Dingo wrote:
Johhny Electriglide wrote:
Do you really think the mostly ignorant and selfish masses are going to learn to live sustainably and reduce emissions enough in time to prevent catastrophic climate change leading to a mass extinction?
Unlikely but why bet to lose? My idea is to arrive at a clear place of sanity, get the word out and then after the next die-off maybe folks will opt for a cultural change. Unlikely but you do what you can do.
As for surviving a 2 deg C rise, 120,000 year ago during the previous interglacial our ancestors did just that, with the oceans being 5 to 10 meters higher than they are now, and we now have more tools. Disaster followed by enlightenment is a long shot but what else is there?
I don't buy that hunter-gatherers-fishermen were also terminally destructive. Our Native American aboriginals were living for the most part quite sustainably as attested to by the European conquerors who saw the New World as a veritable Garden of Eden compared to where they had come from.
Yes, all we can do is try to initiate more change with posts, letters and talk, along with changing our own lives as we would have others do, so we lead instead of just follow. Walk the talk and talk the talk.
Here is a look at 120K yrs. ago;
http://beforeitsnews.com/science-and-te ... 24662.htmlHere is another look at previous temps;
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/ ... frost-meltHunter-gatherers-fishermen, if there is enough predation including diseases, would not rise in population enough to be terminally destructive, but without predators they would rise enough to destroy their ecosystem. Back then, constant fighting was self-predation, also. The first "European Conquerors" were the Solutrians from France 23K yrs ago, followed by other Solutrians or their relatives in successive waves first NE then NW all going south, and some inland, until the ice sheet corridor opened 12K YBP for more inland migrations. Their earlier break-off relatives, who became the Vikings made it to and built a settlement in Canada 999 until being absorbed by the Ojibwa to survive when no relief showed by 1002. Tough winters!
Then the Spanish were the bad ones with conquest of the Americas, followed over a century later by English and Dutch, then French "conquerors". The major deaths of previous conquerors was by the Spanish (partially infested with Arab blood).
Overpopulation drove migrations from prehistory. Probably with the innate curiosity of exploring this "new" world of the Americas which had no native humans. The Europeans overpopulated after the plagues and religious persecution was the cause of many English shiploads of settlers. They tended to trade and get along with the "Indians", unlike the cruel Spaniards. The population had been at a sustainable level for hunter gathers, but horses stolen by Indians changed the picture. Inevitable overpopulation drove people to explore seemingly empty areas, which actually had migrating tribes on occasion. Territorial conflict ensued, plus diseases from Spanish and other Europeans of more recent types(Celts, Saxons, Anglos), and overpopulation had become gross from post WWII vets "making up for" lost brothers too much. (my parents had two), then a second baby boom, worse, and more recently from Catholics and moslems. The whole world was over sustainable by the early 1900s.
It was over sustainable for an industrial society before 1804. The industrialization of areas already overpopulated like Europe, India and China during the 1800s and 1900s started the depletion and pollution really hitting now.
As an estimate, a hunter gather world could sustain(interglacial long term) 3 billion non-fighting people, 2 billion farmers/ranchers, and less than 1 billion living with industry.
The population crash can now only be avoided with a 25 year moratorium, strictly enforced, on having kids. This, of course, will not happen, so the crash of mid century or before is inevitable, with a return to pre-industrial living of survivors as temperatures rise and climate fluctuation increases toward the ELE of AETM. Unless people reduce emissions worldwide 90% by 2023 or before. Momentum will carry us to near that 1.5*C tundra melt positive feedback loop scenario. Most say it will be over plus 2*C and some 3-4*C at mid century. That is well over what is needed for the methane turnover scenario of AETM.
Sushi is right in that this scenario would not have happened to a hunter-gatherer or farming humanity, even though overpopulation of them would also cause eco-collapses, but not like AETM (AND it isn't as far as "the Venus Effect", so life diversity will return in millions of years).
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