end of the EARTH

No, I don't think it's coming soon.

People have been killing, murdering, and massacring entire populations for thousands of years, and we're certainly less close to destroying the entire world than we were in the fifties and sixties. Yes, it's horrible, but hardly end-of-the-world horrible.

I tried to find the end of the earth once, but I just ended up back where I started. I think the problem is that I was using the sun as a guide, but I tended to get confused around noon time. On my next trip, I think I'll just take a break from 10-2, and hopefully that'll keep me headed straight.

CM

Jon Stewart said it best when he said, "Man's last words will be 'Oh, cool, it works.'"

<50 years is my guess. It really freaks me out.

Yea I think were definetly closer than ever to ending humanity as we know it.

Maybe not litterally destroy the entire planet itself,
Maybe not destroy all life on earth,
Maybe not even destroy all humans on Earth.

But certainly fuck things up so badly that life will never be close to the same again for any surviving human. How do I know such a day will come? Simple. Because humans wont stop or slow down until that day does come.

The only question is will it be global warming/ environment related or will it be a nuclear holocaust type of deal? Currently my money is on the environment.

If you havnt seen the movie 'Inconvienient Truth', and enjoy being horribly depressed, go see it!

[Edited by - AndreTheGiant on November 2, 2006 1:01:48 PM]

Soon we will be living in the future that we have been striving for.
Oh... here it is now.
Glad the wait is over I was getting impatient.

In 2012. You know it.

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Original post by lulul so when do you think end will come? i think its not that far future... when i looking news from the world its horrible what people are doing!! killing,testing atom bombs,destroying nature... i just cant look at it but i cant stop it. ps:if you are throwing out garbage to nature, dont reply plz :) when do you think?

Don't be afraid. The very same day you were born it was given to you the certainty that the end of the world would come upon you, the very same day of your death.

I think the earth itself will still be here for a few more billion years, way longer than humans in our present form, untill it is probably engulfed by the sun or whatnot. Humans on the other hand, I don't know. Either they will continue being self-destructing for a few hundred years untill most people are wiped out and the rest live off the land, or we finally get our acts together and slowly filter out extremist thinking.

For an extensive catalog of possible forms of departure see Exit Mundi. Meteors, Planet X, Moon Escape, Nemisis, Gliese 710, Black Holes, Gamma Bursts, Aliens, Kuiper Belt, ... and that's just from the astronomical list. There's still the Earth itself, science run amok, and the various religious stylizations.

At any rate, I don't think the Earth itself will end anytime soon, but if we don't change the way our economies operate, our tenure on the Earth will soon come to an end. See Big human footprint crushing fragile Earth and Living Planet Report: How Many Have We Got? for tastes of that notion. Bear in mind that these views are optimistic. They claim that we can still do something about it. Other prominent scientists are not as optimistic. How Close to Catastrophe?

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... Putting aside questions of planetary consciousness and will (beloved as they were by an early wave of New Age Gaia acolytes), the theory may help us understand how the earth has managed to remain hospitable for life over billions of years even as the sun, because of its own stellar evolution, has become significantly hotter. Through a series of processes involving, among others, ice ages, ocean algae, and weathering rock, the earth has managed to keep the amount of heat-trapping carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and hence the temperature, at a relatively stable level. This homeostasis is now being disrupted by our brief binge of fossil fuel consumption, which has released a huge amount of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Indeed, at one point Lovelock predicts—more gloomily than any other competent observer I am aware of—that we have already pushed the planet over the brink, and that we will soon see remarkably rapid rises in temperature, well beyond those envisioned in most of the computer models now in use—themselves quite dire. He argues that because the earth is already struggling to keep itself cool, our extra increment of heat is particularly dangerous, and he predicts that we will soon see the confluence of several phenomena: the death of ocean algae in ever-warmer ocean waters, reducing the rate at which these small plants can remove carbon from the atmosphere; the death of tropical forests as a result of higher temperatures and the higher rates of evaporation they cause; sharp changes in the earth's "albedo," or reflectivity, as white ice that reflects sunlight back out into space is replaced with the absorptive blue of seawater or the dark green of high-latitude boreal forests; and the release of large amounts of methane, itself a greenhouse gas, held in ice crystals in the frozen north or beneath the sea. Some or all of these processes will be enough, Lovelock estimates, to tip the earth into a catastrophically hotter state, perhaps eight degrees centigrade warmer in temperate regions like ours, over the course of a very few decades, and that heat will in turn make life as we know it nearly impossible in many places. Indeed, in the photo section of the book there is one picture of a red desert captioned simply "Mars now—and what the earth will look like eventually." Human beings, a hardy species, will not perish entirely, he says; in interviews during his book tour, Lovelock has predicted that about 200 million people, or about one thirtieth of the current world population, will survive if competent leaders make a new home for us near the present-day Arctic. There may also be other survivable spots, like the British Isles, though he notes that rising sea levels will render them more an archipelago. In any event, he predicts that "teeming billions" will perish. ...

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Original post by AndreTheGiant If you havnt seen the movie 'Inconvienient Truth', and enjoy being horribly depressed, go see it!

or if you have a little more time on your hands than it takes to hash over the same pulled out of context factoids (generous statement, i know) again, read: the skeptic's guide to 'an inconvenient truth'

Or go one step farther than Eelco would have you go and read both books...

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Original post by LessBread Or go one step farther than Eelco would have you go and read both books...

he already saw the film didnt he? the content is exactly the same as that of the book. both equally brief and shallow compared to 'the skeptics guide to...'

Every generation likes to feel that they are near the brink of destruction and the end of all days, be it by cause and effect with wars, bombs and science, or by supernatural causes like the Apocalypse.
So far, theyve all been wrong. Why assume this generation is right?

Personally, my feeling is that there is a natural tendency for people to want to believe that they are living in a a significant time, that by merely living, they are taking part in something of dire importance( The End ), so we dont have to admit that each of us is just a carbonized skid mark on the underwear of history. Tiny, puny mortals with no cosmic import. So, we believe we MUST BE NEAR THE END, MY LIFETIME IS IMPORTANT.

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Original post by Eelco Quote: Original post by LessBread Or go one step farther than Eelco would have you go and read both books... he already saw the film didnt he? the content is exactly the same as that of the book. both equally brief and shallow compared to 'the skeptics guide to...'

Have you seen the film and read the book? If not, then your description is unfounded and should be completely ignored - along with your reading recommendation.

@krikkit, What evidence do you base that hypothesis on? What leads you to say that every generation feels that it's near the brink of destruction?

Well, its mostly anecdotal from your point of view, but I've read a number of letters written in centuries past, which bemoan things like the 'descent of our generations children into madness', decrying the fate of humanity at any significant religious or technological turn, and any number of apocalypse theories, many of which are put in terms of ancient civilizations.
Babylon did indeed fall, but the Judgement Day didnt come, regardless of what John the Revelator had to say about it.

Hard evidence? No. Could I write a thesis about it? No. Thats why I lead with phrases like "Personally, I feel". Armchair social psychology: it's what's for dinner.

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Original post by LessBread Quote: Original post by Eelco Quote: Original post by LessBread Or go one step farther than Eelco would have you go and read both books... he already saw the film didnt he? the content is exactly the same as that of the book. both equally brief and shallow compared to 'the skeptics guide to...' Have you seen the film and read the book? If not, then your description is unfounded and should be completely ignored - along with your reading recommendation.

i skimmed through both: they didnt contain anything new to me. that said, yes, my description may be taken with a grain of salt, but i do not agree with your latter conclusion: i stand by the reading recommendation.

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Original post by krikkit Well, its mostly anecdotal from your point of view, but I've read a number of letters written in centuries past, which bemoan things like the 'descent of our generations children into madness', decrying the fate of humanity at any significant religious or technological turn, and any number of apocalypse theories, many of which are put in terms of ancient civilizations. Babylon did indeed fall, but the Judgement Day didnt come, regardless of what John the Revelator had to say about it. Hard evidence? No. Could I write a thesis about it? No. Thats why I lead with phrases like "Personally, I feel". Armchair social psychology: it's what's for dinner.

It looked to me that you put forth an assertion and then qualifyied your explanation of why that was the case as a personal understanding. Given how much cultural diversity there is and the time span of human history, I think it's too much to say that every generation is aflicted with these fears. Clearly, anxiety has long been a part of the human condition and the tenuous character of existence and survival has produced an extensive catalog of doomsday scenarios but it seems to me that there is more of an ebb and flow to the popularity of such stories rather than a consistent pulse. Furthermore, I think it too much to dismiss scientific concerns about potential catastrophes as little more than modern versionings of ancient imaginations of disaster. However, I do think that it's important not to approach scientific concerns with the emotional mindset that acompanied those ancient superstitions and fears.

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Original post by Eelco Quote: Original post by LessBread Quote: Original post by Eelco Quote: Original post by LessBread Or go one step farther than Eelco would have you go and read both books... he already saw the film didnt he? the content is exactly the same as that of the book. both equally brief and shallow compared to 'the skeptics guide to...' Have you seen the film and read the book? If not, then your description is unfounded and should be completely ignored - along with your reading recommendation. i skimmed through both: they didnt contain anything new to me. that said, yes, my description may be taken with a grain of salt, but i do not agree with your latter conclusion: i stand by the reading recommendation.

That was a syllogism, not a conclusion.