What would be humanity's likeliest demise?

[NuclearNut]

I will say that human life will probably cease to exist due to other reasons separate from the ones listed.

Humanity has been and thus far is a very, very hardy species.  What would destroy others serves to merely temporally weaken us.  We have survived in a wildly expansive variety of environments, built technologies that largely serve to enhance that capability, and have built tools for other uses that our ancestors could not have dreamed of.  There is not an inch of this world that we have not in some way altered, and only a few places on the surface that we cannot inhabit at all.

Thus I see it as unlikely that global warming, a nuclear war, a pandemic, or some rouge AI will spell doom for humanity.  Well, the last one is sort of interesting, but back to that later.

Humanity presently is developing technology that will further augment our capabilities, genetic modification seems to be the most close one, but neural interfaces and AI present interesting possibilities in the long term.  To put it simply, we may make ourselves extinct via improving ourselves.  This is the least onerous (and in fact would be quite pleasant) thing that might occur.  The reason I think it is most probable is the continued rapid development of technology and our ability to survive problems as well as the fortunate rarity of such species threatening problems.

An two examples of the progress we have made with technology would be nuclear weapons and computers.  Nuclear weapons started as bulky, inefficient devices and within a matter of two decades diversified into a number of small, elegant, and efficient devices.  Thermonuclear two stage weapons were developed within a decade of the first nuclear bomb, and likewise tactical weapons usable by infantry were developed in but three decades.  Computers likewise have undergone rapid development, going from massive bulky devices to much smaller ones at a possibly faster rate than nuclear weapons.

However, I cannot stress this enough, it is likely that any time frame for the development of such technologies to allow for extensive modification is inaccurate, regardless of length.  That is to say that, like any other technology, the time frame in which it will become developed to a degree that it is possible to use is extremely variable, though I err on the side of significant quantities of time needing to be taken to develop any of the technology required to augment Homo Sapiens Sapiens sufficiently to be considered another species or set of species (and thus extinct).

[pyrosheep]

13 hours ago, Matuchkin said:

Overpopuation, 100%.

 

I personally don't think so.

Human population growth rate (as a percentage) has been falling since the 60s, developing nations are where you find rapid population growth, this is because improved access to healthcare, better sanitation and better nutrition allow more infants grow up and have children of their own; however once a nation develops further, growth rate falls, this is because adults (particularly women) have other things to pursue than raising a family, like higher education or a career and because they are better educated and understand that a large family isn't as useful in an Urban setting compared to a rural setting (easier access to contraceptives/family planning help as well obviously, but that's not strictly linked to development any more).

Europe and North America (as well as parts of asia) show that once you reach a certain level of development, growth rate goes very low or negative, Asia in general as well as Central and South America are clearly not too far away from this area of low growth; Africa will be the area of high population growth this century since African countries are further behind in terms of development and therefore will have to go through the period of very high population growth ( a few already have; ie: Kenya, Nigeria, South africa, Zimbabwe ect.)

Here are the forecasts for population until 2050.

 

As you can see the trend is for population growth to slow down quite a bit; if we extrapolate, it looks as if world population will plateau at some point towards the end of the century, somewhere around 10 or 11 billion. 

This means that High population will be a big challenge this century, but then after that it should mostly stop being a problem. 

 

Edited April 1, 2016 by pyrosheep

[Nibb31]

1 hour ago, pyrosheep said:

This means that High population will be a big challenge this century, but then after that it should mostly stop being a problem. 

Even if growth stops, it doesn't mean that we aren't overpopulated and that overpopulation isn't a huge problem. 

With 7 billion people, we are already seriously overpopulated. Lookup the notion of ecological footprint. It currently takes 1.6 years to regenerate 1 year of our consumption of resources. In other words, for our current population to live sustainably, we actually need 1.6 times the planet Earth. The average world citizen has an eco-footprint of about 2.7 global average hectares while there are only 2.1 global hectares of bioproductive land and water per capita on earth. This means that humanity has already overshot global biocapacity by 30% and now lives unsustainabily by depleting stocks of "natural capital".

And that is if we remain with the same ratio of rich and poor countries. You would need 9 global hectares to produce resources for an average American, whereas the populations of African countries only consume resources for less than 1 hectare. The average is around 2.7 hectares. As emerging countries increase their standard of living, the situation gets worse and the Earth's surface or resources aren't growing.

So we not only need our population to stop growing, we actually need to decrease our numbers. If we don't find a way to do it peacefully ourselves (through education, contraceptives, and social incentives) then nature will rebalance like it always does, and it won't be pretty.

In fact, overpopulation is the elephant in the room, and the root cause of all of our other ecological and economical problems. It's not difficult to understand, if you have a pie and you keep on inviting more people to the party, either everyone gets a smaller piece of the pie, or some get to stuff themselves while the others only get crumbs. The only reason why 1 billion people in the Western world gets to live comfortably is because the rest of humanity is only left with the crumbs. The Earth's resources are not extensible. If 8 billion humans all had the same standard as living as, for example, the population of the USA, the Earth's resources would be exhausted in a couple of years. People in the Western world do not want to give up their pie, and people in the rest of the world want more crumbs. Nature hates imbalance and something has to give somehow.

Unlimited economic growth in a world where resources are finite, is simply not a sustainable model in the long term. The only way for all humanity to reach a decent standard of living is if there are less people sharing the pie.

[Matuchkin]

1 hour ago, pyrosheep said:

As you can see the trend is for population growth to slow down quite a bit; if we extrapolate, it looks as if world population will plateau at some point towards the end of the century, somewhere around 10 or 11 billion. 

The population growth rate will surely plateau, but with a population of 10-11 billion sustaining the human race will be excessively difficult. Over the years, you can literally see central+northern Africa drain all their water and go dry, for example. According to worldometers, a website that uses hundreds of credible sources to create statistics, we have 13,760 days (approximately 38 years) to the end of oil, 59,186 days to the end of gas, and 150,355 days to the end of coal. A technological reform will be extremely difficult to conduct. According to Stephen Hawking, in 600 years we will all have to stand next to each other to fit on this planet, which would be literally glowing red-hot from all the energy consumption. Of course, we can not get to that point and will die much earlier. In fact, I believe this to be our last century on earth- that my future grandchildren will die early, from starvation or something similar.

[Darnok]

12 minutes ago, Nibb31 said:

 

Unlimited economic growth in a world where resources are finite, is simply not a sustainable model in the long term. The only way for all humanity to reach a decent standard of living is if there are less people sharing the pie.

Some people before WWII had same idea and they even had idea which people should die.

Overpopulation isn't problem right now consumptionism is. If you want to kill people remove US from ecosystem and you will see how things improve... but I have better solution, we should expand and change our taxes what will begin to change our industry, what will allow us to reduce resources, space and energy needs and develop technologies needed for expansion.

We should stop manufacture so many not need things, we should start to produce more durable items and change tax system where you pay for things you own not for how much you earn.

7 minutes ago, Matuchkin said:

The population growth rate will surely plateau, but with a population of 10-11 billion sustaining the human race will be excessively difficult. Over the years, you can literally see central+northern Africa drain all their water and go dry, for example. According to worldometers, a website that uses hundreds of credible sources to create statistics, we have 13,760 days (approximately 38 years) to the end of oil, 59,186 days to the end of gas, and 150,355 days to the end of coal. A technological reform will be extremely difficult to conduct. According to Stephen Hawking, in 600 years we will all have to stand next to each other to fit on this planet, which would be literally glowing red-hot from all the energy consumption. Of course, we can not get to that point and will die much earlier. In fact, I believe this to be our last century on earth- that my future grandchildren will die early, from starvation or something similar.

How they estimated all of those?

[Matuchkin]

26 minutes ago, Darnok said:

How they estimated all of those?

They estimated the amount of ____ left on Earth, then they calculated our average consumption rate.

[Darnok]

5 minutes ago, Matuchkin said:

They estimated the amount of ____ left on Earth, then they calculated our average consumption rate.

Ok. Also would be nice if they would count in rare metals and uranium, since we need them more than oil.

[insert_name]

22 minutes ago, Darnok said:

Ok. Also would be nice if they would count in rare metals and uranium, since we need them more than oil.

We don't use nuclear power more than oil, and we can recycle metal

[Darnok]

11 minutes ago, insert_name said:

We don't use nuclear power more than oil, and we can recycle metal

100 years ago we used more coal than oil... and now we are getting short of oil not coal.

We don't use much uranium, but if we want more nuclear power plants we should have enough uranium for at least 300 years? Because when we increase demand for it can deplete very fast, just like oil did.

So you want to recycle metals... which means we waste tons of oil and coal to produce energy needed for recycling, not to mention chemicals leaked to oceans... great idea.

[insert_name]

16 minutes ago, Darnok said:

100 years ago we used more coal than oil... and now we are getting short of oil not coal.

We don't use much uranium, but if we want more nuclear power plants we should have enough uranium for at least 300 years? Because when we increase demand for it can deplete very fast, just like oil did.

So you want to recycle metals... which means we waste tons of oil and coal to produce energy needed for recycling, not to mention chemicals leaked to oceans... great idea.

We already recycle metals, also we don't calculate danger to humanity based on some hypothetical scenario that probably won't happen

Edited April 1, 2016 by insert_name

[Darnok]

24 minutes ago, insert_name said:

We already recycle metals, also we don't calculate danger to humanity based on some hypothetical scenario that probably won't happen

Yea wasting energy. Which scenario isn't hypothetical?

Which hypothetical scenario is certain, if any scenario would be certain shouldn't we stop call it hypothetical?

[fredinno]

3 hours ago, pyrosheep said:

 

I personally don't think so.

Human population growth rate (as a percentage) has been falling since the 60s, developing nations are where you find rapid population growth, this is because improved access to healthcare, better sanitation and better nutrition allow more infants grow up and have children of their own; however once a nation develops further, growth rate falls, this is because adults (particularly women) have other things to pursue than raising a family, like higher education or a career and because they are better educated and understand that a large family isn't as useful in an Urban setting compared to a rural setting (easier access to contraceptives/family planning help as well obviously, but that's not strictly linked to development any more).

Europe and North America (as well as parts of asia) show that once you reach a certain level of development, growth rate goes very low or negative, Asia in general as well as Central and South America are clearly not too far away from this area of low growth; Africa will be the area of high population growth this century since African countries are further behind in terms of development and therefore will have to go through the period of very high population growth ( a few already have; ie: Kenya, Nigeria, South africa, Zimbabwe ect.)

Here are the forecasts for population until 2050.

 

As you can see the trend is for population growth to slow down quite a bit; if we extrapolate, it looks as if world population will plateau at some point towards the end of the century, somewhere around 10 or 11 billion. 

This means that High population will be a big challenge this century, but then after that it should mostly stop being a problem. 

 

The problem in developed nations is too few children, ironically.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_and_fertility#Consequences

There may be a J-curve in quality of life (using https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Development_Index) instead of GDP, which is considered a better indicator of actual wealth (GDP can be bloated, for example, by the very rich, even though the money is not in the general populace)), where birth rates eventually increase to increasing wealth and quality of life, but there is little empirical evidence (so few nations have gone up that high on the HDI index) and it is far slower in increasing.

2 hours ago, Nibb31 said:

Even if growth stops, it doesn't mean that we aren't overpopulated and that overpopulation isn't a huge problem. 

With 7 billion people, we are already seriously overpopulated. Lookup the notion of ecological footprint. It currently takes 1.6 years to regenerate 1 year of our consumption of resources. In other words, for our current population to live sustainably, we actually need 1.6 times the planet Earth. The average world citizen has an eco-footprint of about 2.7 global average hectares while there are only 2.1 global hectares of bioproductive land and water per capita on earth. This means that humanity has already overshot global biocapacity by 30% and now lives unsustainabily by depleting stocks of "natural capital".

And that is if we remain with the same ratio of rich and poor countries. You would need 9 global hectares to produce resources for an average American, whereas the populations of African countries only consume resources for less than 1 hectare. The average is around 2.7 hectares. As emerging countries increase their standard of living, the situation gets worse and the Earth's surface or resources aren't growing.

So we not only need our population to stop growing, we actually need to decrease our numbers. If we don't find a way to do it peacefully ourselves (through education, contraceptives, and social incentives) then nature will rebalance like it always does, and it won't be pretty.

In fact, overpopulation is the elephant in the room, and the root cause of all of our other ecological and economical problems. It's not difficult to understand, if you have a pie and you keep on inviting more people to the party, either everyone gets a smaller piece of the pie, or some get to stuff themselves while the others only get crumbs. The only reason why 1 billion people in the Western world gets to live comfortably is because the rest of humanity is only left with the crumbs. The Earth's resources are not extensible. If 8 billion humans all had the same standard as living as, for example, the population of the USA, the Earth's resources would be exhausted in a couple of years. People in the Western world do not want to give up their pie, and people in the rest of the world want more crumbs. Nature hates imbalance and something has to give somehow.

Unlimited economic growth in a world where resources are finite, is simply not a sustainable model in the long term. The only way for all humanity to reach a decent standard of living is if there are less people sharing the pie.

http://study.com/academy/lesson/thomas-malthus-theory-of-human-population-growth.html

We're still around today, without any crisis. 

The problem with overpopulation resource depletion is that extraction and production methods improve as time goes on, and tends to offset a good amount of the resource depletion problem. The problem with farming is mainly water and lack of modernized farming in developing countries right now- water, which can also be conserved via drip irrigation, for example.

And you are also not accounting for any expansion of Humanity into the oceans, poles, and eventually space.

1 hour ago, Matuchkin said:

The population growth rate will surely plateau, but with a population of 10-11 billion sustaining the human race will be excessively difficult. Over the years, you can literally see central+northern Africa drain all their water and go dry, for example. According to worldometers, a website that uses hundreds of credible sources to create statistics, we have 13,760 days (approximately 38 years) to the end of oil, 59,186 days to the end of gas, and 150,355 days to the end of coal. A technological reform will be extremely difficult to conduct. According to Stephen Hawking, in 600 years we will all have to stand next to each other to fit on this planet, which would be literally glowing red-hot from all the energy consumption. Of course, we can not get to that point and will die much earlier. In fact, I believe this to be our last century on earth- that my future grandchildren will die early, from starvation or something similar.

 

49 minutes ago, insert_name said:

We don't use nuclear power more than oil, and we can recycle metal

Actually, peak Uranium (and also peak fish) are serious problems- currently, Uranium is used faster than it is being mined- the shortfall is made up by decommissioning of nuclear weapons in the US and Russia- however, this is temporary.

The bottom graph shows Uranium production to today, and the top graph shows projected mining levels and demand-The yellow-orange area is the likely mid-case scenario with a Uranium price of $130/kg.

31 minutes ago, insert_name said:

We already recycle metals, also we don't calculated danger to humanity based on some hypothetical scenario that probably won't happen

Yes, but there are losses in recycling, and not everyone recycles.

The above graph demonstrates how recycling is not wholly efficient, and results in lower and lower supply.

Precious and Rare Earth Metals are still in a crisis in supply, as demand continues to increase : http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/20/opinion/the-next-resource-shortage.html?_r=0

[Nibb31]

13 hours ago, fredinno said:

We're still around today, without any crisis. 

Without any crisis? Seriously?

Climate change, whether you agree that it is man-made or not, is a thing. 10% of the population doesn't have access to safe water. Farmland that was once fertile is now practically sterile due to the excessive use of weed killers and pesticides, which leads to excessive use of fertilizers. The imbalance between the richest and the poorest have never been higher. Bees are dying off. Forests are being cut down. Fishery resources are dwindling. We are in the middle of the sixth mass extinction event, with huge threats to biodiversity. 

All of those problems are related to industrialization and mass production that are required to feed a population that is already to large. Can you really claim there is no crisis?

13 hours ago, fredinno said:

The problem with overpopulation resource depletion is that extraction and production methods improve as time goes on, and tends to offset a good amount of the resource depletion problem. The problem with farming is mainly water and lack of modernized farming in developing countries right now- water, which can also be conserved via drip irrigation, for example.

Yes, but the problem with relying on increases in efficiency just to survive is the law of diminishing returns. Up until the 1980 or 1990s, it was pretty easy to improve extraction and production methods because those low hanging fruit are easy to pick. The further you advance though, the harder it gets to wring out a few percent more. In the end, it takes more resources to produce a tiny gain. And as your resources degrade from overexploitation, things get even harder not easier. 

Hoping that the curve of technological efficiency always increases faster that population growth is a huge risk to take.

Increases in efficiency are bound to plateau following a logarithmic curve, because physics whereas population has been growing on an exponential curve. We are already beyond the point where those two curves cross each other, so if population does not decrease, then we are screwed. And if the conditions of technological advancement become less favorable (budget cuts in scientific research or growth of religious influence in society), then we're also screwed.

13 hours ago, fredinno said:

And you are also not accounting for any expansion of Humanity into the oceans, poles, and eventually space.

All of which require more resources and increase your global footprint instead of decreasing it.

 

[pyrosheep]

19 minutes ago, Nibb31 said:

Hoping that the curve of technological efficiency always increases faster that population growth is a huge risk to take.

That was my point though, population growth is slowing down, hopefully technology can catch up and allow us to repay the environmental deficit. We are still finding ways to make farming more efficient and huge amounts of people today rely on farming methods that aren't efficient even by 1950s standards.

I don't think that Population/Resource limitations aren't a big challenge, they are the biggest challenge. I just don't think it's an insurmountable barrier to human progress, let alone the end of humanity. 

Edited April 2, 2016 by pyrosheep

[Nibb31]

3 hours ago, pyrosheep said:

That was my point though, population growth is slowing down, hopefully technology can catch up and allow us to repay the environmental deficit.

Hopefully.

But if the Earth, as some claim, is already overpopulated by 30%, what we need is to increase productivity by 30% before the lack of resources becomes irreversible, which is a lot to hope for.

Or we can just reduce our load on the planet by 30%, which means they either everyone gets a smaller piece of pie (with the richest people losing the most) or we reduce the number of people at the party.

Quote

We are still finding ways to make farming more efficient and huge amounts of people today rely on farming methods that aren't efficient even by 1950s standards.

Yes, but the productivity increases come at a price: exhausting resources, increasing farmland at the expense of biodiversity, increasing use of pesticides, diminishing fertility of farmland, etc... We have only been using modern agriculture for the last 30 or 40 years, so we really don't have a good enough view on its consequences.

Quote

I don't think that Population/Resource limitations aren't a big challenge, they are the biggest challenge. I just don't think it's an insurmountable barrier to human progress, let alone the end of humanity. 

No, I don't think it will cause the end of humanity. But there it will necessarily cause a major rebalance at some point, because imbalance is not sustainable in nature. Either we do nothing and wait for the rebalance to happen naturally (through famine, massive migrations, wars, and so on) or we do what we can to reduce the load ourselves by reducing our numbers peacefully (through contraception, education, and social incentives) in order to provide higher standards of living.

What's the point of being 20 billion if we all have to be miserable, eating tofu and protein pills, when we could be 4 or 5 billion and have much more comfortable life with sustainable resources?

Edited April 2, 2016 by Nibb31

[Atlas2342]

Climate change might not completely kill all of humanity but it would kill a significant percentage of human population. Rising sea levels?

 

[Atlas2342]

On 30/03/2016 at 1:38 AM, fredinno said:

I refuse to join this thread. It is pointless, this thread is just begging to be locked....

Well, it looks like you changed your mind lol

[WinkAllKerb'']

It mostly continued like this:

and according to the nexts generations rainbow ties fighters it might pursue like that:
 

Notice that the neck center of the black outsider is full of light.

Boson got a Higgs & don't care.
History lite teach but the future is dark.
What time is it ? Now, just now

Edited April 2, 2016 by WinkAllKerb''

[RocketSquid]

22 hours ago, Darnok said:

Ok. Also would be nice if they would count in rare metals and uranium, since we need them more than oil.

Uranium= ~97 years as far as I know.

Fortunately, we have more thorium and use less of it ATM.

I will likely outlive oil.

Humans will either leave the earth and outlive it, possibly even outlive the sun, or they will die on earth. Either by their own hands, by an asteroid, or with the earth.

[magnemoe]

On 1.4.2016 at 8:24 PM, fredinno said:

The problem in developed nations is too few children, ironically.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_and_fertility#Consequences

There may be a J-curve in quality of life (using https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Development_Index) instead of GDP, which is considered a better indicator of actual wealth (GDP can be bloated, for example, by the very rich, even though the money is not in the general populace)), where birth rates eventually increase to increasing wealth and quality of life, but there is little empirical evidence (so few nations have gone up that high on the HDI index) and it is far slower in increasing.

http://study.com/academy/lesson/thomas-malthus-theory-of-human-population-growth.html

We're still around today, without any crisis. 

This, everybody should hope that the speed or robot and AI development continues or we will start getting very short of workers in 50 years. 
If you do low tech farming more kids are cheap labor so you want many. 
If you are middle class or live in an city children are an major expense so you want few. 
This trend has been seen everywhere in different cultures, it might be an generation before tradition changes but not much more. 
Lots of the current population growth is children and grandchildren of the high birth rate populations having kids themselves, this is why population increases in china even if population growth is less than 2. 

 

[magnemoe]

On 1.4.2016 at 8:24 PM, fredinno said:

Actually, peak Uranium (and also peak fish) are serious problems- currently, Uranium is used faster than it is being mined- the shortfall is made up by decommissioning of nuclear weapons in the US and Russia- however, this is temporary.

 

The bottom graph shows Uranium production to today, and the top graph shows projected mining levels and demand-The yellow-orange area is the likely mid-case scenario with a Uranium price of $130/kg.

Yes, but there are losses in recycling, and not everyone recycles.

The above graph demonstrates how recycling is not wholly efficient, and results in lower and lower supply.

Precious and Rare Earth Metals are still in a crisis in supply, as demand continues to increase : http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/20/opinion/the-next-resource-shortage.html?_r=0

All the recycled bombs reduce price so mining is scaled down. Nobody produces uranium for storage until demand increases. 
Note that uranium was an strategical mineral but don't think its much anymore.
Seen plenty of this sort of graphs they tend to under report deposits by an order of magnitude or more.

Don't get the silver graph much, or why should silver mining fall to the half from 2020 to 2040?
Silver has been recycled since ancient time and yes you loose some over time. 

[fredinno]

17 hours ago, Nibb31 said:

Without any crisis? Seriously?

Climate change, whether you agree that it is man-made or not, is a thing. 10% of the population doesn't have access to safe water. Farmland that was once fertile is now practically sterile due to the excessive use of weed killers and pesticides, which leads to excessive use of fertilizers. The imbalance between the richest and the poorest have never been higher. Bees are dying off. Forests are being cut down. Fishery resources are dwindling. We are in the middle of the sixth mass extinction event, with huge threats to biodiversity. 

All of those problems are related to industrialization and mass production that are required to feed a population that is already to large. Can you really claim there is no crisis?

Depends on your definition of "crisis':

Merriam Webster defines it as http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/crisis "a situation that has reached a critical phase" and uses an environmental crisis as an example. Compared to Smog in China, Global Warming is manageable.

The fact that people don't have access to safe water is more due to lack of infrastructure.

The imbalance between rich and poor was also very bad in the past, like the Victorian Era. It's bad, but not uncommon. It also has more to do with Corporatocracy and the corruption of the Capitalist system, not really environmental issues.

The environmental devastation right now may be considered as a crisis- I don't think it is as bad as you think, but hey.

17 hours ago, Nibb31 said:

 

Hoping that the curve of technological efficiency always increases faster that population growth is a huge risk to take.

Increases in efficiency are bound to plateau following a logarithmic curve, because physics whereas population has been growing on an exponential curve. We are already beyond the point where those two curves cross each other, so if population does not decrease, then we are screwed. And if the conditions of technological advancement become less favorable (budget cuts in scientific research or growth of religious influence in society), then we're also screwed.

Only thing is that population rate increase is plateauing at the same time. Not to mention that we are fast approaching the 4th industrial revolution, and significant mining in Greenland and the oceans. The last agricultural revolution was due to mechanized farming, now reason why the new robotic revolution will not also improve farming.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanised_agriculture

18 hours ago, Nibb31 said:

Either we do nothing and wait for the rebalance to happen naturally (through famine, massive migrations, wars, and so on) or we do what we can to reduce the load ourselves by reducing our numbers peacefully (through contraception, education, and social incentives) in order to provide higher standards of living.

You just stated what we are doing now. The birth rate has gone down significantly. In the next century, we may reach a time where maintaining population levels from declining (and thus causing population aging) is a problem.

18 hours ago, Nibb31 said:

Yes, but the productivity increases come at a price: exhausting resources, increasing farmland at the expense of biodiversity, increasing use of pesticides, diminishing fertility of farmland, etc... We have only been using modern agriculture for the last 30 or 40 years, so we really don't have a good enough view on its consequences.

Considering that meat alternatives that actually manage to be like meat are entering the market, that alone should reduce the load on farms tremendously- 75% of crops go to make meat.

15 hours ago, Atlas2342 said:

 

Climate change might not completely kill all of humanity but it would kill a significant percentage of human population. Rising sea levels?

 

 

That's assuming no economic crisis happens first, and buys us a decade or two.

1 hour ago, magnemoe said:

Don't get the silver graph much, or why should silver mining fall to the half from 2020 to 2040?
Silver has been recycled since ancient time and yes you loose some over time. 

I think it was just assuming there is no more mining, and silver is just recycled again and again. It has nothing to do with silver mining- which is at an all-time high (though reserves are also in an all-time low, and demand is also soaring)

 

14 hours ago, WinkAllKerb'' said:

It mostly continued like this:

and according to the nexts generations rainbow ties fighters it might pursue like that:
 

Notice that the neck center of the black outsider is full of light.

Boson got a Higgs & don't care.
History lite teach but the future is dark.
What time is it ? Now, just now

What does this have to do with anything?

12 hours ago, RocketSquid said:

Uranium= ~97 years as far as I know.

Fortunately, we have more thorium and use less of it ATM.

I will likely outlive oil.

Humans will either leave the earth and outlive it, possibly even outlive the sun, or they will die on earth. Either by their own hands, by an asteroid, or with the earth.

The oil has been in the ground for Millions of years. I don't think you will outlive it

[WinkAllKerb'']

( @fredinno not much may be, aside bringin' some new horizon and enlarge point of view to the poll ; ) )

Edited April 3, 2016 by WinkAllKerb''

[Atlas2342]

3 hours ago, WinkAllKerb'' said:

( @fredinno not much may be, aside bringin' some new horizon and enlarge point of view to the poll ; ) )

*cough*

On 30/03/2016 at 1:38 AM, fredinno said:

I refuse to join this thread. It is pointless, this thread is just begging to be locked....

*cough* 

[Nibb31]

9 hours ago, fredinno said:

Depends on your definition of "crisis':

Merriam Webster defines it as http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/crisis "a situation that has reached a critical phase" and uses an environmental crisis as an example. Compared to Smog in China, Global Warming is manageable.

The scientific consensus is that positive feedback loops are in action and that a runaway effect has started. The effects of rising sea levels will incur huges costs which are not manageable in the near term.

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The fact that people don't have access to safe water is more due to lack of infrastructure.

It's also due to pollution. And overpopulation only makes that lack of infrastructure worse.

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The imbalance between rich and poor was also very bad in the past, like the Victorian Era. It's bad, but not uncommon. It also has more to do with Corporatocracy and the corruption of the Capitalist system, not really environmental issues.

I'm not claiming that overpopulation is solely an environmental issue. The "pie" analogy is primarily an economical issue. Constant growth in a finite world is impossible, and our governments who keep on striving for growth are delusional. There comes a point where the only possible growth is at the expense of others.

The only possible path is in sustainability, not constant growth. The problem is that to sustain an economy without growth while the population grows, you need to share the wealth more equally, which requires that the richest give up some of their wealth (which is why there is so much resistance against global thinking in the US, while the rest of the world is pretty much in a consensus).

It's a situation that can only lead to tensions between rich (who legitimately want to preserve their lifestyle) and poor countries (who legitimately want a piece of the pie). The symptoms of those tensions will be massive migrations and wars, which incidentally is what we are seeing today... 

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The environmental devastation right now may be considered as a crisis- I don't think it is as bad as you think, but hey.

I really can't understand how you can disagree that our civilization makes a huge impact on biodiversity. It's an undeniable fact. Although extinction is a natural phenomenon, it is happening at a rate of several thousand times the natural extinction rate, and those extinctions that we do record are primarily due to human activity. 

http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/programs/biodiversity/elements_of_biodiversity/extinction_crisis/

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Only thing is that population rate increase is plateauing at the same time. Not to mention that we are fast approaching the 4th industrial revolution, and significant mining in Greenland and the oceans. The last agricultural revolution was due to mechanized farming, now reason why the new robotic revolution will not also improve farming.

Increasing the surface of mining zones only makes the biodiversity problem worse.

One could argue that the last agricultural revolution was due to pesticides and weed killers, which has pretty much ruined farmland. The increase in productivity is only due to artificial fertilization, but if you look at any modern farmland these days in Europe or the US, it's mostly just sterile substrate. Without chemical fertilization, nothing would grow on it naturally.

Again, hoping that a 4th industrial revolution will come along and save the day is wishful thinking. We can't simply rely on hope that technology will save us, because the productivity increase is bound to plateau too.

And when we are already overpopulated and overexpending resources, expecting population growth to slow down is simply not enough.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanised_agriculture

You just stated what we are doing now. The birth rate has gone down significantly. In the next century, we may reach a time where maintaining population levels from declining (and thus causing population aging) is a problem.

Considering that meat alternatives that actually manage to be like meat are entering the market, that alone should reduce the load on farms tremendously- 75% of crops go to make meat.

Yummy! Sounds like a great future.

I'd rather we have less children and grand children, but allow them to live in better conditions, than have to rely on synthetic protein sources and rationing just so that 10 billion people can barely survive on the planet.

 

Edited April 3, 2016 by Nibb31