Apocalypse... now?

Dreamer · Post by **Dreamer** » Mon Jul 02, 2007 6:53 pm

I've heard people, whom are not from the crazy Rapture-Ready crowd, talking about an emminent apocalypse due to global warming (Which I beleive in and think we need to stop) and our running out of fuel. And they're also saying that alternate energy won't save us. Do you think it is true or a load of bulls**t? I'm scared.

MattSullivan · Post by **MattSullivan** » Mon Jul 02, 2007 7:00 pm

i think it's a load of crap. And even IF the world was ending, I wouldn't waste it freaking out.

MoonKit · Post by **MoonKit** » Mon Jul 02, 2007 8:15 pm

Now are we talking about humanity ending or the whole entire Earth? Because global warming is not going to kill everything and especially not the earth. And the temperature is increasing slow enough for people to adapt. Some animals wont survive but I dont think humas will have a problem.

Dreamer · Post by **Dreamer** » Mon Jul 02, 2007 9:27 pm

Humanity not surviving is what I'm worried about.

Spongy · Post by **Spongy** » Mon Jul 02, 2007 9:44 pm

You shouldn't worry about Humanity dying out. Changes are progressing quickly, but also slow enough for us to adapt.

Dreamer · Post by **Dreamer** » Mon Jul 02, 2007 9:55 pm

But what about all the non-crazy theorists, such as the guy who wrote the book "The LOng Emergency", whom say doom is nigh?

Terastas · Post by **Terastas** » Mon Jul 02, 2007 10:19 pm

It won't kill off humanity, but it will screw things up royally. If you saw An Inconvenient Truth, half the problem is the coastal regions that would be flooded, and the other half is all the people that would be displaced as a result of said flooding.

I do believe global warming will cost us a lot more than the alternatives necessary to counteract it, but the whole "it can't be stopped" thing is bull. Granted, there isn't some magic button that can make the damage go away, but the idea is to prevent any future damage.

When people say it's over and there's nothing we can do to stop it, it's either because they're the ones selling the fossil fuel and they want us to keep mindlessly consuming, or more likely, their a bunch of emo pricks that are romanticizing the idea of humanity going kaput.

Some people just suck like that. Their parents tell them they're special and deserve everything, then when they grow up they expect everything for nothing, and when that doesn't happen, the only way they know to respond is to get pissed off at everything under the sun. That's when the whole "I hate humanity" and "you're all doomed" stuff begins.

Dreamer · Post by **Dreamer** » Mon Jul 02, 2007 10:26 pm

What about those that mention that when we run out of oil, we're screwed. And they also say that it would take way too much oil to produce those alternate sources of energy.

Set · Post by **Set** » Mon Jul 02, 2007 10:42 pm

We are not screwed if we run out of oil. It'll just be the final kick in the a** humanity needs to find something better to use. People have been shouting about the end of the world for centuries, and it's still here. I wouldn't worry.

Midnight · Post by **Midnight** » Tue Jul 03, 2007 1:45 am

I'll believe in global warming once I start actually getting some.

Current #1 reason that me getting bitten by a werewolf would not be a bad thing: fur is good insulation against cold...

Miragh · Post by **Miragh** » Tue Jul 03, 2007 8:58 am

Set wrote:We are not screwed if we run out of oil.
It'll just be the final kick in the a** humanity needs to
find something better to use.

A quick side note on that: We already did find something better,
however the patents for this holds - big suprise - Shell. And they'll use
it only after the very last drop is used up - and probably rape some more
nature preserves before.

End of the world? Yes, with fries please.

Terastas · Post by **Terastas** » Tue Jul 03, 2007 9:07 am

Dreamer wrote:What about those that mention that when we run out of oil, we're screwed. And they also say that it would take way too much oil to produce those alternate sources of energy.

If by "we" you mean the oil companies, then yes, that's true. And since when do alternatives to oil burn even more oil? It's a big load of bull that serves no purpose except to discourage people from pursuing alternatives and keep consuming.

It's only going to be the "end of the world" for people that refuse to believe the situation is changing. Oil is obsolete, but instead of investing R&D into alternative fuel sources themselves, the oil companies have spent all of their money putting a stranglehold on the government to keep oil from ever being replaced. The only way it will come to dire terms is if we continue to remain completely dependent on an expensive and inefficient source.

MoonKit · Post by **MoonKit** » Tue Jul 03, 2007 10:33 am

People are silly. Of course the world is not going to end just because theres no oil. Things will just have to change. And I agree with Set, people havign been predicting doom since the beginning of society. And we're all still here right?

Fullmoonstar · Post by **Fullmoonstar** » Tue Jul 03, 2007 11:06 am

Dreamer · Post by **Dreamer** » Tue Jul 03, 2007 11:36 am

Terastas wrote:
Dreamer wrote:What about those that mention that when we run out of oil, we're screwed. And they also say that it would take way too much oil to produce those alternate sources of energy.
If by "we" you mean the oil companies, then yes, that's true. And since when do alternatives to oil burn even more oil?

Well, meaning that it takes a lot of energy to make a solar panel or a windmill.

Fullmoonstar · Post by **Fullmoonstar** » Tue Jul 03, 2007 12:24 pm

Dreamer wrote:
Terastas wrote:
Dreamer wrote:What about those that mention that when we run out of oil, we're screwed. And they also say that it would take way too much oil to produce those alternate sources of energy.
If by "we" you mean the oil companies, then yes, that's true. And since when do alternatives to oil burn even more oil?
Well, meaning that it takes a lot of energy to make a solar panel or a windmill.

True true....maybe if there is no more oil to burn, they have to use a solar-powered Crane to build the Windmills for example...or they have to find an element that is similar to oil...

Aki · Post by **Aki** » Tue Jul 03, 2007 11:38 pm

Dreamer wrote:
Terastas wrote:
Dreamer wrote:What about those that mention that when we run out of oil, we're screwed. And they also say that it would take way too much oil to produce those alternate sources of energy.
If by "we" you mean the oil companies, then yes, that's true. And since when do alternatives to oil burn even more oil?
Well, meaning that it takes a lot of energy to make a solar panel or a windmill.

Consider it an investment. See, first you burn some oil to make solar panels. You set up said panels. Panels generate FREE energy, you then use energy to power the panel-making process, creating MORE panels to power MORE machines to make MORE panels!

See how it works?

And speaking of fossil fuels, who needs 'em for a car when you can run it on air?

ravaged_warrior · Post by **ravaged_warrior** » Wed Jul 04, 2007 12:27 am

How many miles per gallon does it get?

JoshuaMadoc · Post by **JoshuaMadoc** » Wed Jul 04, 2007 8:36 am

Dreamer wrote:
Terastas wrote:
Dreamer wrote:What about those that mention that when we run out of oil, we're screwed. And they also say that it would take way too much oil to produce those alternate sources of energy.
If by "we" you mean the oil companies, then yes, that's true. And since when do alternatives to oil burn even more oil?
Well, meaning that it takes a lot of energy to make a solar panel or a windmill.

You've never heard of the methane-powered energy concept, do you?

Same thing with air-fueled cars, etc.

Scott Gardener · Post by **Scott Gardener** » Wed Jul 04, 2007 10:16 am

Various apocalypse scinarios have been bandied about since people have been able to think about the future. There have been a large number of supposed Armageddons. Over the last century, however, they've become disturbingly a bit more plausible, especially in the 1950s, after realizing we had developed technology that could actually do it.

I do grant some of my own worries. Some 300 million years ago, according to leading theories, a period of global warming by about 10 degrees Celcius (18 Fahrenheit, to my fellow Americans) is believed to have set off the metabolism of oceanic microbes, producing a surge of greenhouse gases that added another 10 degrees of global warming. The combined effect almost totally eradicated life on Earth. Obviously, there were a few survivors, but for about a million years or so, fungi were the dominant life on Earth. We lost whole branches of life classifications. (To get an idea of what we lost, take a look at some of the more exotic drawings on Apokalyptos' DeviantArt site. He has a fondness for prehistoric life, and some of the stranger-looking things were around during the Permian, ultimately to be doomed by the Permian extinction.)

Still, I'm an optimist; I think if humans start seeing live effects, they'll mobilize. We're seeing little effects now, enough to worry scientists and people who live in typhoon or hurricane-prone areas. So, we're starting to see more fuel-efficient Japanese cars, and scientists in southeast coastal America driving them. We're seeing a push among educated people to strive for energy efficiency, with little things like bringing our own bags to grocery stores, or swapping out regular lightbulbs with 300% more efficient cork-screwy-shaped ones. Fifty years from now, after we've gone up another two or three degrees C, and we've lost a lot of ski resorts, New York has a levee system, gas is the inflation-adjusted equivalent of $10 a gallon, and tigers exist only in DNA archives, we'll see much more vigilant conservation efforts and bigger pushes towards clean energy.

No trend continues indefinitely. Apathy can only go so far. When it becomes personal, one wakes up.

There's plenty of other end-of-the-world notions that have been bandied about over the years, though, granted, most are far less plausible than the issue of global warming. There was a belief held by a number of people that the world would end on May 5th, 2000. Came and went without a hitch. The Seventh Day Adventists have had to push back their predicted end of the world a number of times. We've managed to avoid nuclear war so far, though I'll admit being a bit scared when places like Pakistan now have nuclear weapons. At least when it was just us here in the U.S. and Russia, the two of us could eyeball each other closely and each coax us with reasons not to do it. When you have fanatic looneys with nothing to lose, nuclear weapons are a disturbing prospect. A number of scinarios also point to December 27th, 2012, when the Mayan calender hits its date rollover, the equivalent of Y2K. Some foresee time itself grinding to a halt, while others see a technological breakthrough that brings about a transhumanist revolution that renders death itself obsolete.

My own belief system does have an apocalyptic prediction. It goes as follows. The sun is gradually losing energy as it fuses hydrogen to helium. This reduces its gravitational pull holding it at its current size, causing it to expand gradually. Over the past two billion years, the Earth has gradually become warmer, having previously cooled to quite possibly solid ice on its surface. This warming has allowed microbial life to evolve into complex multicellular form, given rise to everything from worms to dinosaurs, and then to mammals like us, who are just smart enough to backtrack evidence and figure out or own origins. But, it's also continuing to happen. Life on Earth will only be possible for perhaps another half a billion years, before naturally occurring global warming will render Earth uninhabitable. Five billion years from now, the sun will have expanded into Earth's present day orbit. Thankfully for those still around with a fondness for the planet, it will have drifted back outward, because of the diminished solar gravity.

Perhaps by then, the descendants of humans or the products of their genetic engineering and artificial intelligence experiments will have developed super-technologies that can move planets or cool stars. But, there's another catastrophe even bigger. About three billion years from now, this galaxy will crash into Andromeda, and the two will gradually fuse over time into a single galaxy.

MattSullivan · Post by **MattSullivan** » Wed Jul 04, 2007 12:44 pm

More than likely, it'd be a some super-virus like Ebola that will evolve and kill off the human race.

Dreamer · Post by **Dreamer** » Sat Jul 14, 2007 11:56 pm

Actually, what about everyone saying that Alternate energy won't work because ethanol is too inefficient and solar and wind can't gather enough energy. I actually kind of agree with the fact that Nuclear energy is the way to go and we need to start making electric cars again.

Scott Gardener · Post by **Scott Gardener** » Sun Jul 15, 2007 11:09 am

I agree about electric cars; that way, we can detach cars themselves from the fuel source.

As for clean energy, since no single source seems to serve as a practical fix for everything, we should go for a combined approach; solar, wind, wave, geothermal, and when all else fails, nuclear. Solar theoretically could itself solve the energy problems, but we don't yet have the technology to collect it efficiently enough. Wave energy could provide a substantial portion of the world's needs--theoretically enough to meet twice the current world's need. It would take a massive construction effort to build the number of turbines needed to pull it off, but right now, we've got a lot of unemployed people around the world who could use the paycheck.

tigerkitty · Post by **tigerkitty** » Sun Jul 15, 2007 12:27 pm

i think in the end it wont matter if humanity live or dies, its wont be in our life time anyway. and the way thngs have been going, each generation has gotten smarter than the one before. if there is really something that bad, they can try to fix it. im not saying that we should just keep messing everything up, but in reality life happens. we can try to find alternate fuels, but think about where that came from. they have a fuel made from corn correct, well now corn for animal feed has alos gone up, and no one thinks of anything like side effects in other parts of the economy.and not all of the other alternatives will work in other places, like hydroelectric power cant be manufactured in other parts of the country. but really i think that nature has its way of balancing out eventualy. when the world gets overpopulated, nature hits us with a tsunami or a huricane. nature keeps itself in check, and if it means wiping out the human race, well i guess we shuld have thought about it before then. all i know is that i probably wont be alive when it all happens.