How long the earth would last?

False.

True.

 

I have it on good authority that the world is going to end on June 6th of next year.

 

The Mayan calendar ends somewhere around 12/12/12, IIRC. End of the world, anyone?

 

*Sigh*. When I said world, i meant humankind. We won't last long, because of all the things we are doing (see my above post).
Eventually, once we kill each other off because we can't breathe, Mother Earth will kick herself back into gear, and fix everything. But by that time, we won't have any fossil fuels (let me remind you that they do not replenish), and we will have populated every square inch of the world, exluding oceans.
Thus, there will be no trees, which means no oxygen. Humans are screwing themselves over, and are doing nothing to stop themselves.

Greed and lack of caring (as i said before) will ruin us all.

[ October 13, 2005, 05:58: Message edited by: Saber ]

 

You know, I'm almost motivated enough to put out the burning pile of aerosol cans in the backyard...

Nah, maybe tomorrow.

 

Actually, BA (or was that ArtEchoke?), I'm noticing that there is an increacing frequency of the disasters listed the closer we get to today, and there was no reference to the recent Earthquake in Pakistan.

dmc: If you choose not to believe, that is your decision, but take warning that noplace is safe, and that personal preparation is necessary for such situations.

 

Just wait for the bird flu pandemic - should it ever materialize.
I believe the most deaths casued by natural disaster was the influenza pandemic in 1918, which has estimates ranging between 25 and 100 million dead worldwide. Makes any of the recent events look small fry.

 

@Gnarlfflinger

You can just call me BArtechoke if you want.

I believe what you are noticing on the list is the increasing reporting and documentation of disasters, and as you pointed out yourself, the list is by no means complete.

My point was more directed toward the body count involved, and the suggestion you made that as time moves on the disasters get worse. The data seems to indicate the opposite.

Even if you combine the death toll of all of this years disasters (including the Pakistan earthquake), it pales in comparison to many of the disasters listed for a single event (look at virtually any earthquake that's happened in China...), yet armageddon has not arrived.

Also history seems to show that as we get more advanced the preparation and response for these disasters gets better. Look at the flue pandemic from 1918 - (25-100 million dead!), then there was another one in 1957 (4 million dead, not great, but big improvement) then another in 1968 - 750 thousand worldwide, dramatic difference, and this is with intercontinental travel becoming more and more common, which enables the disease to spread exponentially faster. Yet the impact was much less severe.

Take into consideration that the world population is on the rise, so the smaller death tolls are even smaller, relatively speaking, to their historical counterparts.

Its tempting to say that the world is falling apart around you when you can simultaneously see disasters and wars in umpteen different countries at the same time on CNN, but its simply not the case. They've always been there, the new thing is the TV.

 

Wow.
Ok, the Mayan's had 3 calenders because they thought that if their calender ever ended, teh world would end, so they made three that cycle so that no more than 2 ever end at the same time. And even then they made hundreds of human sacrifices to 'stave off the end'.
Global warming is a load of crap. The Earth cycles from cold to warm to cold on about a 50 year cycle. Sure 20 years ago things were cooler, but 50 years ago they were just the same and 70 years ago things were warmer. The global trend is steady. Also, CO2 is not building up in our atmosphere because the more CO2 there is, the larger the plants get and the faster they convert it back to O2. Finally, the earth releases more greenhouse gasses every year or two through volcanic erruptions and the like than all of human interferance in all of human history. And large events like Mt. St. Helens released even more than that. If global warming or cooling or anything were to occur, it would have happened a long time ago. The earth is not nearly as delicate as we pretend it is. Even invasive species we spread don't destroy the ecosystem, they just change it.

 

Combinded, all the plants on all the land on this planet only produce a small % of our O2. The oceans produce the vast majority of the oxygen. In fact, if you look into it, you will find that many plants actually use almost as much 02 as they release (when there is no light many plants switch to using O2 instead of CO2 and will actually produce CO2).

 

It's not like the oceans are doing that well either though. I won't go predicting something that's almost impossible to predict for all I know ten years from now a meteor the size of jupiter will smash into us and destroy every trace of our planet. One thing is certain though that pollution level need to be lowered at some point and the consumption of natural resources too and I think it's important that we start taking small steps towards change allready so that the entire world economy will not crash when oil prices rise through the roof.

 

Ever heard of the ice age? That screams global cooling. And another Ice Age is inevitable. Maybe not tomorrow, but eventually.

Besides the fact that much of our O2 is made in the ocean (which was already stated), the CO2 is building up in the upper layers of the atmosphere (I believe...). No plants up there.


And even if we aren't creating global warming/cooling, we are using up natural resources far too quickly. Fossil fuels will eventually run out. Fresh water (only three percent of all the water on this planet is fresh)is not unlimited, and to desalinize ocean water takes great amounts of energy.

Yes, water will last longer than fossil fuels, but still, we need to start planning for the future. We need new forms of electricity. Instead of wasting coal and oil for electricity, use wind, hydroelectric, and solar.) It saves tons of fossil fuels which can be used for other things, like heating and fuel for vehicles.

Speaking of vehicles, we need to ban all SUVs, because not only are they used to drive down the highway instead of offroad, like they are supposed to (rarely does anyone use SUVs for that), but they waste tons of fuel. More hybrids (or completely hydrogen/solar/wind power cars), and less gas guzzlers.

 

You guys.... Can't you just get on with life, and not worry about something as ridiculous as the world coming to an end? If you want to talk about scientific stuff, sure, why not, but Guys like Gnarff really ought to keep their silly religious beliefs to themselves, to be honest.

 

What makes you think we can't do both? The official list of stuff I'm worried about numbers in the triple digits (though just barely) and I'm still living two people's worth of lives. Now if only I weren't so tired all the time...

Of course, just because I worry about something like the end of the world doesn't mean that I delude myself into thinking I can do anything about it aside from "don't hasten it".

 

The thing is, you don't need to worry about it, because the world isn't going to end any time soon. It's just a stupid unnecessary thing to have stuck in the back of your mind.

 

Not worried about the world ending, just us losing petroleum when I am middle-aged. Well, I guess I'm not worried too much, I'm just pissed at people who buy SUVs to drive in suburbia. I would list a bunch of reasons, but, I already did, and I don't want to repeat myself.

But yes, I am living my life. Just something that ticks me off, that's all...

 

Saber,

I am really not trying to pick on you, but you keep posting statements that just aren't rooted in reality. There are more known oil reserves out there now then there were in the 1970's, or any time in history for that matter. Further, oil is not going to disappear like a shut off tap. There are many forms of geology in which oil is trapped, and even "tapped out" oil wells have more oil in them than was taken out (it is too expensive to pump more than 1/2 of the oil out of most oil wells). We are still harvesting "easy" sources of oil. As these easy sources start to disappear we will move to more difficult processes (drilling deeper, pumping further, and extraction from shale), and the prices will start to rise as the costs go up. As this happens consumers will demand cheaper energy sources, and more expensive options (hydrogen and ethanol for examples) will become more cost effective. Eventually oil will become a scarce enough resource that it will only be used for "designer" goods (expensive items that only the rich can afford), but we really won't care as we will have moved on to alternatives.

 

Oh, i know that there are more ways, as we (my school) has been given extensive lectures by many proffessionals, but still, people need to cut back, especially in America. I am not sure of the exact figures, but we use far more of our share of oil in the world (our percent of the population, i'm not sure, but i think it is something like 3 or 4 percent of the world is using over 50% of the oil in the world. Not very proportional).

But the fact is that most people don't care. They won't notice we are out of oil until just before we run out, in which case they'll start trying to find ways of alternate power, which might be too late.

Anyways, I don't want to start another argument (too many already, although not on this matter), so I'll leave it at that.