It's the end of the world as we know it. How do you feel?

[The_Chameleon]

Most people I think avoid contemplating the big picture problems that face the human race today. There are so many things going on, and each of them individually pose a real threat to our species. The most prominent of these looming threats is overpopulation and the resulting lack of sustainable resources. We can also factor in the effects of pollution, global warming, and commercial overfishing on our oceans. But there are also lesser known threats like the deterioration of Earths protective magnetic field on account of polar drift. We've actually had it good for the past several decades, but we're soon to discover just how good we had it.

The world is heating up and getting very crowded. It won't be long before the number of "third world" countries begins to increase rapidly. The global economy has been teetering on the edge of collapse since the '08 meltdown. The increasing cost of non-communicable diseases alone is expected to start toppling national economies around the world by 2030. We've made ourselves globally dependent on one-genome-fits-all GMO crops worldwide. Crops that are very susceptible to disease and without regular use of increasingly toxic pesticides, infestations. If we factor in increased frequency and severity of storms and other climatic nastiness due to global warming, we're pointed in the direction of a global food shortage. This same climatic unpleasantness is going to also present massive economic challenges moving forward.

Given all known factors, if we manage to make it another 15-20 years without some form of global catastrophe, it will be nothing short of a miracle. And when we do reach the tipping point, how will you react? Do you accept the dire situation we, as a species, are facing? What can be done about these problems? Does anyone really care or are we all doomed to end the story of the human race by prioritizing our Facebook profiles and favorite reality shows? If we are all truly screwed and that time is coming soon, how does that make you feel? Have you made peace with it? Seems like a lot of folks have.

Happy apocalypse everyone!

 

[MenInTights]

Yeah there's a best selling book about this. It says we have about 20 years before the population surpasses the resources and the world collapses. As soon as it was published the scientific community got behind it and verified the claims. World leaders immediately started to work on the problems.

The book is called the population bomb. It came out in 1968 and every single prediction has been proven to be false. Much more people, much more food, much less disease.

 

[Hilander]

I think over population is the root cause of most of these problems. Sometimes I think we should stop taking people from countries with high birth rates so hopefully they would see they can't keep having so many kids. They seriously need educated about this. The pope should get on board with birth control to save this planet.

Peak farming has already hit and has no where to go but down. Many aquifers are already stressed to the point they won't last much longer. California has sunk about 50 ft in places, can't remember the exact amount, because of pumping their aquifer down. One day a large hunk will collapse then what. Same thing in other places. All because of overpopulation and trying to feed them. Really think the US will be able to continue to feed the world.

15 to 20 years from now if things continue on as usual there will be mass starvation. Wouldn't surprise me to see wars fought over water. I don't see much changing so I guess we will be screwed which is upsetting.

The Saudis have drained their aquifer so they bought land in Arizona to raise alfalfa on. You can say goodbye to another aquifer. Alfalfa takes a lot of water.

The remarkable thing about Saudi Arabia's story is that it'd done something similar in the desert until the water ran out. The aquifers essentially went dry. Ancient springs that were mentioned in the Bible began drying up, and the Saudi Arabian government told its dairy companies to start importing their hay and their wheat from other parts of the world.

Saudi Arabia Farming Arizona Land After Depleting Domestic Water Sources

 

[Impaired]

I learned to play guitar so i could do "it's the end of the world as we know it"

I feel fine.

Overfishing and pollution are real problems.

Global warming is so poorly understood, it boggles the mind, People want to act without knowing the facts.

The data is so often misrepresented, it might as well be fictional.

We don't have good global data over centuries, let alone ages.

The last time Greenland was green I'm pretty sure it wasn't that way from man's activity and I'm pretty sure we didn't cause the later refreezing of Greenland, either.

We don't understand the cycles of climate very well. We don't understand weather much at all. The world is huge. We cannot yet destroy it. We can make it unfit for OUR lives. But life will go on and adapt. People think man is way more powerful than he is and the same people think a beaver dam is natural and Hoover dam is not.

They are self-loathing who by extension, hate the human race.

The world is safer than ever. We are learning the errors of not cleaning up our messes the usual way creates learn. Having your nose rubbed in it.

 

[The_Chameleon]

If there indeed are no problems and everything is fine, at what point in your own best estimation do you think that'll no longer be true? How many more people can we continue to provide food for when the population doubles every 37-44 years or so? There has to be a breaking point, no? Maybe I'm wrong. We can surely sustain any population. That's why there are currently no countries on this planet that suffer from food shortages or famine. Oh wait, there are? How many are there now? I'm sure that number has only been shrinking over the years.


Let us completely ignore that the effects of global warming are already being experienced world wide. Let us ignore the fact that we know the ice caps are melting and ocean levels are rising threatening to flood coastal regions and displace countless millions of people. As permafrost is exposed on a greater scale and begins to melt, huge amounts of methane (a heavy duty greenhouse gas) will be released into the atmosphere. But none of this matters because we can blame nature for these effects which means there's nothing we can or should even try to do about them. We're invincible as a species. We're smart enough to adapt to any big changes that may come our way, even if we don't take any action until they are upon us. We're just that brilliant and resourceful.


Certainly, many predictions have been made about the coming of the end, and heck, we're still here. Surely we will always be here no matter how complacent we become or how apathetic as a species. Need to save the human race? There's an app for that. Gotta be. There's an app for everything else. And if there isn't one, I'm sure someone will come up with one when the time comes.


Economically, we're all good. I mean, if we can survive the '08 meltdown, we can survive anything. Especially if you're American. Just print more money. Whoala! Presto bingo, problem solved. And since the US and Germany will be supporting most of the rest of the world, nobody else will have anything to worry about either. We have unlimited resources and big ass brains so there'll never be anything that can threaten our way of life. I am so relieved I talked to you guys. I feel much better now.

 

[Dr4gon]

If Mr. Bean hasn't been voted President of the whole planet then yeah, we will survive. Earth has been here for more than 4 1/2 billion years, even with pine trees polluting the planet and manchineel trees killing the animals.
Why manchineel might be Earth's most dangerous tree

Maybe people are putting the planet in harms way or maybe it's just natural cycles. Nobody knows. As for me, I think it's probaly just natural cycles that we'll survive.
About overpopulation, there are some natural controls. For example, there's still no cure for plague and it could happen again, this time starting in France.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...ec72d34f8c9_story.html?utm_term=.94a29ba5dfff

But international teams are removing garbage from the oceans and a lot of endangered fish are making comebacks.
http://www.star-telegram.com/news/nation-world/national/article90074647.html

Other stuff happening include cultured meats and indoor farming. Tons of meat can be grown from just a few cells and indoor farms don't have pests and can produce tons more veggies.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultured_meat
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/07/140717-japan-largest-indoor-plant-factory-food/

A lot of cool people out there are working to make the world safer and they can do it. Acquifiers eventually fill up again from the water cycle and desalination plants can also be used. Dunno about climate change but if it is natural then there's probaly nothing we can do to stop it. We can only keep working to make the planet better and wait to see how climate change affects us. But no, I totally don't believe that anything's hopeless.

 

[Impaired]

If there indeed are no problems and everything is fine, at what point in your own best estimation do you think that'll no longer be true? How many more people can we continue to provide food for when the population doubles every 37-44 years or so? There has to be a breaking point, no? Maybe I'm wrong. We can surely sustain any population. That's why there are currently no countries on this planet that suffer from food shortages or famine. Oh wait, there are? How many are there now? I'm sure that number has only been shrinking over the years.


Let us completely ignore that the effects of global warming are already being experienced world wide. Let us ignore the fact that we know the ice caps are melting and ocean levels are rising threatening to flood coastal regions and displace countless millions of people. As permafrost is exposed on a greater scale and begins to melt, huge amounts of methane (a heavy duty greenhouse gas) will be released into the atmosphere. But none of this matters because we can blame nature for these effects which means there's nothing we can or should even try to do about them. We're invincible as a species. We're smart enough to adapt to any big changes that may come our way, even if we don't take any action until they are upon us. We're just that brilliant and resourceful.


Certainly, many predictions have been made about the coming of the end, and heck, we're still here. Surely we will always be here no matter how complacent we become or how apathetic as a species. Need to save the human race? There's an app for that. Gotta be. There's an app for everything else. And if there isn't one, I'm sure someone will come up with one when the time comes.


Economically, we're all good. I mean, if we can survive the '08 meltdown, we can survive anything. Especially if you're American. Just print more money. Whoala! Presto bingo, problem solved. And since the US and Germany will be supporting most of the rest of the world, nobody else will have anything to worry about either. We have unlimited resources and big ass brains so there'll never be anything that can threaten our way of life. I am so relieved I talked to you guys. I feel much better now.

Scientists can't even agree on the warming.

We can't look at climate and say, "10% is man" because we do not understand it well enough. We aren't even sure we know all the variables in play.

Yet we pretend we can do something about his problem we don't know enough about to accurately quantify the parts that make it up. I don't know that we can do anything to stop or change climate in any serious way.

I do know we CAN and SHOULD stop poisoning the air and water. This is just common sense.

There is no global food shortage. There is a shortage of food in certain places due to certain events.

US life expectancy is down. US births have been declining for over 50 years.

Sure, we can remove a lot of fish from market but the oceans are still full of life.

So is the planet. We could grow a lot more - we don't. We even pay people NOT to grow certain foods.

 

[MenInTights]

We are also possibly entering a new Maunder Minimum where solar activity could throw us into a cooling phase cold enough that we'll beg for global warming. If anyone really wants something to freak out about, that is worth the research. We have recorded history of these cycles.

As far as food shortage, I live in a crowded State. However, there are 5-100+ acre tracts of land everywhere being unused. Right now, its simply not economical to farm on small scale. As things get more automated, this will change. Eventually my neighbor will be able to rent a John Deere robot for his 10 acres, plant a hundred rows of tomatoes, rent another robot to harvest and pack the tomatoes and make a few hundred bucks. If just a few people in my community did that multiplied across America, we could have the rest of the world as fat as we are in no time. Its not there yet, but automation to the farm is coming very quickly.

 

[Hilander]

There is more to growing food than just having land to do it on. If it is dry you have to irrigate, if it rains too much you may lose your whole crop, not enough nutrients in the soil you have to fertilize, pests become a problem you have to spray to control them, weeds, more spraying. Result is many of these weeds and pests are becoming resistant to pesticides.

When it stays dry for an extended period of time and all the farmers are irrigating the source of the water, usually a aquifer, is stressed. That aquifer is pumped down a lot so the land sinks not allowing the aquifer to refill to its previous capacity when it starts raining enough to do so, if not it could collapse. Over pumped aquifers close to the ocean run a risk of filling up with saltwater. As the population grows so does the amount of water taken out of these aquifers.

Another problem with removing too much water from an aquifer is that of aquifer collapse. When present, the water acts as internal support for the soil around it. If the water is removed too quickly and nothing is put in to replace it, air fills the void left in the rock pores. Because air is compressible, the internal structure of the aquifer can fail, causing it to collapse. On the surface this results in land subsidence, cracking house foundations, and changes in drainage patterns.

Aquifers

 

[Hilander]

Other stuff happening include cultured meats and indoor farming. Tons of meat can be grown from just a few cells and indoor farms don't have pests and can produce tons more veggies.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultured_meat
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/07/140717-japan-largest-indoor-plant-factory-food/

That is true and will help feed the world. However at some point even that won't be enough to feed everyone. Which people will survive this, but not everyone, so at some point the planets population will have nowhere to go but down. When you have a lot of people not getting enough to eat disease will show its ugly head. Weak people don't have much resistance to illness.

US births have been declining for over 50 years.

I think that is because people are putting off having kids in favor of careers and by the time they decide they can afford them they are older and less fertile. I had a friend that decided to wait and after years of taking birth control pills she was left sterile. She was in her mid 30's.