Human extinction within 100 years warns scientist

[indigobusiness]

Human extinction within 100 years warns scientist

WEDNESDAY, 17 NOVEMBER 2004

By JOHN HENZELL
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.

snip

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/print/0%2C1478%2C3099128a10%2C00.html

[whistle]

1. Actually the fundies believe this will happen in 2012

[DieboldMustDie]

13. With President Dumb-ass running the country...

I'm not so sure we're going to make it to '08. :shrug:

[ixion]

19. actually, more than just the fundies

this number is tossed around as the zero year by several sects, and at least two ancient civilizations (Egyptians and Mayans, for starters).

Whether that comes true or not remains to be seen, of course. ;-)

[Undercover Owl]

21. no, no

The Mayan calendar predicts that "time as we know it" will come to an end in 2012.

The fundies were left high & dry in January 1, 2000, remember?
So they think! Actually, Satan (in the form of W. Bush) is here in the flesh, counting the days until armageddon.

[Eloriel]

30. Where'd they get the date?

I've never heard that they had a date.

[Fridays Child]

2. Republicans will be fine because nothing can kill off the world's...

...cockroach population.

[Maple]

3. Don't get too upset

I've lived through the 'end of the world' several times now. You get used to it after awhile.

[pocoloco]

4. Nope, no problem.

By the way who was that other crazy dude, Malthus?

[indigobusiness]

6. How about Bill Joy? Is he crazy, too?

He gives us 50 years.

[Maple]

9. Gloom and doomers

are everywhere. It gets attention and grants.

I agree that we should work to clean up and preserve the environment, but running around like Chicken Little all the time saying 'the sky is falling' just means that people tune you out.

The average person can't do much about an international problem, and Bush is in for another 4 years, so it's either suicide, or ignore it.

The world has been going to end every year that I can remember, and I'm pushing 60, and most of the problems that were going to cause it have disappeared.

The last thing people need right now is more scare tactics, or fear over something they have no control over.

Practical local action plans would be much more useful.

[indigobusiness]

10. These are no gloom and doomers. That's grossly unfair.

The last thing people need is to put their head in the sand.

Have a look before you judge.

This isn't about manipulating emotions.

[pocoloco]

11. The world ain't gonna end

but things are gonna get really tough. The world population has doubled in our lifetime from 3 to 6 billion and will double again in 30 years. Big problem even without figuring in climate change. Go figure!

[indigobusiness]

12. Who said it was?

Do you realize how close humans came to going extinct not all that long ago, relatively? Technology won't save us.

edit- The increased population during good times is no argument for the reverse. In fact, the potential for famine is just exacerbated.

[Maple]

14. Well by now

I shouldn't even be able to move for all the people in the world.

One square foot per person by the 1980's I think it was said.

If we weren't nuked by the USSR, or choked to death by increasing factory smoke.

Club of Rome, top scientists agreed things were ending. I believe another ice age got tossed in there somewhere. And several economic crashes.

People swore off having children, not wanting to bring them into such a world. Some headed for the hills...survivalists.

Y2K was child's play compared to all that.

And yet...here we still are.

[indigobusiness]

15. We haven't seen anything yet.

We are way too smug in our spoiled notions of plenty.

[Maple]

16. They said that

every time too.

There is nothing wrong with 'plenty'...stop feeling guilty for it, and expecting the gods to strike you down.

Just work towards others having it too, in a sustainable environment.

[indigobusiness]

17. Who is they? Ignore these 'theys'

pay attention to facts.

[Maple]

18. 'They'

Scientists, pundits, tv commentators, various 'concerned' groups, spokespeople, documentaries, politicians, society in general...you know very well who 'they' are. Same bunch hollering now.

And they all had 'facts' too.

And yet...here we all still are.

The sky is NOT falling.

We did NOT 'nearly go extinct'

Nor are we likely to.

And why you like scaring yourself and others with these scenarios I don't know, but 50 years from now, you'll be on Mars or somewhere, and will have forgotten all about it.

[indigobusiness]

23. Shows how much you know

You only listen to what you want to hear. Try considering ALL the pertinent facts.

If you bother to look at the real data, you will discover that humans went through a "bottleneck" and very nearly went extinct. Population was reduced to perhaps as few as 10,000 individuals.

You know very little about this topic. You should listen and not talk. You would learn more.

[leveymg]

46. Human Population Bottleneck to 10,000? When? Source?

Haven't seen that before. Couldn't let that one go, Indigobusiness.

That would mean we humans have an awfully small gene pool - inbreeding could account for some of Shrub's clubfoot in mouth deformities. Yes, he's human - sort of. Maybe a genetic reversion - that happens.

- Mark

[indigobusiness]

48. Learn to google.------------here: Population bottleneck

Humans

DNA evidence suggests that humans today are a legacy of a population bottleneck which occurred 70,000 years ago. This would have had the result of limiting the overall level of genetic diversity in the human species, possibly by a large amount. One theory about this bottleneck is the Toba catastrophe theory, positing that the human population was reduced to a few thousand individuals when the Toba supervolcano in Indonesia erupted and triggered a massive environmental change.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_bottleneck



Population Bottlenecks and Volcanic Winter

The "Weak Garden of Eden" model for the origin and dispersal of modern humans posits a spread around 100,000 years ago followed by population bottlenecks. Then, around 50,000 years ago, a dramatic growth occurred in genetically isolated, small populations. In a 1998 article, Stanley Ambrose proposed an alternative hypothesis, a volcanic winter scenario, to explain recent human differenciation. The bottleneck was caused by a volcanic winter resulting from the super-eruption of Toba in Sumatra. If Ambrose's hypothesis is correct, modern human variations differentiated abruptly through founder effect, genetic drift, and adaptation to local environments after around 70,000 years ago.

Ambrose points out that the Out of Africa dispersal date of around 100,000 years ago fits the generally warm, humid last interglacial period, 130 -74,000 years ago. An impressive body of paleontological evidence shows an Afro-Arabian biotic community expanded northward during this period. Several such multi-species dispersals out of Africa have occurred during previous interglacial phases. He considers the variants of the Replacement model to be more accurate and realistic than the Multiregional models.

The number of DNA mutations within a population increases temporally. When a population has passed through a bottleneck, the mutation distribution evidences the bottleneck. DNA studies have identified a significant bottleneck (or bottlenecks) during the last glacial period.

The Multiple Dispersals model proposes a population bottleneck occurred when cold, dry climates isolated populations in Africa. Additional bottlenecks occurred through physical bottlenecks such as the Sinai Peninsula. The first dispersal of anatomically modern humans, to the Levant around 100,000 year ago, is evidenced by early modern human skeletons in the Near East. According to Ambrose, this first dispersal apparently failed to permanently establish modern humans outside of Africa. Genetic evidence shows that non-African populations can be divided into southern Australasian and northern Eurasian populations that divided 50-75,000 years ago.

snip

http://www.jqjacobs.net/anthro/paleo/bottleneck.html

Human Evolution

The New Batch - 150,000 Years

How did we escape extinction?
What makes us so special?
How we colonised the world
With just over 6 billion people living in the world today, human beings are a phenomenally successful animal. But our species, Homo sapiens, once came close to outright extinction.

Social networks spread the risk of survival during the bottleneck
Clues from genetics, archaeology and geology suggest our ancestors were nearly wiped out by one or more environmental catastrophes in the Late Pleistocene period. At one point, the numbers of modern humans living in the world may have dwindled to as few as 10,000 people.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/cavemen/chronology/contentpage6.shtml

[Undercover Owl]

22. yes

it is true that the 1980's had a lot of hysterical people exaggerating about the nuclear situation, and maybe that's why the Global Warming issue was so pooh-pooed.

I remember hearing several people doubt Global Warming in the early 90s. The doubters have decreased only slightly since then, which tells you a lot about human nature, people not wanting to change their minds.

[indigobusiness]

24. Nobody exaggerrated the potential

And there were a couple of times when we were very close to annihilation.

The Cuban Missle Crisis was real. And the missles were armed and readied under a false alarm, at least once under Nixon. If the potential threat were realized, it would have been as bad as feared. Just because we dodged a bullet, doesn't alter the potential.

The toxic effects from nuclear waste are only beginning to be realized.

[Overseas]

26. Most of the problems have disappeared ????

I am also over 40 and have been flabbergasted by ecological realities pushed aside and conservation trends being urged on us in the 70's being slowly reversed by expert PR campaigns and "free market" ideologies that push consequences off to the future for others to solve.

GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE proceeds and accelerates, but the 0.05% of scientists who disagree with the well documented warnings are given equal time on our media to "balance" their coverage, so folks can cling to the "golly, it is just a theory," concept.

GLOBAL OIL SUPPLIES are limited and we need oil to help us make the transition to more alternative energy sources and keep other products we rely upon, and yet, tax DEDUCTIONS are given for gas guzzling SUVs. When we should be paying more taxes for cars that get less mileage per gallon.

TROPICAL FORESTS are still being destroyed at a rapid clip, and whereas we were concerned about avoiding the use of tropical hardwoods, they are now back in vogue and chic youngsters seek them out for home furnishings and the like.

SOME POLLUTION REDUCTIONS have been achieved but a certain president is trying to push "Friendly Skies" upon us-- friendly enough to let up on those bothersome pollution controls.

Just because lots of money, time and attention has been put into debunking bothersome ecological problems doesn't mean they no longer exist.

[indigobusiness]

29. Those crazy Canadians!

They're all blissed out in their snowbunny world. Don't want to see the big picture.

Wait 'til the bacon runs out...


BTW Welcome to DU, Overseas.

[indigobusiness]

5. It's the creeping degredation

that pisses me off.

[Tace]

7. Those Silly Reality-Based People!

Where do these scientologists get off trying to scare us? It's a nefarious plot to turn our daughters into lesbians and our sons into hairdressers. Satanists I tell you!

[indigobusiness]

8. Oh? It's L. Ron Hubbard...

...my bad.

[Freebird12004]

20. Live Like You Were Dying

and enjoy everyday as the true gift that it is ! O8)

[indigobusiness]

25. It's not about individuals worrying about dying.

Everybody dies eventually, it can happen to anyone at any time. People die everyday. It's about an attitude of responsibility toward our stewardship of this planet. And not wasting time arguing petty facts and postions.

[Chalco]

27. I agree with indigobusiness

Global warming is a serious threat. The first thing I thought of when I saw the headline was "OMG my daughter will be part of the human extinction." This is no small matter. Maybe its not within this century but all scientific indications are that global warming is warming up the planet faster than previously predicted. This is not ok. It is selfish to think "Oh well, we're all going to die sometime. WTF."

[indigobusiness]

28. Thank you for that. It's the height of selfishness

to fiddle while Rome burns.

[whirlygigspin]

31. it's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine

maybe the 2012 date indicates when they finally figure out how to count votes.

that be a world changing event.

[indigobusiness]

32. I feel like hell.

But, I'm fine with that.

[indigobusiness]

33. Maybe an accurate vote count in 2012

will trigger The Rapture?

[Freebird12004]

37. and the world would be a better place

if in 2012 we already had the right woman running the oval office

[indigobusiness]

38. Our luck she would be a big-haired, Maggie Thatcher type...

with Bible thumping, bomb throwing, New World Order ways.

[MNBiker]

34. tjat will solve the trade deficite.....

[aloneinva]

35. test

test

[aloneinva]

36. Sorry Didnt Know I was activated!

[indigobusiness]

49. That's ok...SpeaK UP.

Welcome to DU.

[blindpig]

39. I might find that acceptable

as it seems that we are trying mightly to prove that we are an evolutionary dead end. All of the good and beauty that we have created seems more and more to be counter-balanced by the bad, the stupid and greed. Justice like that I can live with. I just find it tragic beyond words that 3,000,000,000 years+ of evolution should be immolated in our swine song. Life on this planet is to beautiful and wonderous to be squandered as an sidebar to our species suicide.

[Nimrod]

40. I'm with you

Seriously. As long as something natural survives us, life will continue - just not ours. And that's probably for the best.

[Vitruvius]

41. :kick: See also related DU thread on runaway greenhouse effect and

possible human extinction, at http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=103&topic_id=92618#

[bunny planet]

42. Between global warming and peak oil , it's going to be a bumpy ride.

physically, economically, and spiritually. Even if the world doesn't 'end'it'll be a changed reality that's for sure.

[LibertyorDeath]

43. What a Great Day for the Planet & all remaining Life with every last

MF one of us Gone.

Can you imagine it.

There's hope for this old World still.

[MasonJar]

44. I know that some of you are just having a bit of fun. That is okay,

but this particular subject is serious business. Just look at the pictures of the Artic 11 years ago and then look at it now. The Artic is ice so when it melt animals will die so will natives and then all that extra water bury countries and states. Coral reefs will die. Al Gore wrote about this years ago, Earth in the Balance, as did Margaret Meade and many others. This is not new; it is just worse. Man probably does not deserve to survive, but the other living creatures and plants should not have to pay for our seemingly boundless greed and self-agrandizement.

[femme.democratique]

45. Not "extinction", just "rapture" *rolling eyes* eom

[genieroze]

47. Who cares, Jesus will save us before then. eom

http://www.theocracywatch.org/

edit added link