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Original poster

Is the planet doomed?

23 replies

trying2bgood · 06/02/2006 20:18

Hello, sorry about the thread name! I was reading about a well known scientist who now believes the planet is f88ked! Nothing we do will now prevent sea levels rising etc etc. What do you think and are you doing anything to be more earth friendly? I am now trying to be more green myself(hence the nickname) so any tips will be welcome!

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SleepyJess · 06/02/2006 20:23

Hi Try2good.. try reading The Last Years Of Anicent Sunlight by Thom Hartman. Here His view is much the same as you describe.. but the book includes how we could (if enough people cared enough), drag ourselved back from the brink.

Original poster
trying2bgood · 06/02/2006 20:25

will do! I find it all so scary and for me it puts this cartoon stuff in prospective!

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kittyfish · 06/02/2006 20:26

The planet is doomed because of the cartoon. World in meltdown...

Original poster
trying2bgood · 06/02/2006 20:27

kitty - i guess when the lights go out at least we can all find out who was right on the god front!!!

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Original poster
trying2bgood · 06/02/2006 20:29

on a more positive note, if we all turn our lights off and relax perhaps we can prevent a meltdown....

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Spidermama · 06/02/2006 20:30

Or not, depending on where you stand.

Original poster
trying2bgood · 06/02/2006 20:32

Does anyone know how to build a boat?

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SleepyJess · 06/02/2006 20:35

No point in building a boat.. it will more a case of everything icing over. The change in the gulf stream will apparently cause an envionmental 'flip'.. so it will be like the film 'Day after tomorrow' almost overnight.

That film was apparently not more prophetic then fiction..

SleepyJess · 06/02/2006 20:36

Have a look here ...

SleepyJess · 06/02/2006 20:43

Have you all gone off to slit your wrists now..?

bran · 06/02/2006 20:45

I strongly suspect that as conditions worsen it will just be more of what we have now - rich nations adapting to the changing conditions while citizens of poor nations die in their millions. The planet itself will be fine, it'll be here until the sun goes supernova, there have been swings in temperature before and the Earth has recovered, although there were mass extinctions involved. The question is whether the human race and enough other species will survive. I'm actually a bit of an optomist about the future, in that I think the human race will survive but be drastically reduced as less of the planet will be habitable.

Didn't the Astronomer Royal write a book about how humans wouldn't be around in another millenium? There are so many other things that could go wrong besides global warming, life is actually quite tenuous when you think about it, eg asteroid strikes, viral pandemics etc.

Original poster
trying2bgood · 06/02/2006 20:47

sleepy jess - nope am fairly optimistic that things will improve if we all try just a little bit..............

was off making a cup of tea, need to do some studying!!!! Also sent an email to my local councillor, I do that a lot, they hate me!!!!!!

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Original poster
trying2bgood · 06/02/2006 20:48

bran - you are right, it is scary when you think about all the things that can go wrong!!!

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SleepyJess · 06/02/2006 20:51

trying2bgood, lol.. you are another one like me!

Bran yes I agree.. I have read from a lot of differing sources that the planet WILL survive.. (which kind of brings in the Gaia aspect.. which interests me as well) but that, in some fashion or another, the human species will be drastically fewer in millenia to come.. but that they will all be a helluva lot happier and more enlightened!

So good oh!

SleepyJess · 06/02/2006 20:52

And T2bG, yes everyone trying just a bit is really all it would take..

Original poster
trying2bgood · 06/02/2006 20:53

Perhaps we will all ascend and be all knowing..... sorry my love of stargate made me post that!!

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SleepyJess · 06/02/2006 21:00

Perhaps we will indeed. If you read enough of the kind of stuff I have spent the last few years reading, you will keep finding that stuff from the like of Stargate, Startrek etc does not start to sound so much like science fiction!

bran · 06/02/2006 21:21

I've heard a couple of theories about why the human population will fall in the future regardless of global disasters. Generally as a nation gets richer and more developed the population have fewer children for lots of reasons (don't need children as a pension plan, lower infant mortality so don't need to give birth to lots of children, better careers for women etc). This effect is now starting to spread to nations that are still developing (like India), and will possibly be worldwide within a couple of generations.

The one that really appeals to me in a perverse sort of way (do all sci-fi lovers like a good disaster theory?) is that our own technological development will bring down the human race in an unforseeable manner. For instance some plastics can leach an estrogenic (sp?) type substance into food or liquid and this can cause a reduction in sperm counts and lead to male infertility. So the human race will simply fade away, like that sci-fi book (Martian Chronicles???).

Mercy · 06/02/2006 21:24

dh is alawys banging on about this. he recommends 'Small is beautiful' by E FSchumacher as esssential reading

Mercy · 06/02/2006 21:25

not a Sf but a serious enviromental/economics book

SleepyJess · 06/02/2006 21:30

Will look it up Mercy. Tell DH thanks

Mercy · 06/02/2006 21:37

Sleepyjess, I believe it was written in the 1970's but it's still regarded as a classic of its genre

Original poster
trying2bgood · 06/02/2006 21:43

looks like a lot of reading for us all!

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