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Hawking On Earth's Lifespan 506

Posted by Hemos from the git-on-up-git-on-up dept.
Anonymous Coward writes "According to this news (in German) of the computer magazine c't, the world famous physicist Stephen Hawking predicts, that mankind will not survive on earth for another millenium. Hawking fears that the atmosphere will become hotter and contain more and more acid like the atmosphere of the planet Venus, so that men can no longer live on earth. The only solution would be to colonize the space and find another planet to live on."
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Hawking On Earth's Lifespan More

Hawking On Earth's Lifespan

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  • >"The fundamental problem is that people are causing changes much faster than processes like geology and evolution can react."

    > Just to clarify (I think we agree here), life will continue to evolve, but it appears that this stage of evolution entails a mass extinction. Perhaps even our own.

    Yes, what I said was technically incorrect, but you figured out what I meant.

    > This last bit of your post made me wonder: Assuming we survive our follies, how will life evolve 'around us' afterwards? In other words, what traits might our behaviours be encouraging from the species that surround us?

    > By changing the environment so dramatically, might we be encouraging the ability to adapt quickly?

    I beleive there's already examples of this. I'm terrible about remembering details, but I seem to remember some body of water had been polluted with chemicals, then legislation was passed to prevent such gross pollution. In reality it was then polluted by some thing else that was introduced intending to help clean up the pollution. Then they figured out to stop trying to fix it themselves and just let the lake (or river or whatever it was) clean itself up. Evidently, someone did a study and found that the species of something (probably very simple like bacteria, algae, etc.) that were left could evolve more quickly than similar somethings taken from anotehr water source that hadn't gone through such truama.

    Anyone know what I'm thinking of? A reference would be great. Or is this something that has been done in multiple locations and is commonly known by biologists?

  • ...as far as I remember states that:

    Because of the exponential nature of population growth, most of the humans who ever lived on Earth either are alive today or were alive until very recently (that therefore includes you). Therefore...

    If the human race has a long future ahead of it then regardless of whether population growth slows or continues as before, all of us here today are among the very first humans in the overall history of our race from its beginning to its (unseen, distant) end. But...

    The Copernican principle of mediocrity (which is basically a theory of probabilities) tells us that it is highly unlikely that we should find ourselves in such an unusual, privileged position. So...

    It is highly unlikely that we are among the first humans, therefore it is highly unlikely that we have a long future ahead of us.

    It's not that suprising really. There are plenty of things that could kill us all off, not all of them are even of our own making. Some of them, like superovas in the stellar neighborhood, would still wipe us all out even if we'd spread out into the solar system and the nearest stars.


    Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
    Thought exists only as an abstraction

  • Reality Check (Score:4)

    by SuperDuG ( 134989 ) <be@@@eclec...tk> on Tuesday October 03, 2000 @06:51AM (#735393) Homepage Journal
    Okay this man is obviously one of the smartest people in the entire world if not ... the smartest astrophysicist to date. If this man was not disabled then maybe we'd take it just a little more seriously, but it's more fun to make jokes and give them a rating of 5 because people don't want to hear bad news. Believe it or not the way we treat this planet and the rate that population is increasing coming to the realization that there will be an end to the world may not be that far fetched of an idea.

    As for hot spells and acid rain ... Acid rain is nothing new to the world ... just ask anyone in L.A. ... And hot spells ... let's go into the gobi and ask people there how they feel about hot spells ...

    Acapolyptic literature has been around since the begining of time ... hence the book of revelations ... people need fear it's a driving force ...

  • Earth does not have the atmosphere of Venus. Venus' atmospheric pressure is 90 times that of Earth. We lost most of our atmosphere in the impact that created the Moon [harvard-magazine.com].
  • Take it as given that many would agree with you but some would not. How do you convince those who are deeply involved in "artificial human systems" like industrial production, globalization, etc. of your view. Just declaring that it is so won't get the job done.

    I recently heard an interview with an oil industry PR whore who personified the oposing view. The guy's argument (long and fully of corporate mangement babble about "adding value", "maximising benefits" etc.) could be sumarized as: "These ecological doomsayers have yet to conclusively proove their point. When we find ourselves living on an uninhabitable palnet, then we'll know they were right. That would be an appropriate time for action, but not before."

    To effectively counter this position, you must acknowledge that this argument actually sounds good to people who are heavily invested in polluting the planet, then find a compelling reason to shift their perspective. Any ideas?
  • No no- you missed the WHOLE point of my comment! My point was that even if we DO totaly destroy the earth and make it unlivable by normal means, why should we move to other planets? I mean, they'd be just as inhospitable as the earth, and to live there, we'd still have to live in artificial habitats. Why can't we just stay on the earth and build these same habitats?
  • > If more americans had been to school...

    If more of them had been to school, indeed, they might actually capitalize "Americans".
  • Mike,

    What drives me even more nuts about the "global warming" crowd is that between 700 and 1100 AD, much of northern Europe was much warmer than it is now.

    Think about it: the Vikings that discovered Greenland before 1000 AD didn't call it "Greenland" for nothing. It's obvious that their settlement in what is now Newfoundland wasn't called "Vinland" for nothing, either. In that same period, written records from Church monastaries in northern Europe noted quite warm summers and relatively mild winters.

    And this same crowd was warning of "global cooling" 25 years ago--give me a freakin' break!

  • Independance Day (Score:3)

    by Spudley ( 171066 ) on Tuesday October 03, 2000 @06:52AM (#735422) Homepage Journal
    "They're like locusts. They move from planet to planet, consuming every natural resource, and then the move on to the next."

    [mis?]quote from the movie Independance Day. He was referring to the aliens, but who else was reminded of it when they read this article?
  • Bah. Don't trust the word of a man of whom God has surely passed judgement upon.

    Call me crazy, but I was under the impression that the Christian God passed judgement on everybody--otherwise, how do you determine who gets into Heaven, The Ultimate Playground [angryflower.com]? Mind you, I learned all this from a pretty dated source [bible.com], so there could be an updated version [quran.com] that I haven't read yet or something. Of course, if you want to go pointing fingers at organizations bent on shackling freedoms... [dimensional.com]

    But to your point. I'll assume that you're a fairly religious type of person, and you firmly believe that you'll be getting into heaven in due time. Why, then, does it matter one bit to you what us hopelessly lost souls do with our earthly time and money? You're gonna get into HEAVEN, man! Who cares if we drop a few bucks on rocket ships? What does it matter how earthly governments run their affairs? You're still gonna win out over us all!

    (I know, I know, I shouldn't have...but look at the poor thing--he looks so hungry!)

  • I'd hate to see the Earth become unihabitable... (Score:5)

    by Narag ( 163687 ) on Tuesday October 03, 2000 @05:45AM (#735428)
    It's where I keep all my stuff :(
  • why not start looking at the poss. of underground cities? Or maybe domed ones - ala the cities Azimov talked about on Earth in the Robot series? As long as you have a stable power supply and power plant, you can live for quite some time in a hostile environment - think nuclear powered missle subs.......

  • yeah that's the solution (Score:4)

    by djKing ( 1970 ) on Tuesday October 03, 2000 @05:46AM (#735437) Homepage Journal
    The only solution would be to colonize the space and find another planet to live on.
    Yeah that will be much easier that cleaning up the one we have now. -Peace Dave

  • Actually, if you read through that data your original statement doesn't bear out. You said:

    An increase in wealth equals a decrease in population growth rate.

    Which is quite different from what these graphs demonstrate. Instead, what they suggest is that at a certain point of development, death rates drop off. After a time, societies react to that and birth rates drop off proportionately. Net result: growth rates stabalize in the long run.

    The last paper in particular breaks the chart in to 4 stages, and clearly suggests that the transition from stage 1 to stage 2 results in a pretty dramatic growth rate. So, in that case, an increase in wealth equals a huge increase in growth.

    A better way to describe this theory is that the transition to modern times destabilizes whatever societal balances exist between birth and death, resulting in a huge rate of growth, which is then inevitably corrected by society.

    Oh, and most of the studies are talking about how "developed" a society is as opposed to how wealthy. The last study correlates the two, although only with a grand brush. There is certainly the possibility of becoming developed without becoming wealthy or vice-versa.

    When you look at it like that (where Stage 1 & Stage 4 have similar growth rates) you can't be quite so sure where some societies will be in the long run. Some societies had impressive growth rates before the 18th century when this whole process started. Presumably, they will return to this level of growth at some point.

  • Not much of a view, can't ski, no place to swim, takes forever to get a tan, dust all over the place. On the plus side, I found this really cool, like all-terrain skateboard which looks like it was made from Erector Set, but had to strip all this extra electronic junk off it.




    --
    Chief Frog Inspector
  • Here's a hint: The first story screwed everything up, and it took the second to correct for everything. They're not necessary. The third, however, was an excellent book, but not "great" (however that's defined) like Foundation.

    That's a great sig. Maybe I'll use it?

  • Bush's proposal that to "solve" the energy crises, we should go make more oil rigs in Alaska! Instead, of course, of forcing the energy industry to redeem to us our investment in them to create alternative energy solutions.

    Oil companies forced to find alternative energy solutions - and by a Texan? Nah. Oil companies make *way* too much money in the current state of affairs. The public is going to have to push, kick and drag politicians into making oil companies find alternative sources of energy, and those companies will only do it when they think they have first milked the public of everything they can get. It's disgusting, but it's business.

  • Ummmmm... Do you really think it'd be easier to move our trash or 12 billion people (a guess at what our population will be... a very very low guess)?

    Or do you propose a noah's arc type deal? Maybe something out of Moonraker (it was just on last night so it's fresh in my mind). Who choses who goes and who stays? Is this information made public, or do the chosen few just sort of sneak off? Because if it's made public that "oh, you're all gonna die, but we're going to escape because we're special" i doubt anyone would be leaving the planet.

    Maybe we should just realize that our time may come to an end and start devising ways to transport simple (single-cell) organisms to other planets and solar systems in the hopes that they'll one day evolve into a greater lifeform. It'd seem like the much more noble way to do it...

    Of course, we could spend the next 2000 years trying to figure a way to eject the greenhouse gasses from our atmosphere or recycle them...
  • For instance, I doubt we'd take the figure skaters... :)

    What about Brian Boitano?

  • I second this. You know, I don't consider myself a sandal wearing tree-hugging nut, but I do really think it is stupid that environmentalism is considered radical. It really is dumb. Environmental soundness should not be percieved as radical, but should be the *default* modus operandi.

    P.J. O'Rourke talked about this in his books, Parliment of Whores and All the Trouble in the World.

    Environmentalism is a special interest group. However, it tries to go beyond that by appeals such as "the environment affects everyone", which is true. I don't disagree with environmentalism per se, but when the environmental groups make statements such as, "...the environment must be preserved, regardless of cost..." you have to wonder what part of it they are smoking.

    Now, as far a global warming, and the like goes, does anyone here remember what the big environmental scare of the 70s was?

    Global cooling.

    And guess what you could do then to prevent global cooling, and stop those glaciers from crashing down on us? The exact same things that are being touted as the cures for global warming.

    And Gore's one of the worst of the bunch. In one of his books, I think it was Earth in the Balance, he advocated raising the taxes on fossil fuels so high that no one would use them.

    (Of course, he's also advocated moving all chemical companies out of the US, to help the environment...)

    By the way, for those wondering, I'm not voting for Bush... I'm voting against Gore...

    NecroPuppy
    ---
    NecroPuppy

  • Is there any way we can give a whole thread a +1 Informative/Insightful/Interesting?

    SpryGuy and GlenRaphael just made a great series of posts on nuclear power-- tons of information presented for and against.

    Just so both of you know-- plenty of us were reading this! And if you didn't catch it yet, click here [slashdot.org] to read it. Really good series of posts, each moderated at 1 when they ALL deserve a 5. It was last week, so I guess this post is in vain, but who knows?

  • global warming is FOR REAL (Score:3)

    by maynard ( 3337 ) on Tuesday October 03, 2000 @07:47AM (#735485) Journal
    P.J. O'Rourke talked about this in his books, Parliment of Whores and All the Trouble in the World.

    Environmentalism is a special interest group. However, it tries to go beyond that by appeals such as "the environment affects everyone", which is true. I don't disagree with environmentalism per se, but when the environmental groups make statements such as, "...the environment must be preserved, regardless of cost..." you have to wonder what part of it they are smoking.

    Now, as far a global warming, and the like goes, does anyone here remember what the big environmental scare of the 70s was?

    Global cooling.

    And guess what you could do then to prevent global cooling, and stop those glaciers from crashing down on us? The exact same things that are being touted as the cures for global warming.
    Quoting a political pundit for scientific evidence supporting or to the contrary of any position is a quick walk to demagoguery. Whatever the long term consequences of fossil fuel energy production and other environmental assaults, it's doubtful P. J. O'Rourke has much to say that's relevant.

    That said, there's significant evidence of large scale global change, not about to happen but happening right now. For example:

    • species all over the world are migrating from equatorial regions to the poles as the climate warms. This includes birds, insects, mammals, rodents; you name it. The important point is that it crosses species boundaries across the globe.
    • Polar ice cores and tree rings give us the historical perspective you suggest we lack. A reading of ice cores across many thousands of years conclusively state that our planet has never (within the period recorded) seen this level of atmospheric carbon levels change in such a short period of time.
    • The polar ice caps are melting and breaking up and flowing out to sea. These are some of the largest ice bergs in recorded history. To whit, many pacific islands are flooding from the rising sea levels. Entire countries are disappearing under the sea.
    • Methane trapped in the polar regions as ice are melting at an alarming rate. Methane traps significantly more heat in the atmosphere than just carbon, and could on it's own lead to catastrophic global warming.

    On the point about global cooling, this is ALSO a possible outcome simply because changing a stable system cause unpredictable outcomes; similar to the butterfly effect often widely discussed.

    Never mind the global consequences of unregulated energy production from fossil fuels. The fact is that we're running out and NO ONE is proposing sensible solutions toward sustainable energy production.

    Coal/oil/natural gas are out, for obvious reasons. Fissionables are out, not only is it unreasonably dangerous but we don't have anywhere near enough uranium to provide the 10 terawatts/year our world now consumes. Photovoltaic is out, it costs more energy to produce a solar cell (with current technology) than it will ever produce across it's lifetime. This leaves:
    • Solar steam (directed sunlight at a water reserve to turn a steam turbine. Very efficient, though an intermittent supply.
    • Wind. Like Solar it's intermittent, but it's also highly efficient.
    • Geothermal. Doable now in certain areas, some scientists are looking into the possibility of drilling down far enough to hit mantle and tap thermal heat directly. This looks quite promising.
    • Fusion. Who the hell knows?
    • In addition, coal could be used for the next few hundred years (until we run out) if we can figure out how to cheaply cap the carbon output and bury the materials safely.

    This is for real dude. I hate to break the news, but our children are in serious trouble if we don't act now. And unfortunately, our politicians are too busy taking bribes to bother with their primary responsibilities to their citizens and constituents.
  • have power (politicians, etc.)

    Yo - they need to be willing to leave. I think that a society on Mars would be near-perfect for the first fifty years because it would be entirely composed of the people who want to live on Mars... of course that runs out when the second generation arrives, but until then...

    I shouldn't be spreading these ideas. They're perfect for the next hit RTS game.

  • Re:He's got a point (Score:3)

    by dsfox ( 2694 ) on Tuesday October 03, 2000 @06:33AM (#735493) Homepage
    Those of us who left would probably be the intelligent ones..

    I guess it won't be the modest ones!

  • Garbage: Bury it at subduction zones (Score:3)

    by 1010011010 ( 53039 ) on Tuesday October 03, 2000 @06:59AM (#735494) Homepage
    http://greenwood.cr.usgs.gov/pub/open-file-reports /ofr-99-0132/

    Might work. We'd be shoving the garbage into Earth's very hot and very radioactive mantle, where it will be recycled into rock. Why bury it in the valuable lithosphere?

    ___________________________
  • You know, I don't consider myself a sandal wearing tree-hugging nut, but I do really think it is stupid that environmentalism is considered radical. It really is dumb. Environmental soundness should not be percieved as radical, but should be the *default* modus operandi.

    Unfortunately, common sense is often overruled in the average joe by a reaction to overbearing, sandal wearing, tree-hugging nuts in positions of power in our government. The radicals push to hard in one direction, declaring every piece of ground that has ever been rained on a 'wetland', for instance, or prosecuting an old farmer for killing a rat. Or banning deer hunting on federal lands so that the population spikes and disease and starvation set in to kill the deer. Or peoples private property are confiscated without renumeration in order to save the 'snail dart'.

    These questionably overbearing examples bother the average joe gives the PR, everything-should-disposable shills an opening. The intelligent environmentalist are dismissed with the nuts and everyone's worse off.

    The capitalist have determined that disposable is profitable. The population have determined that disposable is easy. The intelligent have determined that disposable is going to kill us all, but since they don't make a profit and half of them look and act crazy anyway, nobody is listening to them.

  • From my recollection of Earths history, the climate has been through some pretty dramatic changes over the ages, and in general the age of the dinosaurs was warmer than it is now, so how come all this doom and gloom?

    Remind me again...what happened to the dinosaurs? They're basically all dead due to the extreme climatic changes that they went on. Sure, some minor species managed to survive, but a large portion of the species all died off. It was once estimated that the genetic variety of the species that existed during those times was at least ten times what we know of throughout recorded history, meaning that even if 10% of the species survived back then, 90 times our current genetic variety died. I think this is cause for some doom and gloom.

    There is no denying that global warming will have some pretty catastrophic affects, and may cause famine disease hunger flooding etc. but I doubt it will go as far as Mr Hawking suggests.

    Last thing that I heard while chatting about global warming with a climatologist was that, if the current trend continues, conditions on this planet will have reached the intolerable within 750-1000 years. Remember, global warming isn't something that is increasing at a fixed rate. Every day, more and more "greenhouse gases" are being released into the atmosphere, meaning this effect is multiplying slowly. There are always organisms which help reduce this kind of insulating effect (mostly plant life), but in general, we're reducing their effectiveness by reducing the forest areas and also increasing the amount of man-made pollutants that are released.

    Maybe space colonisation isn't the way to go and maybe we can somehow stop the current trend of pollution without thought and start to repair the damage that's already done....but I seriously doubt it. Let's face it, we're all pretty comfortable these days with cars, refrigeration, plastics, etc, so who would want to do without even a portion of the quantity of products that fill our daily lives? Not many, I can tell you that. Unfortunately, I think that mankind is too selfish at times to survive for a long period of time (we're talking on a celestial scale...I don't mean 30-10000 years). What could it hurt to try something new? Perhaps we should try to colonise a new planet. Who knows, it might bring out the best in the species...

  • Well, as global warming continues, you'll be able to tread water over it.


    ...phil
  • MC Hawking [mchawking.com]
  • For a brilliant scientist like Hawking to just now be coming out with a serious proclamation that he is afraid of something called the "greenhouse effect" and for anyone to refer to the potential for this to be considered "visionary" proves that he no longer needs to be scientifically valid at all. He's obtained a sufficient cult of personality that his word is taken simply because he's an authority, not because he's right, or even timely in his conclusions. Scientists in large groups have been saying this stuff for years.
  • Exactly - in fact, I would daresay we would only be colonizing space with people who:

    have the money to pay their way

    have power (politicians, etc.)

    are necessary to keep the colony running (engineers, etc.)

    have the potential to continue the species (young, healthy - perhaps even certified-to-be-genetically-superior people representing a sufficiently diverse gene pool)

    and that's about it. Hopefully there would also be room for liberal arts types since we will want a way of life worth preserving.

  • Lol... there is a difference between evolution and random genetic drift.... and that is level of order. Today, we have manipulated the environment so that genetic drift exists without any correction mechanism. What happens when we drift towards stupidity? Oh, wait, that's already happening...
  • there's a thousand years, which is more than enough time for the human body to evolve such that it can withstand those conditions...

    Uh, no. Evolution works on timescales of millions of years, not hundreds. More likely would be a technological solution, and it would have to be a solution that alters the environment, not one that alters biology.

    ...according to Nostradamus, the "end of the world" should be fairly soon.

    Oh, please. According to Nostradamus, the end of the world should have been 500 year ago. Before you use Nostradamus for any kind of predictions, you ought to go see what kind of track record he's got. Hint -- it's pretty miserable. Hundreds of people try to use Nostradamus to predict things every few years, and they have uniformly flopped. Based on that track record, we probably can't expect any better today.

    The year 1999 seven months

    From the sky will come the great King of Terror.
    To resuscitate the great king of the Mongols.
    Before and after Mars reigns by good luck.

    Oops. Missed another one. More reading here [davis.ca.us].


    ...phil

  • This "article" must be a horrendous misquote. Hawking just isn't that stupid. Jeez, we could solve the Global Warming problem - with technology we have RIGHT NOW, within 5-10 years.

    How? Place huge shades in orbit around Earth. The shades block the sun over small parts of the planet. Net effect? The Earth cools off. Granted that this would be construction on a huge scale, but we could cool ourselves into another Ice Age if we wanted to. We need to correct about 1 degree per decade - we can certainly handle that.

    I'm getting sick of all this whining about Global Warming. Just friggin' FIX IT and move on.

    It doesn't take a rocket scientist to tell you that if something is getting too hot in the sun, then stick the damn thing in the shade.

  • Re:He's got a point (Score:3)

    by Alternity ( 16492 ) on Tuesday October 03, 2000 @06:38AM (#735516)
    I don't think that when we finally colonize Mars we will really get away from corporations and government. I have read an interesting theory in a fiction book (ok it was fiction... so what). The colonization effort will require a HUGE amount of resources. The various governments, space agencies and all will look for private funding to achieve that goal effectivly selling parts of Mars or whatever planet we decide to colonize.

    Even if this is coming straight out of fiction book I don't think it's too crazy a possibility. I sure hate to break your dream of a martian utopia but whether what I just described happens or not, I am pretty sure someone, somewhere will find a way to either profit from a planet colonization or to abuse it and put himself in a position of power.


    "When I was a little kid my mother told me not to stare into the sun...
  • Just crash Mir into the Moon, rather than the Earth when it is no longer usable, and the Moon will grow a rind like a great spherical camembert, which we can then harvest.
  • bring on the four-tittied bitches!

    eudas
  • I can't cite the source, but I recall hearing that one of the reasons that the Vikings didn't make permanent settlements in what is now Canada was the result of a "Mini-Ice Age" that occurred during the 15th Century.

    I find the global warming arguments flawed. I am not convinced that 10 or 100 years is enough to extrapolate out that we are even in a period of warming. Were it the case that we are in a period of unusual warming, I find it difficult to lay the blame squarely on Mankind's (Humankind's for feminists, though they might be willing to lay the blame solely on men for this one) shoulders. Perhaps the climate would be the same regardless of industrialization.

    Cheers,
    Slak

  • Re:yeah that's the solution (Score:3)

    by plague3106 ( 71849 ) on Tuesday October 03, 2000 @07:08AM (#735538)
    It's disgusting, but it's business.

    Thats redundent.
  • . . . I guess I'd better lie about my vasectomy on the application, then.
  • Sagan DID actually say something about the danger of earth's runaway climate between bong-hits.

    Oh yeah, it was NUCLEAR WINTER - that was Sagan's baby. Drop enough bombs, kick up enough dust into the atmosphere, block out the sun for a period of a year, long enough to kill all life on the planet.
    It's a shame he didn't live to see The Matrix.

  • It's a trap! (Score:5)

    by OlympicSponsor ( 236309 ) on Tuesday October 03, 2000 @05:49AM (#735547)
    His dire predictions of acid rain and recommendation to colonize space is just a ploy to get all out of reach of Earth's gravity where his disability will no longer affect him--and he can crush us like bugs with his mighty exoskeleton [theonion.com]!
    --

  • Comment removed (Score:4)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Tuesday October 03, 2000 @06:43AM (#735548)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • ...does anyone else hear that song in their heads?

    Yes, but I was thinking of 3535, to meet his minimum millenium requirement. An interesting point is that we are actually consuming more petroleum than before the 1974 oil crisis. So much for fuel efficient cars, with all these SUV's on the road. Maybe the recent jump will help get us back on track.

    As far as pollution, this is actually being addressed far better than up to the 70's, where toxic compounds were belched into the air and poured into streams. An old highschool bud has designed a landfill for a city of about 1,500 people to capture natural gas. The landfill has been in operation for about 5 years now and provides more gas than the town can use and it won't peak production for 50 years.

    Now, this isn't open encouragement to have larger families to take up the slack, but like people acquiring gas hog vehicles, they have a short memory of the last crisis and what caused it.


    --
    Chief Frog Inspector
  • No no, he's going to set off a nuclear bomb in the San Andreas fault so that the western half of California will fall into the ocean, thus making his thousands of square miles of worthless desert land into valuable beachfront property.

    No, wait, that's MY plan...

  • I just hope we get it over with soon and let some hyper-intelligent squids evolve.

    We've been hogging the top of the resource chain for too long.

    Like we'll get organized enough and stop arguing long enough to colonize another planet.
  • > You know, I don't consider myself a sandal wearing tree-hugging nut, but I do really think it is stupid that environmentalism is considered radical. It really is dumb.

    And I second that. We despise pigs for wallowing in their own shit. Couldn't we do just a little bit better?

    --
  • In ancient times when people could not read, priests weilded tremendous power over the masses largely because of their ignorance. Today people can read, but we have a new problem: Science has become the dominant mythology (in the Joseph Campbell sense of absolute belief), and therefore, people, corporations, etc., with agendas can manipulate scientific studies to support their particular desires.

    People hear the nightly news where a Peter Jennings says, "A new study has shown that blah blah blah...", and they believe it when it might be corporate propaganda.

    The back and forth thing like "salt is good for you, salt is bad for you" is an example of companies with huge amounts of money at stake manipulating "information" to eke out more profit and prevent a mass exodus away from their product.

    This sort of thing was revealed with the cigarette industry. They could walk up to the line of truth and say, "Scientific studies show that there is no conclusive evidence that smoking is harmful." That's true. Note the word "conslusive." NOTHING is conclusive in science. Just when you think you understand physics with Newtonian laws, Einstein comes in and adds a new twist. But while Newtonian physics isn't "conclusive," we sure have built a lot of skyscrapers with it.

    It's only because most people have adopted science as infallable that it is possible to do this. While science attempts to present the truth, and most scientists are honorable, science is, at best, an approximation of the truth. But I think it's being increasingly manipulated because people have figured out that this is the way to influence our modern belief system. Science simply isn't questioned enough.

    Just as the ancient priests became corrupt and were increasingly questioned by scietists (the earth is round, etc.), now science needs to be questioned: Who did that study? Who funded it? Who benefits from this information, etc.

    If I was in marketing, I would think that manipulating perception through "scientific studies" would be an absolute gold mine. But I'm not that depraved that I'd be in marketing.

    Question everything.

  • The last oil-crisis was NOT caused by gas-guzzling cars. It was caused by greedy oil companies, and OPEC constraining supplies to boost profits. Just as they are trying to do now.

    However, they didn't learn their lesson last time, evidently, that when you do that, you fuck-over the economy so bad that you throw the world into a deep recession.
  • I'm surprised to hear space colonization cheerleading from Hawking, who's not otherwise given to impractical ramblings.

    Whatever problems we're having with climate here on Earth, they pale before the challenge of terraforming even the relatively habitable planet Mars. All the other planets in our solar system are gaseous horrors or barren rocks.

    Surely any technology that could make Mars livable for humans could be adapted to reverse environmental castastrophe here on Earth.

  • Guh? (Score:2)

    by Otto ( 17870 )
    On the point about global cooling, this is ALSO a possible outcome simply because changing a stable system cause unpredictable outcomes; similar to the butterfly effect often widely discussed.

    On it's face, this is the stupidest statement I've ever seen. Stable means that you can't easily change it, it resists change. Stable.

    Perhaps you meant to say that introducing change into a chaotic system causes unpredictable outcomes.

    ---
  • Combine this with the fact that our civilisation is going to fall to pieces in the next 100 or so years and leave us in another dark age... we'll all be dead, because we have no method of leaving earth!

    Hari Seldon, where are you now?

  • I don't want to burst your bubble, because I too am definitely a skeptic of these "We're going to kill ourselves in short order" scenarios. I personally believe that nature will kill off enough of us to bring our environmental impact down to the level that it can recover from.

    I think of it this way. I get a fever when I'm sick, because my body is trying to fight off a virus. We are the virus, global warming is the fever. We're giving ourselves WAY too much credit if we think we're a fatal virus. We're more on the level of a cold. Damn annoying for a couple of millenia, and you can never totally get rid of it, but the symptoms go away with time.

    As for whether or not global warming is our doing... I'm pretty convinced. I saw a television special on global warming made by the CBC (scientifically reliable, in my opinion) telling about a scientist that had done studies of glaciers to determine the amount of CO2 (I think) in the atmosphere. This allowed him to trace back through multiple ice ages. He also had data collected atop some remote mountain (no where near civilization) that recorded CO2 levels over the last 50 years or so. The chart went up and down based on the amount of vegetation on the planet, a result of ice ages coming and going. But when it got to the industrial revolution...

    For all intents and purposes the line went verticle. The difference caused by the industrial revolution is equivalent to the difference caused by an ice age, except it happened virtually instantaneously, and it happened at a time in the earth's history where CO2 levels were at a relative high.

    Yeah, we gave the earth a cold. Now if only we could find some chicken soup.

  • A more practical suggestion (Score:3)

    by Wellspring ( 111524 ) on Tuesday October 03, 2000 @07:15AM (#735585)

    Quite the contrary. We will need to move into mine shafts deep in the earth. Food can be stockpiled, pigs can be bred und schlaughtered.

    In order to allow the human race to quickly regain its old numbers, we will need to bring a hundred women for every man.

    The men can be chosen from the finest examples of humanity: scientists, programmers, engineers, great leaders, etc. The women, however, should be chosen based on their fertility, and their ability to entice men to undertake the onerous task of breeding so many of them so often.

    Figure skaters, actresses, musicians, cheerleaders, all possess qualities which will lend themselves to additional fertility. I expect that while it will take great effort and creativity to keep their men suffiently aroused to perform their duties to humanity, that the greatest of our men will rise to the challenge.

    I guess it is time to stop worrying and love pollution....


    (Apologies to Stanley Kubrick)

  • Funny Babelfish Translations (Score:4)

    by nharmon ( 97591 ) on Tuesday October 03, 2000 @05:51AM (#735588)

    In a lecture in Edinburgh explained Hawking, either a " accident or the ground electrode warming " would extinguish the life on earth.

    Ahh! End of Life on Earth according to Hawking involves a short in an electrical circuit heating up and...

    the atmosphere becomes ever hotter, and that it becomes, meant like Venus bubbling sulfuric acid

    turns the earth into bubbling sulfuric acid!

  • Anthropogenic climate change is the biggest and most frightening thing happening at present: in fact, it renders everything else the entire species has done insignificant. You worry about Napster, Microsoft, deCSS? fsck it. In the last century we drove more species extinct than at any time since 65 million years ago. And that doesn't even matter , because climate change is going to wipe out our 'civilisation' in the blink of an eye. Don't take my word for it - check the IPCC [www.ipcc.ch] or some recent reports [panda.org] or even the neutered industry sops at the EPA [epa.gov]. And what are we in the West - the people directly responsible for this catastrophe - doing? complaining about petrol prices [bbc.co.uk]...

    Sometimes humanity makes me sick. We Europeans aren't much better than you Americans (we use half as much energy per head, which of course is still 10-100 times more than the 3rd World.) And the third world of course can't be held back: China and India and the Pacific Rim are /developing/ countries.

    Sorry for the pessimistic rant. But seeing the jokey responses to this story fills me with despair.

  • Re:While it'd be much easier.. (Score:3)

    by xtal ( 49134 ) on Tuesday October 03, 2000 @07:16AM (#735591)

    to clean up the planet we are on now, has anyone ever thought that it might not be possible?

    This just plain isn't going to happen in a "Free" society (economic freedom, anyhow). Not unless you and everyone you know are willing to give up gas-guzzlin pollutin SUVs (the days of a fuel cell SUV are a long, long, long way off), willing to give up consuming massive amounts of food, willing to give up massive water and power consumption, and in short, give up much of the luxuries that western society is based on! And let's not forget that India and China are working as fast as they can to go through THEIR industrial revolutions and get to where we are as soon as possible. Short of imposing draconian restrictions on freedom (ain't gunna happen), space research is the only alternative to the human race being extincted. NO, we're not going to launch 6 billion people into orbit, but you don't need that for a self sustaining colony, either.

    Now, "our planet is dying." Yes, our planet is getting hotter. (Hell, it was 92 degrees here yesterday, and we're in October. Huh?) Is this man, or is this the natural cycle of events? Is this Mother Nature wreaking her revenge on those who would try to control her?

    No, you CANNOT conclusively say our planet is doing anything that it hasn't in the past. Earth has ALWAYS been changing; It has violent tectonic cycles that we don't experience over our civilization's timeframes, would you blame a catastrophic quake in california on "Earth getting even", no, of course not, that's stupid. Earth was a LOT hotter a dozens of millenia ago; It will be hotter or maybe even colder in the future. WE HAVE NO ATMOSPHERIC MODEL, so we can't tell. By the time it matters, we'll be dead, and our kids will be, and likely, THEIR kids will be. If we're not doing something more productive by then, well, I'll be dust anyhow. Until then I'll work to improve technology in any way I can, and maybe it'll make a difference.

    You can come up with ideas and examples all day long, but the basic fact is that man doesn't live long enough to have a clear view of what's happening to the Earth, and why. The ozone hole is even in doubt according to some scientists. Who is who, and who decides the planet is dying?

    Ahh, the voice of reason. This is _so_ true. Man will have exterminated HIMSELF long before our environment does it to us; We can last a long time, even if we can't go outside. Dig a hole and use nuclear power. Mankind is a great innovator and extremely adaptive when need be. Of course, this isn't practical for 6 billion people, but your fellow man in Africa doesn't drive a suburban, either.

    If the planet's death doesn't get us, the mere fact of overpopulation will.

    Fud, fud, fud. Once a society becomes industrialized, the cost of children increases and the necessity of having them to insure someone will care for you goes away, since you can save money. Then, birth rates _collapse_, which is what's happening in North America and Western Europe. Their is no reason to assume that higher living standards in China and India won't do the same - although, there will be a LOT of pollution from those efforts. Do you know how many hundreds of millions of tons of coal China burns every year? Your car doesn't make a lick of difference in comparison. They have no choice.

    We will never colonize another planet, however, because the populace at large doesn't care about space. It's viewed as a "neato" thing until the bill comes in. Nobody wants to pay taxes to fund NASA, and private corporations have too many regulations on them. (Probably for good measure; I don't know.)

    This is sad, but true. The only thing that will make us colonize space is a major disaster costing millions of lives on Earth. Something along the lines of a asteroid strike (best), limited nuclear war or biological warfare agents run amok (worst, by far), etc. I wrote a really good rant about this on /. some time ago. You're right, we're all jaded about space, because none of us will ever get there. Which is a shame, becuase if more people got to see how small earth is from 100,000 feet, and how BIG the black background is, maybe we wouldn't be killing each other over things like Religion and stupid political egos and work together.

    But, I'm bitter. YMMV.

  • He's got a point (Score:5)

    by Tony Hammitt ( 73675 ) on Tuesday October 03, 2000 @05:51AM (#735594)
    I'd like to move to Mars. Getting away from the government and megacorps would be good with me.

    I think that most people wouldn't move no matter what. As Heinlein pointed out, most people in Pompeii knew that Vesuvius was rumbling and didn't leave town. Most would just die here.

    Those of us who left would probably be the intelligent ones, so it may not be bad for OUR species. Can't say that it would help all of the other species much. I won't miss the flies.

    But I don't think that Earth will become uninhabitable. Once the atmosphere starts killing people, there'll be less people to pollute it, so we'll have some negative feedback in the system.

    But just in case, let's make sure that IPv6 has lots of addresses set aside for other planets =-]
  • I KNEW IT! Stephen Hawking is George Clinton!!!!! (ever see them together? aha!) One Universe, under a Groove!

  • While it'd be much easier.. (Score:5)

    by Talonius ( 97106 ) on Tuesday October 03, 2000 @05:52AM (#735596)
    to clean up the planet we are on now, has anyone ever thought that it might not be possible?

    I'm not an environmentalist. Sometimes I wonder if man knows as much about science as he likes to believe. As a specific example, look at the various statements made abouts food. Salt is bad for you. Salt is good for you. Salt is bad for you. Salt is bad for you only if you already have high blood pressure. Repeat for eggs and cholesterol.

    Part of the problem is that everyone is an expert in this day and age; there is no one authorized source of information. (Nor would I endorse such a thing.) The side effect is that a lot of plain misinformation abounds.

    Now, "our planet is dying." Yes, our planet is getting hotter. (Hell, it was 92 degrees here yesterday, and we're in October. Huh?) Is this man, or is this the natural cycle of events? Is this Mother Nature wreaking her revenge on those who would try to control her?

    You can come up with ideas and examples all day long, but the basic fact is that man doesn't live long enough to have a clear view of what's happening to the Earth, and why. The ozone hole is even in doubt according to some scientists. Who is who, and who decides the planet is dying?

    As for man living out the millenia, he's dead because of himself. If the planet's death doesn't get us, the mere fact of overpopulation will. We will never colonize another planet, however, because the populace at large doesn't care about space. It's viewed as a "neato" thing until the bill comes in. Nobody wants to pay taxes to fund NASA, and private corporations have too many regulations on them. (Probably for good measure; I don't know.)

    -- Talonius
  • Every item you use today, think of how much energy it took to create and will take to dispose of that item. Think of where that energy is coming from. Because it's out of sight it's out of mind.

    Think of the energy it took to create the packaging for the item. (maybe even more than the item itself!) And the waste that packaging will be. For instance, compare clothes for a Mattel Barbie doll to the packaging they come in. Shiny paper. Bright colored ink printing job.

    In fact Marketing driven packaging helps to ruin the earth. Marketing's contribution to society.
  • Or to be more specific, there's this thermonuclear furnace 93 million miles away called the Sun that's a far better determinant on our climate than any human activity.

    If research into our geological history is correct, in the age of the dinosaurs Earth temperatures were actually several degrees higher, with warm swamps even at the middle latitudes and large forests of ferns.

    In our recorded history, we're actually living mostly in a period of COLDER temperatures than normal based on our geological history, thanks to several Ice Ages from 65 million years ago to now. What "global warming" may really be is our Earth finally returning to the higher temperatures of 100 million years ago.
  • Not if you don't care about the population. Recall the Centauri bombardment of the Narn Homeworld in B5?? Similar effect, but add an Ice Age as well. . . .

    I don't remember the Centauri referring to that as "terraforming" -- or even "centauriforming" -- though it would be in character for them to dissemble like that.

    Londo: "War? War is such an ugly word. We just thought Narn could use a little ... 'cooling off'."

  • Um, not really, the Christian God doesn't pass judgement, he forgives.

    Inequalities here on Earth are a symptom of the fact that material existance is imperfect.

    You know what? You're absolutely right. It does NOT matter one bit what any hopelessly lost soul, or saved soul does with their Earthly time and money.

    Everyone goes to Heaven. If they want to.

    While we're here on Earth, we were given the Earth to take care of it. God does expect us to take care of it. It's our assigned duty. But in the end, your soul matters more, because eventually, the Earth will be swallowed up by the sun, the sun turn into a black hole and evaporate into Hawking radiation, and the very protons will decay, and nothing will exist in the material sense anymore. When you're in Heaven, blink, and you'll miss it, because eternity lasts a long time.

  • In reply to Hawking (Score:3)

    by ackthpt ( 218170 ) on Tuesday October 03, 2000 @05:52AM (#735607) Homepage Journal
    Stephen Hawking predicts, that mankind will not survive on earth for another millenium.

    I'm amazed we got past 1961...

    Hawking fears that the atmosphere will become hotter and contain more and more acid like the atmosphere of the planet Venus, so that men can no longer live on earth.


    Well, all that coal and oil once was up here and it was a pretty tropical place. It was buring all that carbon that made this place so damn cold.
    The only solution would be to colonize the space and find another planet to live on."

    How about Mars? That's really cold, even on a good day.

    If man were to colonize other worlds it stands to reason that we'd have to take agriculture with us. Now there's a topic for some serious genetic engineered crops...


    --
    Chief Frog Inspector

  • Ewww...gross... (Score:3)

    by OlympicSponsor ( 236309 ) on Tuesday October 03, 2000 @05:52AM (#735610)
    Hawking On Earth's Lifespan

    cchcchcch...ptoo. Take that, Earth's lifespan.
    --
  • shit, people won't laugh at Waterworld anymore. . .

  • ...does anyone else hear that song in their heads?

    Truthfully, though, I wonder how much credibility that we can give Mr. Hawking's opinions on such matters. His excellence in theoretical physics notwithstanding, I don't think he has expertise in all the disciplines that such a prediction requires. Still, he makes a valid point about the remarkable short-sightedness of man, and our horrible unwillingness to plan for future generations.

    I wonder if anyone will pay more attention to him than they did to our dear Dr. Sagan?

  • Not a solution (Score:3)

    by roystgnr ( 4015 ) <roy&stogners,org> on Tuesday October 03, 2000 @08:26AM (#735615) Homepage
    Anyone want to estimate the cost, per immigrant, of putting someone on Earth in a viable orbital (or Mars) colony? Anyone reading my posts here might recognize me as a space nut^H^H^Henthusiast, and I'd say a million dollars per person is a good figure to shoot for. Even Robert Zubrin [amazon.com] wouldn't put a one-way ticket to Mars lower than $300,000 without dipping into the "well, it's theoretically possible" technology pool. In any case, the travel expenses are going to be overshadowed by the cost of having the people already there (in the case of Mars) digging you out someplace to live, mining ice for you to drink and grow things with, and generally making a home on the other side.

    So let's play one of my favorite games, "Fun with Almanac Numbers":

    250,000 more people on the Earth every year, plus
    6,000,000 one thousandth of the current population, equals
    6,250,000 people we need to evacuate each year.

    times 1,000,000 dollars per emigrant, equals
    6.25 trillion dollars per year.

    I can't find any good figures for World GDP, but this is somewhere around a fourth of it. Feel the burn. Of course, the proper figure to compare to is not World GDP, but the cost of our best alternative, the "not fucking up the Earth" plan. Opinions vary, but 6.25 trillion a year is an order of magnitude above most of them.

    Besides, if we all went to Mars we'd just end up terraforming it eventually anyway; we might as well practice terraforming Earth first.
  • Translations, anyone? Babelfish reports that Hawkings says "The of university verses in a groove-brightly."
  • Yeah, but in the absense of conclusive evidence (i.e. either argument can be supported by facts) doesn't it make sense to suggest there is little or no correlation? That actually it's entirely seperate factors (which may have a similar utopian effect as you're describing) which are influencing population growth, or at the very least which are much more significant?
  • Stephen Hawking sees black for the human life

    The British astrophysicist Stephen Hawking fears that mankind will not survive a " further millenium ". In a lecture in Edinburgh explained Hawking, either a " accident or the ground electrode warming " would extinguish the life on earth. Mankind can outlive only if it settles on another planet, let the almost completely gelaehmte scientist its listeners with the conception of its new book " The of university verses in a groove-brightly " know. The scientist suffers from the paralysis illness Amyotrophe Lateralsklerose (WHEN) and can inform itself only by language computers.

    " I fear that the atmosphere becomes ever hotter, and that it becomes, meant like Venus bubbling sulfuric acid " Hawking. " I make myself concerns around the greenhouse effect. " Mankind can survive a further millenium only if it spreads into " space. " Without the " Kolonialisierung " of other planets mankind of becoming extinct is threatened.

    Major task of the theoretical physics 21. Century is it to offer to mankind a continuous theory about the happening in the universe. " we believe, we the end pieces of a complete and uniform theory found, but in the center still much is to fill out ", said Hawking. (dpa) (jk/c't)


    --Fire up the clue combine and harvest a clue!
  • Yeah that will be much easier that cleaning up the one we have now.

    Actually it might be. Given the toxicity and lifespan of some the garbage we've produced on this planet, moving could be considered an option.

    However, before that could happen, we'd have to have a much less expensive system of getting goods to orbit; such as the various SSTO projects that made the news a couple years ago.

    Unfortunately, there isn't a lot of 'local' real estate that's any good nearby...

    BTW, anyone got an english translation of the article? For some reason, the Fish is blocked from where I am.

    NecroPuppy
    ---
    Godot called. He said he'd be late.
  • With enough energy you can eventually create a system where heat is the only waste product. Basically this would consist of capturing and recycling or storing or re-using all 'toxic' waste products. This would require a lot of energy, as we all know it would result in the production of a lot of waste heat, which due to certain laws of thermodynamics is unavoidable.

    I am almost certain that eventually most all of our technology will be 'clean' - it will have to be. We will eventually figure out SOME way of economicaly tapping a small fraction of the energy that the sun disgorges into empty space, and have enough free energy to recycle everything ad-infinitum.

    The problem then becomes waste heat. That is a more difficult problem. You have to radiate it away. And since we are on the planet's surface about the only place we have to radiate it is into the atmosphere, where most of it will be absorbed. Sure your factories recycle all of their CO2 or methane, but they now produce waste heat which heats the atmosphere anyway.

    Not sure if there is a solution to this, other than perhaps 'piping' heat into space somehow, or reducing the solar input into the atmosphere with orbital 'shades'.

    -josh

  • >They're also becoming richer. An increase in
    >wealth equals a decrease in population growth
    >rate. This is common knowlege to any high school
    >social sciences teacher. This is the glimmer of
    >the natural mathematical push towards the steady
    >state. I don't claim that as any sort of proof,

    Such statements are based on GROSS assumptions about the social fabric of a country. Kuwait's population growth exceeds that of Kazakhstan, and I think Saudi Arabia has a bigger growth rate than either.

    So while a social sciences high school teacher might say this, an expert anthropologist would disagree.
  • one of the reasons that the Vikings didn't make permanent settlements in what is now Canada was the result of a "Mini-Ice Age" that occurred during the 15th Century.

    Off by 500 years and it's the other way around, they colonized during a warm period. Far warmer than now -- Greenland really WAS green at the time, that name wasn't just an early real estate agent doing the PR.

    So although it does definitely seem to be warmer now than a couple centuries back, it's still nowhere near as hot as a millenium back, and since the human race didn't die off then I have a bit of an issue crediting the Chicken Littles who foretell global catastrophe from a degree or two over the next century.
  • According to the Salt Institute [saltinstitute.org], salt is safe to eat. While it may be a bad idea to eat like an Accadian, you will have a hard time killing someone with it. In rats, the amount of salt it took to kill 1/2 of those exposed was 4,000 mg/kg. A first order calculation goes like this, a 50 kg man would have to eat 200 grams of salt to have a coin toss chance of dying. I imagine this man would vomit first, but persistance sometimes pays off. Salt is sold in 780 gram (26 ounce or 1 pound 10 ounces) containers. You would have to eat more than 1/4th of it. That's less than I thought, but much more than I could ever imagine eating.
  • politicians suck, man... I'm voting for either Nader or John Hagelin. They're both a little crazy but that's part of the appeal. I wish we'd see more of Hagelin - he's by far the smartest person running...

  • Seems like when really smart people at the top of their field who have basically got it made, and need no longer worry about the things most of us might worry about, they heed a higher calling and focus their attention on the future of the human race, or the planet. Remember, Bill Joy did that too, to name another.

  • The British astrophysicist Stephen Hawking fears that mankind will not survive a " further millenium ". In a lecture in Edinburgh explained Hawking, either a " accident or the ground electrode warming " would extinguish the life on earth. Mankind can outlive only if it settles on another planet, let the almost completely gelaehmte scientist its listeners with the conception of its new book " The of university verses in a groove-brightly " know. The scientist suffers from the paralysis illness Amyotrophe Lateralsklerose (WHEN) and can inform itself only by language computers.

    " I fear that the atmosphere becomes ever hotter, and that it becomes, meant like Venus bubbling sulfuric acid " Hawking. " I make myself concerns around the greenhouse effect. " Mankind can survive a further millenium only if it spreads into " space. " Without the " Kolonialisierung " of other planets mankind of becoming extinct is threatened.

    Major task of the theoretical physics 21. Century is it to offer to mankind a continuous theory about the happening in the universe. " we believe, we the end pieces of a complete and uniform theory found, but in the center still much is to fill out ", said Hawking. ( dpa ) ( jk / c't)


  • If you want to vote against gore, please vote for nader, if you don't agree with his politics fine, he won't win, you are in fact voting for a chance to let a 3rd party into the debates and to get access to federal funds, if you don't like gore cause he is full of it (and he is) then please consider how much more in the pocket of corporate interests bush is and what a bad president he would be (ie think clin-ton is a corporate pawn, just wait till bush is in there)

    thanks

  • I doubt the world, or society in general can last much longer at the rate we're going. Besides, this is a great way for Hawking to gain eternal worship. If he's right, everyone will look back and see him as a visionary. Of course, they won't be able to look back for long, because they'll all be dead.

  • Acapolyptic literature has been around since the begining of time ... hence the book of revelations ... people need fear it's a driving force ...

    Speaking of "reality checks"...

    I will see your apocalyptic literature, and raise you a few thousand thermonuclear warheads.

    Do you still want to bet on this planet or are you gonna fold?

  • Re:yeah that's the solution (Score:3)

    by Sir Tristam ( 139543 ) on Tuesday October 03, 2000 @08:32AM (#735667)
    You can "shrug off" Liberty's senseless warnings about greenhouse gasses, explain the volcano thing, and tell her to get a fucking haircut.

    But this is Steven Hawkings talking.

    Might I point out that Steven Hawkings is a theoretical physicist, not an environmental bio-chemist? Just because he's the top in one field doesn't mean that he knows squat in another field. I don't know about you, but if I had to have heart sugery done, I would pick a fairly decent thoracic cardiovascular sugeon over the world's best veternarian (or even oral surgeon, for that matter) any day of the week.

    Not to take anything away from Steven Hawkings, of course. If I needed a description of how a black hole would peel the atmosphere off the Earth if the two collided, I'd ask Hawkings. For a prediction of the environmental future of the Earth otherwise, he's not tops on my list.


  • What's the question nobody's asking, the question that noone's even thought of, the answer to which could save humanity?

    What would Brian Boitano do?!


    D.
    ..is for diddly-dee diddle-eye dee...

  • Re:While it'd be much easier.. (Score:3)

    by hey! ( 33014 ) on Tuesday October 03, 2000 @07:33AM (#735671) Homepage Journal
    to clean up the planet we are on now, has anyone ever thought that it might not be possible?

    Indeed.

    I think the terminology you use is in itself too optimistic. "Clean up" makes it sound like its just a problem of moving gross quantities of matter from one place to another; just use some energy to reduce entropy here and dump the waste entropy into space.

    Th reality is that we live on a tiny, but highly complex organic film on a big, dead rock. We are destroying biological information evolved by this system over millions of years by destroying habitat and species, essentially taking that organic complexity and turning it into waste entropy.

    I don't know if we'll turn the planet into venus; you can't easily project something like this because there are complex feedback systems involved. Perhaps there are situations under which positive feedback could force huge changes in climate, but in terms of gradually accumulating anthropogenic factors people will die off in large numbers well before anything remotely as drastic as the venus scenario plays out. I expect that the world in a thousand years will still look a lot more like Earth than Venus, although possibly with a much larger or much smaller human population.

    Enviornmentalists who like to think of the problem as the survival of the human race look down on people who see the environmental issue as one of aesthetic; I think the aesthetic folks may be closer to the truth. We're as likely to go extinct any time soon as the cockroach. I like to point out to my environmentalist friends that if "sustainability" is the sole criteria, we have nothing to worry about because "unsustainability" is by definition a short term condition. The real issue is do we want to have the conditions of equillibrium to occur when we have fouled the nest so badly our options are gone, or do we wish to control some of the conditions under which equillibrium is achieved.

    Another way of phrasing the question: do you want the Earth to become a maximally exploited combination human feed lot/garbage pit? Or would you like to hand the next generation a world remotely as pleasant as the one we inherited?

  • Wasnt Kurzweil the crazy guy from the X-files movie that told Mulder to go to Dallas?


    --
  • Yeah, didn't that seem odd to anyone else? I mean, space is not exactly a habitable place. We don't know of any planets capable of supporting life the way Earth does as is. So, if we're going to have to create artificial environments to survive, why can't we just stay on Earth and do that here? It's a lot cheaper...

  • Does a smart man always tell the whole truth? (Score:5)

    by Stoutlimb ( 143245 ) on Tuesday October 03, 2000 @06:02AM (#735732)
    Last I heard, he was a quantum cosmologist, not an environmental scientist. Sure, he's smart, but even smart scientists can make mistakes if they don't have the correct data, and somehow I don't think he does.

    Firstly, because he underestimates the ability of green things to grow absolutely anywhere... I'm not sure humanity is capable of wiping out enough of regenerative greenery to cause that kind of environmental disaster.

    Second, he underestimates the force of the demographic transition. As this polluting technology makes individual lives easier, the population growth rate declines and stabilizes, reducing the load on the environment. As it is here in Canada, more people die than are born. Thank goodness for immigrants!

    While not ruling out several holocausts, in the long term I see humanity stabilizing with the environment in a new ecological balance. This won't happen any time soon, I think we have to wait until industrialization runs its course and we run out of our fossil fuels. Then, we wait for biotechnology to run its course and settle down into something stable. We then will be in symbiosis with our manmade ecology. Once we settle down into a several hundred year groove and all are new technologies become old, we will be in a steady state. But mind you, I see bumps and population "corrections" along the way.

    But once we get to that harmonious steady state... Why settle the stars? We could be happy and content here for millions of years.

    I think old Steve knows the best fire he can light under interstellar settlers is the threat of imminent death... So why not predict doom to achieve that end? Heck, I would.

    my two cents...
    BORK BORK BORK!

  • Don't be Silly (Score:3)

    by Greyfox ( 87712 ) on Tuesday October 03, 2000 @06:06AM (#735766) Homepage Journal
    He obviously intends to drive real estate prices down, so he can buy low. Once he owns Malibu he'll probably come out with an updated prediction "Oh, I was wrong, ha ha ha. Imagine that..."

  • What about Earth? (Score:4)

    by tiny69 ( 34486 ) on Tuesday October 03, 2000 @06:07AM (#735769) Homepage Journal
    The only solution would be to colonize the space and find another planet to live on.

    If we can't take care of the one we are on NOW, how in the @#$%* are we going to make a different planet inhabitable?

  • Re:yeah that's the solution (Score:3)

    by Mr. Slippery ( 47854 ) <tms&infamous,net> on Tuesday October 03, 2000 @11:05AM (#735793) Homepage
    And.. there are those of us who believe that for the most part the "greenhouse effect" is a bunch of BS.
    The greenhouse effect is 100% established fact - without it, the planet would be much colder.

    The only debate is whether human activity is causing a rise in greenhouse gasses, and causing global warming. And it's not much of a debate; there is a strong scientific consensus that human activity is altering the climate.

    More CFC's are released from one single volcanic eruption than you can dream of releasing in your lifetime.
    Volcanic eruptions are rare, while there are over 6 billion people on the planet. So your point is?
    Earth has its own cycles that we strive very hard to but never can comprehend.
    Which is a pretty good reason not to mess with them, no?
    Earth can take care of itself I think, *shrugs*
    Um, yes, the rock will still be here no matter what we do. And it would be really hard to get rid of all the life that's on it; some fungi and bactera would probably survive anything short of the Sun's death. But if we fuck it up enough, we could take out the ecosystem and ourselves with it.

  • Re:Top breeders != super models (Score:3)

    by Wellspring ( 111524 ) on Tuesday October 03, 2000 @02:04PM (#735823)

    Well, actually not. The body of a a figure skater, Hollywood actress or cheerleader in most cases is not suitable for heavy child production. To be able to withstand the labor of multiple pregnansies and survive (atleast in extreme conditions we are talking about) the women should be build, eh differently. Wide hips are a must. Large utero and strong bone structure as well. Your average top mother for next generation would look much more like a weight-liftress from Romania than, say Natalie Portman.

    Medicine can solve the mechanical problem. The challenge is this: can we find women so attractive, so enticing, so triple Xplosive that one hundred can all get regular attention from a single man?

    Two romanian weightlifters would just barely be able to arouse enough of a libido to cover both of them. I'll guarantee you that a NP-level of sexiness is required to give a man the energy to handle 100 women. And that, the sheer quantity of hot love-making, is the technical challenge of the post-apocalyptic earth. Only Smooth B [theonion.com] has the savvy to devise a solution to this problem.

  • Actually he isn't talking about Earth'sd life span (Score:3)

    by the-banker ( 169258 ) on Tuesday October 03, 2000 @06:10AM (#735838)
    Read the article. He is talking about humankind's lifespan on Earth. It is quite arrogant to believe that we can actually harm teh planet. We harm ourselves, the planet will endure. A different planet, but a planet nonetheless.

    Just be upfront with ousrselves - it should be "Save the Humans", not "Save the Plant".

    Marc

  • English version - The Times (Score:3)

    by semrich ( 89476 ) on Tuesday October 03, 2000 @06:10AM (#735840)
    an article appeared in The Times here. Dated 30/Sep/00. [the-times.co.uk]

  • Just finished a relevant book... (Score:3)

    by mr.ska ( 208224 ) on Tuesday October 03, 2000 @06:11AM (#735843) Homepage Journal
    Sunday I just finished reading Macrolife [wigglefish.com] ; by George Zebrowski, which directly pertains to this. In the book, a man-made disaster forces the evacuation of the planet. The only humans that remain are living on Mars, Ganymede, more out in the Jovian system, and a large colony living inside a hollowed-out asteroid called Asterome. Not to give the story away, but Asterome heads out of the solar system and starts living its own life as a mobile human colony.

    Although we don't currently have gravitic or superluminal propulsion, space colonies are IMHO the best solution to where to live next. Mars would be OK... but there's no atmosphere that we can use (plus it's too thin otherwise). The moon is good, but it's even more limited than the Earth. If we could harvest a few large rocks from the asteroid belt, we could put up some sizeable colonies in either Earth or Sun orbit.

    Of course, if we fuck those up like we did Earth then there's really no point... :(

  • Famous scientists at Cambridge (Score:3)

    by Rupert ( 28001 ) on Tuesday October 03, 2000 @06:11AM (#735845) Homepage Journal
    There must be something in the water at DAMTP [cam.ac.uk][1]. People there do brilliant work, become famous, and then go stark raving bonkers. Now it's happened to Hawking, like it happened to Fred Hoyle [meta-library.net] and Herman Bondi [gpaulbishop.com] before him.

    [1] "DAMn The Physicists" as we used to say in DPMMS [cam.ac.uk].

    --

  • Wrong translation! (Score:3)

    by uradu ( 10768 ) on Tuesday October 03, 2000 @06:17AM (#735847)
    "Menschheit" is gender-neutral and literally means humanity. "Mensch" means human, not man, though is often translated that way. Usually phrases like "Der Mensch ist ein seltsames Tier" get translated as "Man is a strange animal" rather than "The human is a strange animal", I guess because it sounds less awkward.

  • Re:yeah that's the solution (Score:5)

    by Hard_Code ( 49548 ) on Tuesday October 03, 2000 @06:19AM (#735877)
    I second this. You know, I don't consider myself a sandal wearing tree-hugging nut, but I do really think it is stupid that environmentalism is considered radical. It really is dumb. Environmental soundness should not be percieved as radical, but should be the *default* modus operandi. It should be taken for granted. What should be seen as radical is the gigantic amount of waste we create and participate in. Every item you use today, think of how much energy it took to create and will take to dispose of that item. Think of where that energy is coming from. Because it's out of sight it's out of mind.

    Saying that we have basically ruined this planet so the solution is to go and exploit another is evidence of this mentality. So is Bush's proposal that to "solve" the energy crises, we should go make more oil rigs in Alaska! Instead, of course, of forcing the energy industry to redeem to us our investment in them to create alternative energy solutions. The absurdity! As the saying goes, if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. The hammer is conventional, limited natural resource-based energy solutions. The nail is our rapacious and wasteful percieved need for such gratuitous energy and resource consumption.

    http://www.adbusters.org/home/

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