thousands of years in just 5 years? No way. Certainly not in a scale where the humans wouldn't be doomed by lack of genetic diversity.

If the SMOD comes along, all of humanity is dead. There's nothing we can do to change that in the foreseeable future.

Best,

-Slashy

[KAL 9000]

The Kerbals would only need a month to prepare. Humans... Maybe 75 years?

[Sampa]

10 hours ago, Nibb31 said:

United Nations Conference on Climate Change that took place in Paris last month. It pretty much proved that humans as a group are incapable of rising to a challenge when their entire existence is in balance. There is no reason to believe that a predicted extinction event would be dealt with more successfuly than we are currently dealing with climate change.

5 years? It takes 2 years just to organise a freaking conference !

I tend to disagree.  It has been in my observation that human civilization, as a whole, has a tendency to react when lives are in immediate and obvious threat.  Climate Change, however, is still being debated and humans are failing to react because lives are not immediately threatened.

[kmMango]

I vote we do everything in our power to ensure the survival of North Sentinel Island and its inhabitants. They have survived isolated with no technology for millennia. They're the perfect candidates.

[Frybert]

8 hours ago, kmMango said:

I vote we do everything in our power to ensure the survival of North Sentinel Island and its inhabitants. They have survived isolated with no technology for millennia. They're the perfect candidates.

They probably know something we don't.