Quote from: SM on Jul 09, 2013, 05:24:27 AM
We're here until we're replaced by the next evolutionary step.
...
Where else are we going?
Certainly not evolution, not in the way we know it at least. In the first world we're no longer subject to natural selection, only a small fraction of us dies before breeding age.
Where we're going is an environmental catastrophe, as there's already barely any room left in the world for natural ecosystems to flourish yet our population is still growing at a horrifying rate. How much more agriculture will we need to feed
another couple of billion people? What effect will the resultant environmental destruction have on the climate? On soil fertility? On naturally obtained food sources? What pest species will it introduce (fe. Humboldt squid and Nomura jellyfish)? How will we dispose of all that extra waste, provide all that extra power - and what effect will
that cause?
This is of course giving ourselves the benefit of the doubt that we won't blow everything to bits in a nuclear bloodbath, but one way or another, we are heading towards a planet which we cannot live on. As far as I know, we only have three options for a sustainable future: population control
everywhere on Earth, ideally reaching a level somewhat lower than it is today. Mass emigration off-world. Finding some way of generating sustainable food and energy with a small environmental footprint.
But yeah, poor planet. Still in the grips of an ice age and the resultant massive loss of biological diversity, and now it has us to contend with. Just 200 years of industrial civilisation and we're within a gnat's whisker of wiping out most of the planet's apex predators; bad things will come of this. And as a palaeontology enthusiast it's an awful pattern to see, the world's a poorer place for every major ancestral line it loses.
