Human Extinction Within 100 Years Warns Scientist

[hatrack]

"A top New Zealand researcher is using a prestigious award ceremony in Christchurch to warn that humans face extinction by the end of the century.

Professor Peter Barrett will be presented with the Marsden Medal tonight for his 40-year contribution to Antarctic research, latterly focusing on climate change.

The director of Victoria University's Antarctic Research Centre expects to use his acceptance speech to warn climate change was a major threat to the planet.

"After 40 years, I'm part of a huge community of scientists who have become alarmed with our discovery, that we know from our knowledge of the ancient past, that if we continue our present growth path, we are facing extinction," Barrett said. "Not in millions of years, or even millennia, but by the end of this century." Barrett won the award – designed to mark lifetime achievement in the sciences – for his research into Antarctica, which began with helping prove New Zealand was once part of the Gondwanaland supercontinent."

EDIT

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3099128a10,00.html

[eleonora]

1. "we'll all be dead by then anyway"

Didn't I hear something along these lines out of somebody's mouth we all know?

[On the Road]

13. Oh Grandchildren? You're on Your Own

Bye.

[Javaman]

Party like it's 2099! oh yeah!

[damntexdem]

46. And besides, all the good people will have ...

raptured out by then.


Well, I hope they hurry up -- then maybe the rest of us can get to work on saving the environment.

[Delphinus]

72. Amen, damntexdem!

That's exactly what I've been saying to friends for a long time. Let them get raptured so we can get about some real business.

[pretzel4gore]

77. if they believe in God the creator

how in hell can they possibly believe God isn't concerned with creation?...even the bible tells them 'not even a lil sparrow...' etc falls from the sky w/out God noticing; yet these moral tapeworms assume they only ones that matter!!(?) ...wonder what God say to the assholes when they show up in a mob at the Pearly Gates?

[indigobusiness]

115. Their hellish view of heaven is scary enough for me...

nevermind their portrait of God.

[RyomaSakamoto]

60. no wonder PNAC is only focused on the next 100 years

instead of the next millennium like most imperial megalomaniacs :evilgrin:

[struggle4progress]

71. They're really only care about the next decade or so. Long enough ...

... for them to have really cozy retirements.

[RebelOne]

91. But actually, that was my exact thought.

All of us will certainly be dead by then. And sorry, grandkids and great grandkids, you are on your own. I won't be around to help you clean up the mess (that is, if there is anything left to clean up).

[prayin4rain]

2. Excellent.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

3. It doesn't matter. The Rapture is coming soon.

[Ilsa]

10. Wouldn't that be great?

If all the fundies left, and some of the religious group kills off other extremists, Earth might actually be a nice place to live.

[colonel odis]

21. i've always thought when the rapture comes the fundies will still be here.

n/t

[bloom]

65. I'm afraid you are right...eom

[distantearlywarning]

73. And it certainly won't be broadcast by mainstream media n/t

[Turbineguy]

47. Then we can take

all the loot the fundies left in this earthly vale of tears and apply it to the National Debt.

This might just work!

[mulethree]

89. Its been coming soon every year for the last 1900 years :/

[davekriss]

93. Sometimes I think...

...the Rapture has already happened and we are the left behind.

[amber dog democrat]

4. and it can't be a moment too soon.

Give what is left of the eco system a chance to recover.
I don't doubt it. Read Oryx & Crake by Margaret Attwood.

[htuttle]

5. "Fellow dinosaurs, I would like to address the ridiculous notion..."

"...of our impending extinction."


Anyone else remember a William S Burroughs piece that started like that?

[SaintLouisBlues]

15. No, but I remember The Far Side

where one dinosaur is addressing a room full of dinosaurs

" The pictures pretty bleak gentlemen...The world's climates are changing, the mammals are taking over, and we all have a brain about the size of a walnut."

[CrispyQ]

36. I love The Far Side!

I remember that one.

The current one could be a room of scientists w/one at the podium stating: "The picture's pretty bleak. The world's climate is changing, the neo-cons are taking over & their functioning brain capacity is the size of a walnut."

[indigobusiness]

54. What is the timetable for Neocon extinction...?

I want to make a note of that.

[CrispyQ]

114. Not soon enough! eom

[stlsaxman]

80. Another fitting Far Side cartoon...

The close-up of a single-cell organism wearing a ten-gallon hat, a vest, chaps and holding a lasso saying-

"So 'til next week- adios amoebas!"

edited for spelling

[aquart]

6. Probably just as well.

[Forkboy]

45. You are the winner!!!

My sentiments exactly!

[central scrutinizer]

7. in that case

I guess I will have another beer and a round for the house.

[eataTREE]

8. Last call, lads.

(n/t)

[PhuLoi]

39. Would it help if I put a bag over my head? n/t

[eataTREE]

44. If you like.

[LifeDuringWartime]

78. and dont forget your towel

[indigobusiness]

116. Putting (n/t) in the message body...

doesn't help much.

[Beetwasher]

9. Live Life To The Fullest Now!

Personally, I think many of us will be lucky to get throught the next four years...I'm not kidding...

[ogradda]

19. i didn't think you were kidding.

eom.

[Karenina]

52. Nor does Helen Caldicott.

[indigobusiness]

31. I hear you...loud and clear. Before long, anyone left alive will wish

they were dead.

A goodly number do already.

[Chimpanzee]

51. I wonder what state dubya will pick for his mass graves?

Somewhere up in the mountains I'm sure

[DELUSIONAL]

35. That's what I'm thinking

I also doubt that bush will be gone in four years. He's found a job where he really doesn't have to do much -- he can be on vacation almost half the time. He just has to "give orders"

The only hope is that the current fraud can be exposed -- and that the citizens of this nation will care enough to do something. I was holding back on donating to candidates -- because I had a feeling that the post election mess would cost a whole lot more money and this is where the call for donations would be frantic.

But at what point do we cross the point of no return (regarding the environment and extinction of the human race)? It may not matter who is in office at this point -- we may have crossed the point of no return only no one niticed.

[Dem2theMax]

101. Nope, didn't think you were kidding for even one second.

Sadly.

[ramapo]

11. I though I was a pessimist

Sorry kids that we fucked things up so badly in just a handful of decades.

[dethl]

14. We kids won't go down without a fight!

Unless its nuclear/biological/anti-matter holocaust(Yes, military is developing anti-matter weapons...very scary), the younger generations will find a way to live on, I hope.

[Huckebein the Raven]

12. Smoke 'em if you got 'em

I know I am

[one_true_leroy]

16. Gaia rejoices.

[Native]

24. With a vengeance!

[midnight armadillo]

17. I doubt it...

Seriously, we survived the Ice Age. The Earth's climates are quite varied, even with global warming, and it's doubtful that the most adaptable animal the world has ever seen, bar none, will go extinct anytime soon.

[Beetwasher]

18. I Too Doubt Complete Extinction, A Very Serious "Thinning" However

Is another story...I'm glad I don't have any children...

[gulfcoastliberal]

38. I agree

I'll never have kids in this fucked-up world - which is now probably beyond repair. Even if we started a massive clean-energy project immediately, it's still too late. We've set in motion something we are powerless to stop. I feel bad for all you parents and grandparents out there though.

Time for a bong hit and some Halo2 after reading this post.

[mom cat]

68. My only child told me 20 years ago that she was never going to

bring any children into this world. I knew by then that she was right. I just feel deeply sorry for her and the devistation she will face.

[jmcgowanjm]

88. Central Limit Theorem

the logistic curve.



The Multi-Hubbert model is the best model for studying
the evolution over time of production activity (human or
other physical activity) being the sum of a large number
of independent events, absent significant constraints
from economics or regulation. It is simple and up to now I
have not found any event which cannot be modeled with
Hubbert cycles.

http://www.oilcrisis.com/laherrere/multihub.htm

1900 approximately 1.25 billion people
2050 ?

[oscar111]

95. are u saying popula. will not reach zero? Doesnt curve assume substrate of

the dependent variable stays intact and functions normally?

I agree with the idea warming will kill all humans, mainly thru the end of food crops. No cell can live in temps over 140 degrees, i have read. {tho spores and semilife such as prions might. Yet even they have temp limits.}

As the substrate, earth , warms ovr that temp in even deepest ocean and highest mount and thinnest air, no spore of life would keep on keeping on.

Tho i just now realized .. if GWARMING is due to human actions and humans mostly disappear, then possibly the warming would back off. But living thru that would be harrowing.

[jmcgowanjm]

113. Now you're moving into chaos theory, oscar111

Chaos theory and moving to zero. Accordingly,
any system moves gradually between attractors
only up to a certain point, at which time there is a
bifurcation, a move to a new steady state (there is
no reversal).

It's very hard to get to a zero state w/ anything.
Thus you see figures like 97.8, 98.6, or 99.57.
The difference between these #'s and 100% is
chaos.


When Klein returned in summer 1966, he, another biologist
and a botanist found the island covered with skeletons.
They counted only 42 live reindeer, no fawns, 41 females
and one male with abnormal antlers that probably wasn't able
to reproduce. During a few months, the reindeer population
had dropped by 99 percent

http://www.kenai-peninsula.org/archives/000033.html

[Lorien]

28. Without oxygen?

the world's oceans provide 65% of our oxygen, and the huge dead zones (NOTHING living) are growing fast. Couple that with deforestation, and the face of earth will soon look like Mars.

What species live on Mars? None. Life won't "go on" on planet earth.

[Candide]

61. Not us, but

intelligent life will likely continue without oxy by then
read Spiritual Machines, Ray Kurzweil

[gottaB]

67. I agree, mass extinction and the collapse of civilization as we know it

are seperate phenomena and should not be conflated.

On the other hand, there's a case to be made that people generally don't feel much affinity for their contemporaries, much less the bands of hominids that straggled through the Pleistocene. If there were a strong sense of "we" connecting us, then Kyoto would not be an issue.

I'm reminded of that bit in My Dinner with Andre where Wallace Shawn insists that he doesn't want to live without his electric blanket. That's not reality?

[mom cat]

70. Which animal are you talking about..the cockroach.

Frankly, I don't think that human's deserve to survive after all of the damage that we have done.

[pompano]

117. I can't even...

...swim in a backyard pool for more than a hour without wrinkeling like a prune...am I to be expected to dog paddle through an IceAge?

[phantom power]

20. I think "extinction" is an unlikely outcome

I don't think it's far-fetched to imagine a major die-off, from any number of causes, but that's not the same thing as extinction. If we lost 90% of our species, that would still leave 600 million humans. Not long ago, that was the total human population.

[slowroll]

26. Man, I could go for that.

Real estate prices are getting ridiculous.

[yardwork]

98. Several times, according to genetic research, humans have come close

to extinction. That's why our DNA is so similar to one another's. It makes the arguments over "race" even more laughable (if the results weren't so tragic). Every living human is closely related to one another. We are all descended from a very small population that survived previous disasters.

We'll probably survive another one, but in greatly reduced numbers. Bummer.

[Minstrel Boy]

22. Venus looks pretty, but I wouldn't want to live there.

It's a shame about my grandchildren, though.

[fujiyama]

118. Those pictures are really cool

Where did you get them?

[indigobusiness]

23. He seems wildly optimistic...

but then, so is George.

[Gregorian]

25. GREAT! Best news I've heard in years.

No more politics. No more headaches. No more breeders. No more republicans. YAY!

:)

In the meantime, can we get some sanity down here?! God? Please? Now?

[Native]

27. Population experts have known this for years...

the operative words here are "if we continue our present growth path." A little thing called birth control corrects this!

[neonplaque]

29. Logan's Run? :) n/t

[Lorien]

30. ZPG worked for a short time in the 70s

but it's "unfashionable" now. We've become consumers, not citizens.

[TO Kid]

40. Those "experts" also knew...

That there would be famine in the USA by the late 1980s, that India would never feed itself and air pollution would bring on and ice age.

[Old and In the Way]

49. And Orwell predicted 2004 in 1984...........

he was only 20 years off.

[Endangered Specie]

32. Thats what happens when you fuck with mother nature.

[Chimpanzee]

53. remember that commercial - I think it was for butter

"It's not nice to fuck with mother nature!"

[tblue37]

109. It was for Parkay margarine.

Mother Nature thought it was her rich, creamy butter. the margarine tub sid, "Parkay." She gets ticked because she was fooled and brings on the storms.

[VaLabor]

33. The Red State Response

If we're all extinct, at least gay people won't be able to marry.

[Endangered Specie]

34. ah! lol!

[GOPBasher]

41. LOL

[Daisey Mae]

37. OOPS

This is no surprise.....

[Old Mouse]

42. The change is here now

Devastating Atlantic hurricanes, a record number of Pacific typhoons, European heatwaves and floods that already have killed tens of thousands, paralyzing ice storms throughout the north and tornados of fire raging up and down the California coast.

The only trend that has inarguably emerged as we measure the climate change is that our scientific conclusions must be continually adjusted to be more dire. The change is happening at a pace faster than our ability to monitor. Better grow some gills.

[Robert Oak]

43. don't worry

Bush administration will just hire some focus groups and rename
the impeding world wide extinction to something that sounds nice,

like "world restructuring" and then continue on it's merry way.

[bloom]

66. LOL - that's right!

[Emillereid]

48. Anyone have any idea where the most habitable place on the planet

might be as the earth finally shakes off this bad experiment called the human race. East coast of Africa? South America? So-called civilization will be toast -- let's hope those that survive will figure out a way to build societies without war and greed and profit. Maybe we should leave them a time capsule explaining to them the consequences of capitalism and corporatism -- and that they are not ever, ever trust anyone whose name is Bush. Bush is the antichrist!

Anyone read the book "Boiling Point" by Gelbspan??

[indigobusiness]

57. Area 51...but I get the Sports Model.

I agree...and will read that book. Thanks.

[Lizzie Borden]

50. This may not be a bad thing...

I actually believe it might save the planet which is not really ours to wreck. Many other species live here.

[jmcgowanjm]

87. how many creatures will be alive

In 100 years something will be alive.

I look forward to helping as many creatures as possible.

If whales are still here, I would consider that hopeful.

[Chimpanzee]

55. Move along...

"these are not the droids you're looking for"

"pay no attention to the man behind that curtain"

[Emboldened Chimp]

56. Well, smoke 'em if you got 'em...

:smoke:

[CabalPowered]

58. Chomsky puts our chances at 1:2

in his latest, Hegemony or Survival.

Good time to invest in some land with geothermal...

[ingasm]

59. My grandchildren will get p33n3d

Anyone ever seen "Wallace and Gromit: A Grand Day Out"? Hopefully, the moon really is made of cheese.

[shockra]

62. I don't doubt this for a minute

I've lived in Anchorage, AK for 40 years, and for most of my life a "warm summer day" was in the low 70's. In the last decade it's been creeping up and this past summer we had many days in the mid-80's! It was so hot and humid it felt like freakin' Hawaii. Scares me to death.

Yet the local news did stories about the outdoor food market and "how great the hot weather is for business." Showing off how large the fruits and vegetables were and the bumper crops. Yeah, just wonderful. And the local ice cream parlor made beaucoup bucks too. To their credit a local news station had a serious story about global warming about a month ago, but it's not pushing that kind of news nearly enough for me.

Now we've got Lisa Murkowski in the Senate who is toeing the Republican party line that there is no such thing as global warming. Goddamnit. My whole family worked hard for Tony Knowles, but when Lisa started showing commercials of herself with Laura Bush singing her praises, and others with Senator Ted Stevens threatening that he would lose his job(!) if Lisa wasn't "re-elected" (she was appointed by her father, the governor, to his vacated Senate seat) I knew we were cooked. Literally. The damn repubs just salivate over stuff like that and showed up at the polls for her, even though Knowles was ahead in *every* poll before the election.

The winters started getting freaky about ten years ago. I remember one where by January all we had was a light dusting of snow on the ground. Unheard of. It starts snowing here in mid-October, or earlier, and we've got *feet* of snow on the ground by January, normally. People don't mind mild winters all that much, but the Hawaiian summers are way too damn scary. I'm sure glad I didn't have kids. I'm worried enough that my generation is going to be one of the last.

[KitSileya]

111. Yeah, and here in Bergen, Norway, we can expect more rain.

Apparently, it'll rain about 20% more in the years to come, and living in a city where it rains on average 255 out of evey 365 days, it's not as if we aren't wet enough. We have lots of mountains, so we won't drown, but there's a lot more rock avalanches (gah, can't remember the scientific word) slide outs.


But the winters are getting much much colder as well, which is a sign that the Gulf Stream isn't as effective. Before, it kept Bergen above freezing most of the year, and it snowed only a couple days every winter, but now we have 2-3 week long stretches with snow. In fact, it's snowing outside as I speak, something nearly unheard of before the end of the millennium. But it's got to do with the Arctic thawing, which is disrupting the process that has been keeping much of the world alive for ages. I think you can count on having extreme weather along the Antarctic Coast - both sides. More storms, more hurricanes, more everything. And that will pretty much make it difficult to survive, even if the summers get hotter and food production gets easier.

[Zorra]

63. Too bad, suckers! I'll be taken up into the sky in the Great Rupture!

Yes indeedy do, that's what my bible tells me, although of course I cain't read so good. Wait...I hear..., why, it sounds like....!!!*banjo music*!!!:D ...dow dow dow dow dow dow dow dow dow....why, praise the Lawd, Deliverance is here!

Pass me the jug and the snake, brother Otis, I'm bein'Ruptured!

[NashVegas]

74. No No No We'll Have Colonized Mars!

Why do you think they're spending so much money on it?

[blackhorse]

97. So we can

destroy another world? Sounds like the human way, doesn't it?

Cheers

[VegasWolf]

86. If there really were a rapture, I'd be standing firmly on the

ground and waving bye-bye to awol, rummy, falwell, and
all the others of that ilk.

[JoFerret]

64. Could we arrange

for the immediate rapture of BushCo and give the rest of us a chance for a few more years?

[fedsron2us]

69. We won't be missed

[420inTN]

75. Sounds good to me. n/t

[Nikia]

76. I think one of a couple things will prevent that

The nice option is that we take the damage that we're doing to the environment seriously now. We make this our number one goal. Unfortunately, the global capitalist machine doesn't seem to be too intersted in doing this anytime soon and will probably resist as everything falls around them.
The not so nice option is that civilization collapses and most of us are forced to abandon our factories and our fuel burning vehicles. There will be a major die off in the mean time. At this point, the damage that we are doing to the planet will be slowed enough to allow the planet to recover. Humanity will start again as pre techical, perhaps so much that the past world will be remembered only as mythology that sensible people don't believe. Perhaps this has already happened in the past.
There could be other options somewhere between the extremes. Our world and our society will change though. Our world cannot substain uncontrolled global capitalism for much longer.

[RumpusCat]

79. "How To Survive the End of the Universe"

... interestingly, the title of an article in the Discover magazine I just recieved.

If there are any good tips I'll pass them along, lol.

[kohodog]

83. The universe will be fine

It's just that earth is turning into Venus.

[JohnOneillsMemory]

99. Dig Mose Allison's groovy song 'Since the World Ended'

Jazzy pianist and lyricist.

"Since the world ended, I don't get around much anymore."

"I'm just as glad the world ended, it wasn't working out anyway."

[VegasWolf]

81. Look on the bright side; there won't be any gay weddings then.

[kohodog]

82. And no welfare freeloaders!

[mtnester]

84. 2013

look it up, draw your own conclusions
:shrug:

[indepat]

85. Who care what scientists think anyway? It's on with the agenda, damn

the torpedoes, full speed ahead.

[livinginphotographs]

90. Eh, good riddance.

Sorry, I'm in kind of a bitter mood tonight.

[restorefreedom]

92. yeah, so?

At least the other creatures might have some peace for a change.

"If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever." -- George Orwell

[nmvisitor]

94. End of the entire species?

Complete end of the species within 100 years? I don't think so.

End of all civilization and a 99.9% reduction in the human population of the planet? Well, now that is a definite possiblity.

[Thurston Howell IV]

96. The guy's an optimist

I think we're done for before then. But my predictive ability isn't so hot -- I thought Kerry would win with over 300 EVs.

[Xithras]

100. NEVER. GONNA. HAPPEN.

Species are biologically viable down to a few thousand reproductive members (possibly even lower, but deformities caused by inbreeding becomes an issue with fewer than that).

There are 6.4 BILLION humans on the Earth. Even if you eliminate 99.99% of the humans on Earth, you're left with more than a half million of us...more than enough to repopulate the entire planet within a few thousand years.

As for those predicting an end of oxygen or a 140 degree planet...we'll, it just isn't going to happen. The oceans are the great moderator, and they prevent our planet from getting that hot. If the average temp gets too high, oceanic evaporation will cause a cloud blanket over the planet, cooling it and preventing it from warming further. The northern climes will see another ice age and the rest of the planet will become tropical rain forest, but our species has survived ice ages before and half the population on Earth today lives in the tropics, so the weather won't kill us.

In reality, the human species is so pervasive and so adaptable that only four things could lead to our extinction: 1) A lethal pathogen could wipe us out 2) Full nuclear winter, caused by war or an asteroid strike 3) Our sun FUBARing and causing us to cook or freeze (astronomical observation suggest that it CAN happen) 4) Nearby supernova or gamma ray burst sterilizes the planet.

We can survive everything else.

[Invalence1]

104. Whatchu mean WE......? :-} eom

/irony off/

[Swamp Rat]

102. Nope, were done for in 2012.

Toutatis

[grasswire]

103. so long then.......

....and thanks for all the fish.

[Invalence1]

105. Damn! What to pack?

Towel? Knife and a rope? Towel? Knife and a rope?

[hyphenate]

106. I don't doubt it at all

The way we're going, the only things left will be the cockroaches and the ants. Perhaps an insectoid race will be the one to meet the other races in the galaxy someday.

Obviously Klaatu's race was right--we are WAY too immature to be included in any kind of unified galactic group. Indeed, many SF writers have made the case for Earth being barely a backwater planet on the edge of nowhere.

So, what's it going to be: Blade Runner, Soylent Green or even the Omega Man (the latter two ironically starring Charleton Heston), ora Star Trek inspired future? Perhaps a Damnation Alley, Terminator or Alien future? I don't hold out too much faith in us being anything more than a failed civilization at the rate we're going.

[Hekate]

107. Hale-Bopp is returning? Seriously, folks...

Seriously, this is theoretically possible, and it is true we are in deep shit on this planet, and most of said shit is of our own making -- but I can't live my life believing it's really all over for the human race. I had a friend who got so caught up in that kind of thinking she killed herself last year. I refuse. Besides, my first grandchild was born last week and I have to keep trying to make this work for his sake.

I have been wondering for awhile, though, if/when Gaia is going to completely lose patience with Her most wayward children and tell us to clean up our mess or face the consequences. In her own language of ecology, she actually has been telling us for close to a century -- and the consequences are all around us in the form of overpopulation, global warming, skyrocketing cancer rates, and burgeoning childhood asthma and autism rates.

A lot of individuals understand what needs to be done, but I sometimes think we are not very bright as a species.

Hekate

[JI7]

108. not an enitrely bad thing

[phasev]

110. 2012

99.9999% of us will be wiped out by 2012

[ElsewheresDaughter]

112. with 15 years Americans will start dieing by the MILLIONS from starvation

due to lack of oil that fuels huge agri buisness...read The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight" by thom hartmann