Human race ‘will be extinct within 100 years’, claims leading scientist

Jurassic Park: "No wonder you're extinct! I'm gonna run you over when I come back down."

The metal dinosaur is more likely to do it.

 

lol, The human race will be extinct in 100 years? Who's gonna know? I know I won't be here. I'd put money on that this guy wants funding to investigate this nonsense.

 

you mean i can stop taking my medication?

 

Hey, then we can stop worrying about pollution and carbon and resource depletion, and just live as high off the hog as we can afford. If there's no hope, we can stop trying. Great! :rockon:

 

that's it, i'm maxing out all my credit cards and gettin' me on o' them big wheel trucks!

 

Makes sense... the 95 year old author of 22 books must really be itching to do some more work!

 

Should we merge this thread with the "Positive" thread?

 

Highly unlikely that Homo sapiens as a species will go extinct; there are too many of us that can survive without modern technology and don't need "civilization". The Khoi and San people as well many South American rainforest tribes are doing quite nicely without our modern trappings. Then again, if we destroy ALL resources needed for human survival then who knows what will happen. I'll put the blame on greed and the desire for power and material wealth. lol

 

If you die in debt, you're up

 

The problem is that greed powers the will to survive. It's the individual with the most greed that lives long enough to reproduce. The fittest would not survive without enough greed to compete fiercely. Thus greed is bred into our genes. The paradox is that the same trait that drove evolution and brought us where we are will drive us over the edge and destroy civilization. Those few who remain will collapse back into the stone age, and I, for one, do not want to live under stone age conditions.

A big unknown is whether the economic collapse that results from resource depletion will lead to nuclear war. The resultant radiation could exterminate humankind, along with perhaps 97% of all species. If somehow the mass starvation and resultant wars do not lead to the unleashing of the nukes, then pre-industrial tribes may survive.

 

I don't think it will take a 100 years... that is far to optimistic.

 

I agree. And the U.S. is largely at fault for not taking the leadership role it has assumed in the world. A big failure of our politicians and our media--so far.

I think this scientist reflects the pessimism that is increasing about mankind's future.

Isn't it time religious leaders spoke out? If they don't, they just show they are part of the problem.

 

A lot of religious leaders WANT the end of the world. At least the fundies do. The mainstream religious leaders don't seem to care much. They figure god will do whatever he feels like doing with the world. The pope makes a few half-hearted comments about peace and love, but he's more concerned with running his very profitable business of fleecing the flock. There are religious leaders who do speak out about social and environmental issues, but they are mostly on the extreme humanist end of religion. Unitarians and UCC and folks like that. Liberation theologians are concerned about social justice, but they're too busy trying to avoid being assassinated to give a lot of time to defending the environment.

 

as if the race that invented the Hummer and the KFC Double Down could ever go extinct!

 

I'm guessing the author sees the mortuary business as a growth opportunity.

 

I'm with F8L (somehow it always seems that way). Civilization might collapse but the species would go on, probably at some fraction of the current population. Unless there's some kind of super-virus that is developed or jumps species, but even so, there's usually a few survivors of any plague like that. Even the American chestnut tree and American elm trees have survivors, decades after they were all but eliminated by invasive diseases.

It would take a lot to make us extinct. To turn off the lights in our cities? Not so much.

One interesting scenario: magnetic field seems to be weakening. If we went into one of those periods where the magnetic poles flip, that could cause increased levels of solar radiation which could knock out power grids and satellite service. Without electricity, how would buy our Big Macs and Slurpees? No A/C to deal with the global warming, and people would get real grumpy real fast. But it's okay because without GPS they couldn't find their way home anyway.

Or you could go with the more mundane peak oil scenario and people who don't know how to do manual labor for food anymore.

 

Let's just hope a comet hits the earth and gets us there in a hurry so that we don't have to continue this farce of Washington giving a crap and all this blathering between those who believe in climate change and those who don't. For a fictional taste test of what a comet hit might look like, read Lucifer's Hammer. I just discovered this gem while on vacation. Although written in the 1970's, it's quite poignant and written in the 'flavor' of a Michael Crichton novel. Never mind the electricity going out. How about the loss of all travel, all fuel, all transportation, all electricity, all bridges, all dams, all factories, all stores, etc. etc. etc.

Sure, if we head down the road of calamity, some will survive. And after they survive whatever the initial impact is, whether manmade or not, we will have to survive each other. I think that will be the challenge and will be much easier said than done.

 

oh! oh! the sky is falling! the sky is falling!