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How do we make the changes necessary for sustainable human life?

10:00 / 14.11.06

How can we save-the-humans? At this point in history it looks to me like business as usual will mean we all die.

What can be done through the electoral systems? What other means are there for making the necessary changes? What changes are necessary for the best chance at humans getting the hang of long term thinking and sustainable ecological interactions?

Leading on from some great points raised in the "I am a bad American" thread.

Some relevant stuff in many other threads, in Switchboard, Lab and other forums: e.g. these Green taxes ..., Capitalism or a habitable planet ..., A world without fossil fuels, Global warming, Peak Oil ..., and probably many more.

12:15 / 14.11.06

How can we save-the-humans? At this point in history it looks to me like business as usual will mean we all die.

What sort of time frame do you think we should be looking at? I presume that by "we" you don't necessarily mean the current generations?

Change is happening, but painfully slowly. In my view anyone who wants to change current policy on subjects such as sustainability and environmental issues needs to be active both in their personal lives and on a wider basis. Try to push the issues and keep people informed without being preachy. Eventually something will stick.

Support the research and development of sustainable energy sources. Be well informed about local and national political parties stances on the subjects and make it damn clear to them that how they act on environmental issues will be a major factor in your decsion to vote.

Not necessarily effective if just one person does it, but helluva lot more so if lots do it.

As a society we should also prepare for the worst. Assuming that it's too late to alter the fate of the planet we should be working on ways of ensuring that our species can survive. Without getting too sci-fi I personally think the development of self-sufficient off-world colonies would be a big step in that direction.

12:34 / 14.11.06

Wow. I always the resist even the idea of off-world living because I think if people start relying on there being a serious alternative to getting our act together collectively they'll be less invested in it! Not to mention that human understanding of ecosystem management is demonstrably poor and unlikely to be better starting soon.

I mean "save the humans" in something like a 500-1000-year timescale: I think if this generation doesn't seriously alter the current activities of humans there might not be any humans left in 500-1000 years.

I like the example of the abolition of slavery in the U.K. & U.S. - a massive change in people's lifestyles was brought about in a relatively short timescale by changing one person's mind at a time about what was acceptable behaviour.

12:49 / 14.11.06

Wow. I always the resist even the idea of off-world living because I think if people start relying on there being a serious alternative to getting our act together collectively they'll be less invested in it! Not to mention that human understanding of ecosystem management is demonstrably poor and unlikely to be better starting soon.

Well, if it's the only alternative to extinction it might be an idea. Personally I'd rather we learn from the mistakes we've made in the development of this planet. In many cases the poor ecosystem management by our species can be attributed to percieved necessity (farming beef cattle in the Amazon to make enough money to feed yourself and your family) or outright greed (eg: "It won't affect me, I'll be dead by then.").

I like the example of the abolition of slavery in the U.K. & U.S. - a massive change in people's lifestyles was brought about in a relatively short timescale by changing one person's mind at a time about what was acceptable behaviour.

We're making headway now though. As I say it's not fast enough for some people (including myself as it happens). Sometimes you have to accept that change won't happen overnight. We've come quite a way from how environmentalism was percieved even a few decades ago.

22:49 / 15.11.06

humans are adaptive, resilient

barring some cataclysm of galactic scale i don't see that "last man on earth dying" scenario

we couldn't wipe ourselves out if we tried, and we're not even trying

stop listening to al gore

once the human race has completely exhausted all available resources we'll simply turn humans into replacement resources, eating the weak for sustenance, burning the leftovers to generate heat and power, grinding down the bones for use as building materials, etc

as long as there's sperm and vaginas, regardless of how hot, cold, wet or dry the future becomes, there will be mankind

ONLY NICE THINGS

07:17 / 16.11.06

The energy required to create a human being and raise it to adulthood is greater than the energy obtained from burning the body. So, no.

07:33 / 16.11.06

barring some cataclysm of galactic scale i don't see that "last man on earth dying" scenario

Doesn't need to be on a galactic scale. A dinosaur-killer asteroid would do the job.

we couldn't wipe ourselves out if we tried, and we're not even trying

Massive nuclear exchange would do the trick.

once the human race has completely exhausted all available resources we'll simply turn humans into replacement resources, eating the weak for sustenance, burning the leftovers to generate heat and power, grinding down the bones for use as building materials, etc

as long as there's sperm and vaginas, regardless of how hot, cold, wet or dry the future becomes, there will be mankind.

Any chance of you suggesting something that is actually going to happen, rather than trying to push your script for Matrix Cannibal Apocalypse on us?

08:54 / 16.11.06

Yeah - one of my own concerns is to transit (what I consider to be) the best of culture to future generations. I believe in the value of literacy and archiving and rich information sources and I don't want just a dark survival future - the kind Bruce Sterling calls the grim meathook future.

I'm pushing for a future in which we get the hang of sustainable interaction with our non-human co-residents of the planet, and still manage to have a good fast information network, lots of fun and increasing peace and human security.

I guess in my model sustainable living is the foundation for human security and this crisis offers us the opportunity to put into action a lot of the necessary changes to move towards a general outbreak of peace, if we get on with it and do it right: the bright green future instead.

10:03 / 16.11.06

Whilst I'm inclined to think that Bacon is a wind-up merchant - that, or a complete fucking idiot - his point about the human race surviving is a popular one. People seem to think it offers hope. I used to think that too - when I was about 12.

Life in the wake of environmental catastrophe is likely to be bloody horrific - hard in a thousand ways that super-privileged westerners (like Bacon) just aren't used to. The way we're going at the moment it seems as if we're happy to condemn our children to a world where subsistence living is the norm; where ALL the comforts of the modern world are a memory; where disease, malnutrition are rife, and modern medical care is non-existent; where our cultures have dissolved; and where, ultimately life is cheap, brutal and short.

11:24 / 16.11.06

Well, that's the thing. Short of a planetwide catastrophe a la Impact, humanity will certainly survive. The question is; will there be a world worth living in? We've survived on stoneage technology before, we can do it again, but it will be very unpleasant.
Although the Mad Max/Waterworld scenarios have a certain romantic appeal, I think we should try to avoid such extremes. Just consider how much of our lives are improved and softened by modern society and technology, none of which would remain.

We'll definitely survive, but I'd like to do a little more than just survive.

12:36 / 16.11.06

Life in the wake of environmental catastrophe is likely to be bloody horrific

Just to add to that- there won'teven be a wake, it won't be like a tsunami that devastates everything and then recedes, it will continue to get worse. People won't be living in the rubble of civilisation, they'll be constantly dodging tidal waves and hurricanes and fighting over drinking water and clean food. The environmental catastrophe will be ongoing, and will devastate farming and fishing so badly there will be food riots.

Our grandchildren won't eat meat, not because they will choose to be vegetarians but because there won't be any. The common romantic notion of eking out a living on a rustic smallholding after the Crash doesn't really take into account the droughts, floods and gales that will be common and make it impossible to farm successfully, especially on a small scale. With the breakdown of international transport the overpopulated countries will be the ones finding it most difficult, places like the UK where a lot of our consumption is of imported goods.
Let's just burn the bodies of people like Bacon *now* instead of fossil fuels and potentially avert disaster. It's a modest proposal.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

13:10 / 16.11.06

Life in the wake of environmental catastrophe is likely to be bloody horrific - hard in a thousand ways that super-privileged westerners (like Bacon) just aren't used to. The way we're going at the moment it seems as if we're happy to condemn our children to a world where subsistence living is the norm; where ALL the comforts of the modern world are a memory; where disease, malnutrition are rife, and modern medical care is non-existent; where our cultures have dissolved; and where, ultimately life is cheap, brutal and short.

I remember watching Threads when I was a (nuclear obliteration-obsessed) kid, and coming to the realisation that hey! I didn't really want to survive if it all came down.

WRT the off-world colonies thing- it may indeed be that we're already too late, but I think we owe it to the rest of the planet not to just cut and run without at least trying to clean up after ourselves. We may have the potential to build shit and fuck off somewhere else, but that's not really an option for, well, any other species at all.

15:38 / 16.11.06

I think we owe it to the rest of the planet not to just cut and run without at least trying to clean up after ourselves.

I'm always surprised when people talk about off-world colonisation as possibility should we find this planet to be irreparably damaged. In my mind, the idea of a future in which we could build a new ecosystem elsewhere, with a level of knowledge that had failed to patch up this one seems to be fairly ridiculous. We already HAVE an ecosystem here, most of the work has been done for us.

We may have the potential to build shit and fuck off somewhere else, but that's not really an option for, well, any other species at all.

Or even, realistically speaking, for the overwhelming majority of the human race. Even if we could manage such a technological feat it would surely benefit only the handful of people deemed important enough to be sent forth. The rest of the human race would be left to suffer in the aftermath. I'm far more interested in trying to preserve this planet for the masses than seeing the global resources we have left ploughed into desperate attempts to find an escape route for a privileged few.

I worry that blind faith in technology is going to prevent people from accepting how much an individual's life is going to have to change just to avoid making the situation worse. Cetainly if that person is used to the type of lifestyle enjoyed in developed countries.

The biggest problem I have when thinking about this issue is trying to work out which parts of modern life I consider to be genuinely worth keeping and which parts are luxuries that we really can't afford in the face of impending disaster. Given that even if we could stop all emissions tomorrow we would still be living with what we've done so far for at least the next century every model I can think of which I feel I would be happy to accept doesn't seem to go far enough in the direction of solving the problem.

Saturn's nod has mentioned her model future retaining a highly developed infrastructure for the dissemination of information and I'd totally agree with that. I'm interested in what other people feel deserves/needs to be present in a sustainable future.

Elijah, Freelance Rabbi

16:10 / 16.11.06

I have a question for the people here who know more stuff about this sort of thing.

Part of the problem is the world population reaching unsustainable levels. I read somewhere that even if we stop having babies right now we are still in trouble because of how many people ar alive already and how long lifespans are.

IF there was another World War, one that did not go nuclear and kill us all at least, and millions of people died in a short period of time (call it 10 years, and if China is involved we could say a billion people might die before it is over) would that buy the world much time?

The reason I ask isn't to propose the West goes to war with China to scale back population, I am just curious if we took a billion people out of the equation across the globe would it do any good at this point?

Also, this ignores the green house gases created by decaying or burning bodies I suppose, which could really leave us back where we started anyway...

17:01 / 16.11.06

if we took a billion people out of the equation

Depends whether they're the right billion people...

Elijah, Freelance Rabbi

17:13 / 16.11.06

So, everyone who owns a Hummer and lives in an urban environment where that sort of vehicle is totally pointless?

Thats not quite a billion though...

Kiltartan Cross

10:13 / 28.11.06

we couldn't wipe ourselves out if we tried, and we're not even trying

Stockpiling tens of thousands of nukes isn't trying?

WRT the off-world colonies thing- it may indeed be that we're already too late, but I think we owe it to the rest of the planet not to just cut and run without at least trying to clean up after ourselves.

We should embark on a global campaign to exterminate all aggressively nasty species in the world, especially h. sapiens and p. troglodytes, prune a fuck-load of unpleasantness from the evolutionary tree and fade away, leaving the world to (hopefully) recover and eventually evolve some nicer dominant species, who can thank us from the year 100,000,000.

It'd probably make a good religious standpoint.

13:59 / 28.11.06

eventually evolve some nicer dominant species

Name one nice dominant species. Ewoks don't count though, those dude ate people!

14:22 / 28.11.06

well I was reading an article about how our fishing/eating/pollution habits have devastated the oceans' populations so we are in fact exercising some culling evolutionary tactics. All the fish that will be left will be the ones we don't want to eat and are able to survive the pollutants. Toxic ugly fucking fish, no whales.

If we keep up the eating/killing off of other species we LIKE all we're going to be left with are slugs and cockroaches.

In other save the species news I was just reading an article on Canine Transmissible Venereal Tumor, a cancer that is better catogrized as a parasite than a disease. And hey! The GREAT NEWS is that humans may have transmissible cancers or some might evolve. EXCITING!!

should I post the article? I can't find a link but I has it in email.

Closed for Business Time

14:24 / 28.11.06

Elijah, Freelance Rabbi

15:19 / 28.11.06

Well yes, they were dominant for a long time, but in the creation of an environment we can live in how many species did they wipe out?

jentacular dreams

14:43 / 29.11.06

XK, there's this one, which was linked to on the new developments in biology thread.

21:37 / 03.12.06

Ah, (notso)good ol' human papillomavirus, or HPV. Not very cervix-friendly. Thanks for that link, xk.

Maybe of interest for some,; Stephan Hawking's opinion: Man must leave planet Earth!

From the Telegraph:

Returning to a theme he has voiced many times before, the Cambridge University cosmologist said today that space-rockets propelled by the kind of matter/antimatter annihilation technology popularised in Star Trek would be needed to help Homo sapiens colonise hospitable planets orbiting alien stars.

And he disclosed his own ambition to go into space. "Maybe Richard Branson will help me," he said...

What balls. Go Hawking!

...

"The long-term survival of the human race is at risk as long as it is confined to a single planet," he said. "Sooner or later, disasters such as an asteroid collision or nuclear war could wipe us all out. But once we spread out into space and establish independent colonies, our future should be safe.

Direct from Mr.Hawking. In the interview Hawking discusses the very topic of this thread and motor neuron disease.