EnviroLink Forum

That was the 1970s type thinking, until enough physics lessons to know that any meaningful velocity to explore the stars and actually know where you are going is not full of people already, is just not possible. It would turn a human to jelly.
Too many people? Yes, and for a century getting worse, to the point of polluting the biosphere to death.
No fantasy space colonization. Most people will die, and survivors will have a worse and worse time of it. Until, extinction of most life on Earth with a recover time of more than 30 million years, if not a runaway to oven temperature, total methane turnover.

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"With every decision, think seven generations ahead of the consequences of your actions" Ute rule of life.
“We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children”― Chief Seattle
“Those Who Have the Privilege to Know Have the Duty to Act”…Albert Einstein

An estimated 10 billion people on earth by 2050 or thereabouts. 40% more than now. Whatever the solution, if there is one, we need to find it pretty quick ....

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'Where mercy, love and pity dwell, there God is dwelling too'

http://holy-lance.blogspot.com

Actually there is a solution in politics and one of the oldest there is. A nice big war could reduce the population significantly and someone is likely to decide that is the way for them to go.

However, I think we can agree there are no good short term viable solutions based in either religion or politics at this time. There always seems to be bad solutions available to us .... mainly because we are a species that deals with the short term rather than the long term as if it were genetically imprinted in our DNA to procrastinate.

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With friends like Guido, you will not have enemies for long.

“Intellect is invisible to the man who has none”
Arthur Schopenhauer

"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits."
Albert Einstein

Some may try an interstellar voyage, at a low acceleration and multi-generational, but the odds of finding just the right planet and making it at high speed through a long distance with small space rocks invisible until puncturing the ship, are just not good.
Then there are those who build underground fortresses with a Gen 4 reactor and good water supply, and large grow light section, in the hopes that the surface will eventually be livable again. It won't be if methane goes into much worse releases.
My proposition to blow Yellowstone is impossible at the depth of the magma chamber, to even drill 25 miles deep is way more than the 8 miles record that took twenty years to drill (in Russia). A natural super eruption of it is just not due in time.
At this point it would not take much to crash the population; dollar failure, Cascadia, Katla Volcano, or the La Palma slide. If they do not happen, then insufficient food and water with increased CAGW will 'naturally' crash the population after the tundra methane self release point, and well before mid century.
A somewhat limited nuclear war within less than a decade, could put up a nuclear winter and kill enough to just maybe stop thermageddon and the long term death of most of the biosphere (except deep ocean thermal vent extremophobes, maybe).
No one really wants these things, but it is a hope for a future, if the open ocean warming to 52GT tundra release of methane (the initial pulse, with a hundred times more to be released as temps rise) is prevented by aerosols cooling long enough. One global winter may not be enough.

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"With every decision, think seven generations ahead of the consequences of your actions" Ute rule of life.
“We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children”― Chief Seattle
“Those Who Have the Privilege to Know Have the Duty to Act”…Albert Einstein

I think humanity dream too much and, the movie Interstellar is unrealistic.

Human, as another species on this planet, is adapted to its environment (planet Earth). Having special and complex needs.

Most people don't realized this, because we'll only miss something, when this particular thing don't exist anymore.

And in our solar system, another planet like Earth don't exist to be colonized.

In Mars, where some crazy people wanted to establish an human colony, they didn't thought enough about the adversities that the future Martians will need to endure.

For instance, long periods of enclosure in a hostile planet.

The problem isn't the big population, but the increase of the number of consumers. Most of our population didn't consume, because they are too poor for this.

And the other problem is the waste produced by this consuming. Our technology is too dirty. And this dirty technology is polluting and destroying our fragile environment.

This is BS; "The problem isn't the big population, but the increase of the number of consumers. Most of our population didn't consume, because they are too poor for this."


The problem has been population up to ten times sustainable long term interglacial. This is the root cause, along with greed, stupidity, and inability to see ahead the consequences of one's behavior. People are poor as a consequence of over-breeding. Consumption is a function of population, plus advertising, TV, and the internet making everyone except the moral intelligent want to consume more.

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"With every decision, think seven generations ahead of the consequences of your actions" Ute rule of life.
“We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children”― Chief Seattle
“Those Who Have the Privilege to Know Have the Duty to Act”…Albert Einstein