What do you think could halt the progress of human civilization?

[Iamwhat?]

Ignorance nothing more, nothing less. Everything else is speculation and by they way things are going we're not gonna make it! Quick Scotty we need more we're only going warp 4!

[Fred Champion]

Short of an extinction event, such as comet or asteriod impact or mega volcano induced ice age, there seems to be one prime candidate. A rise in sea level of 20 feet or so would displace millions of people and leave most ports unusable.

 

Energy and food move internationally by ship. We do not have the capacity to serve the need by air or rail. Local conflicts over food and energy could expand into regional and ethnic conflicts. Domestic animal populations would be consumed and wildlife species could be hunted to extinction.

 

Most international trade would be severely curtailed. The GDP of all nations would fall. Disruptions in incomes would cause social unrest and inequality of income distribution could lead to revolution. The internal fight for survival could cause a rise in nationalism and would likely lead to isolationism. Have-not nations that survive would be pitted against have nations for generations.

 

To me the really sad part of this situation is that we know it is going to happen and yet we are unwilling to even plan for it much less do anything to prepare for it. I expect our species will survive but many others won't.

[cladking]

Energy and food move internationally by ship. We do not have the capacity to serve the need by air or rail. Local conflicts over food and energy could expand into regional and ethnic conflicts. Domestic animal populations would be consumed and wildlife species could be hunted to extinction.

This can't be a legitimate problem since Congress recently approved the tax payer continuing to pay for damages to private and public enterprises in coastal areas. If they really believed the oceans would rise then they'd have encouraged new infrastructure to be built at higher elevations by allowing the free market to force the issue.

 

If Congress doesn't believe in global warming than why should the average man? What do they know that we don't.

 

 

Temporary ports can be built very quickly.

[PeterJ]

I'm with Fred here and believe, cladking, that you're massively underestimating the problem. I hope I'm wrong. I see Solyent Green on the menu.

 

It's a great time to be building a high speed railway over productive farmland, as we are here in England. I suppose we can always eat money.

[cladking]

I'm with Fred here and believe, cladking, that you're massively underestimating the problem. I hope I'm wrong. I see Solyent Green on the menu.

 

It's a great time to be building a high speed railway over productive farmland, as we are here in England. I suppose we can always eat money.

I've been opposed to public policy in the US since 1959 since it was first observed that demand for oil would outstrip US supply in 30 years or less (it was only 11). I've been opposed to waste and inefficiency since the mid-'60's since it was shown conclusively that man was increasing the CO2 content in the atmosphere.

 

Up until the early 1980's I believed the height of insanity is to perform an uncontrolled experiment on the only planet we have. But now I know that was nowhere near the height of insanity. The true height of insanity is rewarding CEO's for increasing waste and inefficiency by eliminating taxes on them. Now everything we do is geared toward worsening the problem. We shut down highly efficient plants in the US and send the jobs to China which results in greatly increased emissions and far lower efficiency and then ship products around the world at huge expense. We make gasahol that reduces mileage and actually requires more energy to produce than is released.

 

Meanwhile our food products are pumped up with water and Washington DC has gone from the poorest city in the country to the wealthiest in a decade. A building boom exists because business needs infrastructure to run government. This is the same business that brought us the military industrial complex anmd pumped up chickens. It's the same business that is blind to everything past the next quarter.

 

Meanwhile people sit in fear of global warming that seems to exist only in the minds of computers and the words of politicians. We make things even worse to combat this fear. Rather than increasing efficiency that rewards everyone we destroy the planet and enrich the few.

[MonDie]

I'll try to propose something original.

 

- Failing to integrate our urban environment with nature, resulting in population control (which will slow progress) either through mandate or through us compromising all our natural resources.

[Fred Champion]

The silver lining, for the survivors, is that large scale upward mobility only occurs following a colapse in the soial structure. We will not manage our own heard; nature will do that for us. Business requires growth. Everyone should know "the business of America is business" and it has been ever since Columbus set sail. It is just the way the Europeans who invaded this land were, and are.

 

One of the more interesting things I heard recently is that the US Navy is brewing its own jet fuel. Don't know for sure, but I think it is something like brewing beer. The Navy seems to realize that the US SPR pumping facilities would be below sea level with a rise of 20 feet.

[Bill Angel]

A problem that supposedly was fixed is back in the news:
Mysterious new man-made gases pose threat to ozone layer

"the ozone layer plays a critical role in blocking harmful UV rays, which cause cancers in humans and reproductive problems in animals"

[Ten oz]

I've been opposed to public policy in the US since 1959 since it was first observed that demand for oil would outstrip US supply in 30 years or less (it was only 11). I've been opposed to waste and inefficiency since the mid-'60's since it was shown conclusively that man was increasing the CO2 content in the atmosphere.

 

Up until the early 1980's I believed the height of insanity is to perform an uncontrolled experiment on the only planet we have. But now I know that was nowhere near the height of insanity. The true height of insanity is rewarding CEO's for increasing waste and inefficiency by eliminating taxes on them. Now everything we do is geared toward worsening the problem. We shut down highly efficient plants in the US and send the jobs to China which results in greatly increased emissions and far lower efficiency and then ship products around the world at huge expense. We make gasahol that reduces mileage and actually requires more energy to produce than is released.

 

Meanwhile our food products are pumped up with water and Washington DC has gone from the poorest city in the country to the wealthiest in a decade. A building boom exists because business needs infrastructure to run government. This is the same business that brought us the military industrial complex anmd pumped up chickens. It's the same business that is blind to everything past the next quarter.

 

Meanwhile people sit in fear of global warming that seems to exist only in the minds of computers and the words of politicians. We make things even worse to combat this fear. Rather than increasing efficiency that rewards everyone we destroy the planet and enrich the few.

Good post!

 

I would also add that our economic model fails humanity as a whole because it only rewards growth. It only rewards efficiency when efficiency leads to greater volumes of production and growth. Efficiency that leads to less demand is a detriment in our current economic system.

[cladking]

I would also add that our economic model fails humanity as a whole because it only rewards growth. It only rewards efficiency when efficiency leads to greater volumes of production and growth. Efficiency that leads to less demand is a detriment in our current economic system.

Indeed!

 

"Efficiency" is now defined as the ability to make ever more ever more inferior products at lower cost despite the impact on consumers or the enviroment. We make a million belts at the same cost as we once made 100,000 but belts that once lasted 30 years now won't last six weeks. The CEO gets a huge bonus as people scurry from store to store to buy more belts.

 

If they really were afraid of global warming they'd reinstate taxes on the CEO's and taxes on products to discourage waste. They'd pass laws against selling junk and enforce existing law against pumped up food products. They'd encourage new construction up away from the oceans. Instead they continue their war on coal and blow a lot of hot air. They kill jobs and relocate them to China.

[scidata]

Humanity is pretty tough and resourceful. We once dwindled to only a few thousand individuals and teetered on the brink of extinction. Now there are 7 billion of us and we are on the brink of populating the solar system.

 

"We are at the very beginning of time for the human race."

- Richard Feynman

[cladking]

"We are at the very beginning of time for the human race."

- Richard Feynman

 

This is 1940's thinking.

 

I don't necessarily disagree and sometimes I almost feel watched by millions of future generations but our future is hardly certain. The number of ways to go wrong is large and I expect tests in the next century especially. The biggest threats now all relate directly or indirectly to our propensity to believe and act as though we know everything.

 

Certainly the human race has never before had the tremendous opportunities and challenges that face us now. We will prevail but only after a lot of hard work and reversing many of the current trends.

[scidata]

The biggest threats now all relate directly or indirectly to our propensity to believe and act as though we know everything.

 

 

This is 1440's thinking.

I know of very few scientifically literate people who think this way. IMHO the scientifically illiterate have diminishing real power.

[radicalsymmetry]

Food supply.

[scidata]

jh65s

[fiveworlds]

Why book burning of course http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_burning . i.e. the willful destruction of information usually for censorship etc. We can easily forget how we make everything. There was a time even owning a physics book would get you killed witches they used to say. Consorting with the devil all sorts of madness. Then of course there was the idea that only the rich could be educated so poor people were not allowed to own books.

Edited July 27, 2014 by fiveworlds