Apocalypse - Yes? No?

Personally, and with Star-Trek-style optimism, I think we would have found some way to inhabit another planet/moon in 100yrs time.

The only things that I can think of in 100yrs that would cause a such devastation would be a super volcano eruption or comet strike, but as those events are pretty much unpredictable I tend not to worry about it and hope that if either does happen I am standing on the volcano or under the comet!
 
NeilFawcett said:
So, in our life time, or our kids life time (say the next 100yrs even), are we going to get an apocalypse? And by apocalypse I mean a substantial event that means a cataclysmic affect on humanity - Not the end of humanity, but a massive death rate, or a massive drop in technology level(s).

So:-
- Global warming: Causing starvation to some degree. Remember previous high temperatures on the earth have wiped out the majority of life on the planet.
- Ocean acidification: Again, starvation.
- Virus: H5N1 for example, has a mortality rate of about 2/3rds. If it makes the jump to humans, and transmits as easily as a normal flu? Who would go to work? Who would go to the shops to buy food? Who you fill the shops? Who would even leave the house?
- Fossil fuels: If nuclear fusion doesn't turn out to be viable, then what will happen when the fossil fuels run out? Famine and a drop in technology.
- Over population: 8-10-20 billion people. Where are all the resources going to come from.


Anyone think in 100yrs we would have sailed through all these pitfalls and still have progressed nicely?
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I dont know that you can have just a bit of an apocalypse.
 
No, I don't think there will be an apocalypse. Of course a stray rock may still wipe us all out, but it falls into the "Nothing I can do about it so shan't worry" category.
 
No apocalypse. The earth is over 4 billion years old and humanity shall see 4 billion more.

Fusion power is perpetually a few decades away.

I predict that we will see strong AI, long before we see commercially viable fusion power. :p
 
HeX said:
Not true i'm afraid, there was a Horizon ep about all this the other week and to meet the energy needs of everyone on the planet using totally renewable sources, we are talking a mix of everything from solar to tidal to biofuels, the lot, just isn't viable.

The calculations were showing that you'd have to start building hundreds of wind turbines every day, from now until the next 25 years or so. Same goes for solar, you'd need to construct something like 100m2 of solar panels every second for the next umpteen years. You'd need to open a new nuclear powerplant every week for the next 20+ years. etc etc.

It just isn't doable. Hence the real need for Fusion.

If Fusion is found to be a dead end, then we are in real trouble.
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That episode of horizon was ******** I know this because I work for a company who build biofuel plants the technology is still in it's infancy at the moment and the amount of fuels being produced at the moment is going to be exponetially smaller than the amount they'll be producing in 2 years time as larger more efficiant plants are in the process of being built & commissioned.
Their still looking at possible sources for creating biofules like from algae sources and I can assure you there is more than enough algae out there at the moment to last the earths energy consuption for all eternity. The main reason Biofules is not viable at the moment is the cost as it costs a hell of a lot more to refine fules from biological sources than it is to drill the stuff out the ground, however by the time we've run out of fossil fules it'll probably cost a hell of a lot less making it a viable source.
 
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spitzoid said:
Personally, and with Star-Trek-style optimism, I think we would have found some way to inhabit another planet/moon in 100yrs time.
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Thing is, all that kind of sci-fi stuff requires some serious power to achieve anything useful, so again we are back to getting Fusion power working.

If you could get a Fusion reactor on the moon you would have tons of power to use to build a habitat, power it, heat it, get some hydroponics on the go etc.
 
spitzoid said:
Personally, and with Star-Trek-style optimism, I think we would have found some way to inhabit another planet/moon in 100yrs time.

The only things that I can think of in 100yrs that would cause a such devastation would be a super volcano eruption or comet strike, but as those events are pretty much unpredictable I tend not to worry about it and hope that if either does happen I am standing on the volcano or under the comet!
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It's been 50 years since we were on the moon, and we've not taken a single step forwards since then... In a hundred years I suspect we might have a base on the moon, but might no have even put a man on mars...
 
Capn' $qu!ff said:
That episode of horizon was ******** I know this because I work for a company who build biofuel plants the technology is still in it's infancy at the moment and the amount of fuels being produced at the moment is going to be exponetially smaller than the amount they'll be producing in 2 years time as larger more efficiant plants are in the proicess of being commissioned.
Their still looking at possible sources for creating biofules like from algae sources and I can assure you there is more than enough algae out there at the moment to last the earths energy consuption for all eternity.
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Yes there is, but the point is to make enough energy for everyone by the time we need it we need to start building all these plants and stuff now and we need to start building LOTS of them.

Otherwise by the time the energy crisis does happen we are going to be no where near capable of generating enough power from the puny amount of renewable energy sources we have.

Also you have to remember that the power generated even by a massive bio-fuel plant is nothing in comparison to what a Plasma Containment Fusion reactor the size of a normal 3 bed house would put out.
 
HeX said:
Yes there is, but the point is to make enough energy for everyone by the time we need it we need to start building all these plants and stuff now and we need to start building LOTS of them.
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This is happening as we speak our companies sales have increased 20 fold over the last couple of years. The Industry is expanding faster than you or even I could possibly know.
 
spitzoid said:
Personally, and with Star-Trek-style optimism, I think we would have found some way to inhabit another planet/moon in 100yrs time.

The only things that I can think of in 100yrs that would cause a such devastation would be a super volcano eruption or comet strike, but as those events are pretty much unpredictable I tend not to worry about it and hope that if either does happen I am standing on the volcano or under the comet!
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I don't see that putting a few hundred thousand people in lunar or mars colonies is going to help the billions on the Earth much. You surely can't be suggesting in that just 100 years it will be possible to transplant the entire human race to live comfortably in the hostile environments in the planets in our solar system. (Other star systems are obviously out of the question in that timescale). If however we could live comfortably on other nearby planets, we would also be able to do so on our own fair planet no matter pretty much whatever happens to it.
 
The gamble isn't if we will live on Earth indefinitely. The gamble is one of the longevity of humanity and this will only occur once we start to populate other planets as colonies; we wouldn't have all our eggs in one basket so to speak.
 
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